Get tested, brand-aligned, and irresistibly engaging magazine story ideas customized for your school
and access to a done-for-you feature-writing service — forever.
And while all of your tasks are important to your institution, your work with your print alumni magazine holds special significance for your alumni and donors.
According to research published by CASE in 2022, print magazines and email are the tied as the top two channels that alumni and donors say they prefer when it comes to staying connected with their institution.
They prefer your print magazine over events, over your website, and over social media.
If you’re not telling your biggest stories — your features — strategically, you’re probably not maximizing the potential impact of your magazine.
But you can change that.
At Capstone, we believe the very best feature stories for your institution follow at least two of the three rules (and often all three!):
Wouldn’t it be great to have one or two features in every issue that you felt confident would make an impact?
Stories that your administrators would appreciate and — most important — your readers would love and respond to?
What if these stories were completed long before deadline — not just written, but completed with full source approval? Stories designed to resonate with your readers?
If you agree, read on.
It’s for those who want to work with Capstone to bring those ideas to life with our award-winning reporting and writing — and who are eager to create a true partnership designed to help maximize the impact of your print magazine.
If you can invest $5,000 into at least one feature story per year, the service might be right for you.
Think of Capstone as your ideal creative partner: the one who comes prepared with plenty of great ideas, source suggestions, and even creative packaging ideas that help stories leap from the page, encourage engagement, and thrill top administrators and readers alike.
We’ll help turn even your most difficult strategic priority stories into compelling, can’t-miss features. We’ll develop stories that will make your sources clamor for extra issues. And we’ll engineer in engagement from the ground up so that you’ll hear from readers who appreciate your efforts.
Get off to a quick start with our Launch Kit, including an All-Star Pitch sheet.
Once you’ve subscribed, you’ll get immediate access to our 10 most successful story pitches, developed over the course of 20+ years and across 100+ institutions. They are designed to work across nearly all institutions, and if there’s one you love, you can assign it immediately and have a completed draft in just weeks.
Go further with our questionnaire, lightning analysis, and custom pitch sheet.
When you join, we’ll send you a questionnaire to learn more about your institution, magazine, and feature well. We’ll develop a short feature well lightning analysis, then develop a “super pitch sheet” — 7 additional, customized pitches specifically for your institution.
Assign what you love — and work with us as long as you’re happy.
Assign the stories you love (our feature fee is $5,000) to Capstone. As long as you hire Capstone for at least one feature per year, we’ll renew your subscription every year with a brand-new super pitch sheet.
We’ll communicate with you every step of the way. Our goal is to provide you with at least one story idea worth assigning to Capstone for each issue of your publication.
We’ve been working in this field since 1998 — and we’ve road-tested our ideas with more than 100 institutions. Our team has worked with research universities and liberal arts colleges, independent schools and community colleges.
We’re laser focused on these publications because we believe in their value and importance to your audience. We’ve built a unique, rock-solid process that means you can trust us with your “big swing” stories.
And while we also believe that creating stories that resonate specifically with your audience, we’ve wowed judges, too. Among our awards:
“At a presentation yesterday, I learned that your ‘Professor Who Changed My Life’ story was our top feature article in web analytics over the past year. Clearly, your instincts were spot-on!”
“Most satisfied with quick turn-around for pitches and communication during the process. Pleasantly surprised by the list of alumni entrepreneurs that you were able to generate without any help from our end. Impressive! Thus far it has been a real pleasure working with you.”
“The entire process was smooth for me. I really appreciate the communication and the end product—and your sense of humor. I like just as much feeling confident that an article is in capable hands without consuming a lot of my time.”
“We were impressed with the ideas and the quality of the piece received. I expect that we will end up working with you on multiple pitches given. Your work forced us to think about things more broadly.”
Click to send me a note — or email me directly at erin [at] getcapstone.com.
Yes! Clients frequently have Capstone develop most (or all!) of their feature well.
Yes.
We spend hours developing pitches for your school, so we do expect that you will use Capstone for any of the pitches that you decide are story-worthy.
Yes. We aim to create high-impact, visual stories that typically run across 6-8 pages. The minimum fee is $5,000 per project.
Right now, pitch subscription clients get front-of-the-line access to Capstone. If you want to get amazing pitches for your publication, this is the best way to ensure you get multiple detailed pitches — on your timeline.
Capstone helps schools create more effective print magazines through action plans, strategic storytelling, and online courses.