Affirming nonprofits as part of NYC's core infrastructure
Creative + Strategy
Media Planning + Buying
Early conversations made it clear that many sector-wide challenges (contract delays, staffing shortages, resource strain) are intertwined with public perception. People rely heavily on nonprofit-delivered services yet rarely recognize nonprofits as the providers. People value the outcomes, but they don’t see the nonprofit infrastructure behind them.
The Heart of New York campaign emerged from a reality in which nonprofits are carrying out essential functions while operating under unstable funding. Their work is constant and foundational, yet the public narrative rarely reflects this. This gap shaped the need for a campaign that centers: The city works because nonprofits do.
With support from Trinity Church NYC, F.Y. Eye developed a public campaign with a mission to shift the narrative. The campaign was not a traditional nonprofit awareness or political effort. It aimed to establish a shared identity for nonprofits as core infrastructure, using a simple message that could withstand political differences, budget cycles, and competing priorities.
F.Y. Eye worked with Trinity to set campaign objectives, outline target audiences, and iterate on creative. We developed user personas to ground the work in real behaviors and needs: everyday New Yorkers who rely on nonprofits without naming them; moderates and policymakers who influence funding environments; and nonprofit workers who rarely see their labor acknowledged publicly.
We photographed and filmed seven nonprofit workers from different NYC organizations. The shoot included straightforward portraits, images of workers holding items from their daily jobs, and short interview clips. Each person was asked what they do, what their work looks like, and what they wish people understood about nonprofit work.
The campaign launched in October 2025 across the city with a mix of out-of-home media, paid digital, a campaign microsite, and sector amplification.
The Heart of New York campaign successfully moved audiences from street-level awareness to deep digital engagement. Between late September and December 2025, the campaign microsite garnered 60,542 total page views and nearly 59,000 visitors. Additionally, the OOH placements generated nearly 3.5 million impressions, proving that a unified, human-centered message can cut through everyday noise to ground nonprofits as an indispensable pillar of New York City’s core infrastructure.
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