Phone solicitation, bake sales and 5K walks are just a few of the traditional ways that hospital fundraisers attempt to reach benefactors. But in an Internet age, when time is of the essence and most potential donors are plugged in, fundraisers need to up the ante for quick and attention-grabbing campaign elements.

In April 2008, the B.C. Children’s Hospital Foundation (BCCHF) launched its Campaign for B.C. Children, a $200 million initiative to build a new children’s hospital and to establish and equip specialized pediatric care facilities in regional hospitals and clinics serving British Columbia’s far-flung child population. The campaign has a superhero comic-book theme designed to resonate with children and entertain adults.

While traditional means of outreach have helped to make the community aware of the campaign, BCCHF’s donor relations team sought a more provocative way of communicating with hospital employees and visitors.

“We had a temporary space in the hospital that we could use for keeping the public and hospital staff up to date on the Campaign for B.C. Children,” says donor relations coordinator Debra Kerr. “We wanted to do something outside the box and use technology, so we developed the idea of an interactive donor wall.”

The interactive donor wall had to do more than just use digital signage to list donors and monies raised. It had to attract the attention of passing visitors and encourage donations, profile key donors, educate the public about the capital campaign, and keep everyone up to date on the progress of the new hospital construction and campaign proceeds. As well, the space had to be inviting for parents and children alike.

Enter the interactive professionals

To help develop the wall, the foundation brought in Shaun Mavronicolas and his team from 2C Visual Communications in Vancouver, along with Scala, 2C’s digital signage software partner. “From a digital standpoint, interactivity was of primary importance,” explained Mavronicolas, 2C’s creative and technical director. “It had to be simple and easy for kids and adults to interact with the content, and it had to be engaging at the same time.”

Mavronicolas recommended 2C’s diVA™, an interactive software and hardware system that creates a responsive environment – an area that interacts with people who use it or pass by it. By integrating a mural with simple floor decals, sensors, LCD screens, video, DMX lighting and other special effects, the system could educate and entertain hospital visitors and staff in keeping with the campaign’s “Be A Superhero” theme.

With diVA, user interaction changes content on different screens and synchronizes it with lighting and sound effects. Depending on which decal a visitor stands on, different parts of the wall come to life. For example, lights may shine on the superhero characters in the mural, or a rotating ambulance light may activate along with content changes.

In-house update capacity a must

While outward appearance of the interactive mural was important, the donor relations team also wanted the ability to remotely update any content appearing on the LCD screens. So Mavronicolas planned to integrate Scala’s content management and design software for digital signage. With its open architecture, this software gives the BCCHF donor relations team the opportunity to control multiple LCD screens and provide varying content feeds to each screen.

The donor relations team, the foundation’s information services department, 2C and other vendors spent the next six months creating the interactive mural. The final product is a display 10 feet tall by 15 feet wide featuring four LCD screens, four audio speakers, two motion sensors, four distance sensors, lighting and a cast of everyday men and women who are the heroes of BCCHF. 

City sounds, scenes surround stories

So, how does the mural work? Floor decals drive the interactive component of the mural, but it’s the hidden sensors that “wake up” the mural when someone enters the space. The hidden sensors also monitor the floor decals, which are nothing more than stickers on a concrete floor.

Two motion sensors sit high above the mural to detect anyone who enters the designated mural space. Short loops of content begin to play on the main screen and tell viewers how they can interact with the mural. At the same time, a soundscape consisting of muted city sounds such as skateboarders cruising by, buses driving along and people chatting will begin to play. The sounds are subtle so that they do not compete with audio coming from the main screen.

Another set of sensors is mounted at about hip level along the mural walls to monitor the presence of anyone standing on a floor decal. The floor decals give viewers directions such as “Stand here to play.” There is a decal for each screen, four in total. When a person is detected on a floor decal, the video content associated with that decal/sensor begins to play with the connected screen.

Viewers have the option either to stand on a decal and watch all of that video content until the end, at which point they are instructed to move onto another decal to see more videos, or the viewer can leave where he or she is standing before a video concludes. If that happens, new video will appear and encourage the viewer to move to other areas of the mural. Finally, if no movement is detected in the mural space for 15 seconds, the mural reverts to its default setting – lighting turns off and audio/visual content ceases. 

Three smaller screens extend the printed mural over the digital canvas. Because the mural is made up of a building and windows, the smaller screens show video with animated windows to give the effect of building occupancy and lights coming on and off. From time to time, a superhero flies past a window. The large center screen plays a content loop of children reading.

Easy mural management 

While the technology behind the mural is complex, editing and uploading content is quite easy. Although the main hub for managing the interactive donor wall lies within BCCHF’s information systems department, the donor relations team can update content regularly for all four LCD screens from anywhere in the hospital that is connected to the network. Once the team determines what new content will include, the final updates only take 10 to 15 minutes to upload into the network with the content management and player software.

“The software is straightforward and simple for what we need to do,” says foundation web and technical support specialist Chris Sweeting. “I check the software daily to make sure it’s running, but other than that it manages the wall on its own. It’s fairly simple.”

All in all, Kerr says the donor wall’s reception by patients, hospital staff, donors and the community has been positive. “The mural adds an element of fun to the lobby, and kids really seem to enjoy it. We’ve had great success conducting media interviews in front of it, so that has helped further the message about the Campaign for B.C. Children.”