Design consultancy Lewis Moberly is a leader in its field, garlanded with awards and recently voted number one for design effectiveness. Its managing partner, Robert Moberly, is known to friends and colleagues for his quiet but staunch fellowship as much as his business skills. Early in 2003 a good example of this unfolded.

Robert was approached by the senior officers of his Oxford alma mater, Lincoln College, to help in a major fundraising drive with some pro bono design input. The target was £10 million and the scale of the task amplified by the vast body of text which the college envisaged for its appeal. Robert invited a friend, associate and fellow brand consultant to simplify the messages.

Lincoln is not a wealthy college, except in heritage. Exploration of this revealed that, for over 500 years, the theme of fellowship ran through Lincoln's history. Not only were its Fellows famous — from John Wesley to the scientists behind penicillin and other crucial antibiotics — but the college itself helped pioneer the Senior Common Room and extended this intellectual fellowship in the very first Middle Common Room. The funds it sought were themselves to be used to defend the fellowship of the tutorial, to endow academic fellowships and to build a unique environment for its fellowship.

The brand consultant proposed that Lincoln base its fundraising appeal on this true story of fellowship and The Lincoln Fellowship Campaign was born. The college agreed, the consultant narrated the story, Lewis Moberly conceived a powerful design to amplify it. Friends of Lincoln were invited to:

"MAKE YOUR CONTRIBUTION TO A BETTER WORLD.
MAKE YOURSELF PART OF THE LINCOLN FELLOWSHIP"

Aided by these efforts, the college officers report great success in their fundraising and are confident "that the ultimate goal we will achieve will be more in the £20 million range".

The brand consultant involved became a founder of brandstory and suggests that these stories of fellowship — at Lincoln and with Lewis Moberly — exemplify the power of narrative in business, whatever the business.