California CASA needed to recruit more volunteers for one of the most meaningful, but often misunderstood, roles in a child’s life.
CASA volunteers advocate for children and youth in foster care, offering consistency, support, and a trusted adult presence during a time that can feel uncertain and isolating. But for many prospective volunteers, the role can feel intimidating. People may care deeply about the mission, yet still wonder if they have the time, emotional capacity, or experience to truly make a difference.
In partnership with FEEE Films, Pastilla set out to make the CASA volunteer role easier to understand, easier to imagine, and more emotionally accessible.
Rather than leading with the complexity of the child welfare system, the campaign focused on a simple truth: one caring adult can help a child feel seen, supported, and hopeful.
The goal was to reduce hesitation, deepen understanding of CASA’s mission, and inspire more people across California to take the first step toward becoming an advocate.
The strategy was built around a clear insight: people are more likely to consider volunteering when they can see the role in human terms.
CASA advocacy involves trust, consistency, emotional support, and system navigation. Instead of trying to explain everything at once, Pastilla distilled the message into one emotional idea: showing up for a child can become a powerful act of hope.
Together with FEEE Films, Pastilla brought that idea to life through a cinematic moment. A child looks into the audience, searching for someone. When they see their CASA volunteer there, the value of the role becomes instantly clear. The volunteer is not framed as a hero or savior, but as someone dependable. Someone the child can count on.
That creative choice made the volunteer ask feel more approachable. It shifted the focus from the weight of the system to the power of presence, helping audiences understand that advocacy often begins with consistency, care, and the willingness to be there.
The campaign included a commercial and supporting digital assets designed to move audiences from awareness to consideration. The tone was warm, restrained, and emotionally grounded, giving prospective volunteers a clear and memorable way into the mission.
This campaign earned a 2025 GDUSA Gold Award, recognizing the work’s craft, clarity, and emotional impact.
The campaign gave California CASA a stronger recruitment platform by turning a complex volunteer role into a story people could understand, feel, and remember. Together, Pastilla and FEEE Films helped California CASA deepen the emotional clarity of the volunteer ask, making the CASA role feel more human, accessible, and easier to imagine.
The work also built on the momentum of Pastilla’s broader partnership with California CASA. Through an earlier campaign strategy, Pastilla helped increase monthly volunteer leads by 344%, resulting in a record-breaking 964 volunteer leads in a single month. That previous work also supported a more representative advocacy pipeline, with 60% of new leads this fiscal year identifying as BIPOC.
For this campaign, the goal was to continue moving audiences from awareness to consideration by focusing on a simple, memorable idea: one dependable adult can make a meaningful difference in a child’s life.
Most importantly, the campaign gave California CASA a clearer way to invite people into advocacy. It transformed a difficult volunteer ask into a moving message about consistency, care, and the power of showing up.
