Mapping the SNF Journey
Bringing 30 years of global grant-making to life through an immersive public experience at SNF Nostos 2026.
The Challenge
For SNF’s 30th anniversary, we wanted a digital experience that could engage families, students, employees, partners, and visitors with different accessibility needs. It needed to communicate the scale of SNF’s global work while placing the achievements and stories of its grantee partners at the center.
The challenge was to present thousands of grants across multiple countries and sectors in a way that felt clear, human and emotionally resonant, without reducing their impact to numbers alone.
The Experience
The visitor journey began with interactive totems that introduced visitors to the experience and guided them through the space. Combining wayfinding, event information and grantee films, they created a first point of curiosity and orientation. Motion capture interaction revealed layers of data and human stories, encouraging visitors to explore the scale and diversity of SNF’s work.
A printed wall graphic provided a clear introduction to SNF, its mission and its global reach, giving visitors the context they needed before entering the more immersive digital moments.
The Totems
Immersive Digital Canvas
The centerpiece of the experience was a real-time visualization of SNF’s grantmaking. The immersive film painted the big picture of 30 years of giving, translating complex data into a cinematic overview of global impact. The canvas also became a living data visualization, incorporating visitor responses from Leave Your Mark and making the audience part of the evolving story
Interactive Global Map
The global map allowed visitors to explore SNF’s grants in greater depth through interactive screens. Grantees and their work were visualized across the globe, helping visitors move from global scale to individual case studies and human stories. This was a key technical USP of the project, translating more than 5,700 data points into a spatially mapped, real-time globe visualization with dynamic narrative layers.
For foundations managing large, complex portfolios, this kind of multidimensional visualization makes impact more legible across connected ecosystems. It helps audiences understand not only individual projects, but the relationships between places, sectors, communities and long-term areas of focus.
SNF Voices
The experience culminated in SNF Voices, an emotive finale built around the voices of grantee partners and SNF staff. Through cinematic storytelling, visitors were taken on a shared human journey through 30 years of impact. This final moment brought the experience back to a simple idea: behind every grant is a person, a community and a story of change.
Digital App
The experience continued beyond the physical installation through a digital app. Visitors could explore grantee case studies and the global visualization after the event, with new grants added as they were announced. By extending the experience beyond the event, the app created a longer-term engagement platform for SNF’s impact story. It allowed the foundation’s work to continue evolving over time, supporting future learning, stakeholder engagement and continued public connection.
