illumiNations

Carrying a mission that spans decades

illumiNations is an alliance of the world’s leading Bible translation organizations, united around a single goal: to eradicate Bible poverty by 2033, bringing Scripture to every language spoken around the world. Each year, the alliance gathers its major donors for a multi-day Gathering designed to reflect on progress, deepen investment in the work, and invite continued partnership toward that goal.

OX has served as illumiNations’ long-term creative partner across the Gathering, collaborating on strategy, film production, design, and event experience. Over the years, the work has grown into a full creative partnership that shapes every touchpoint of the event, from the invitations guests receive before they arrive, to the films, stage design, music, environmental spaces, and printed materials they encounter throughout.

The compounding power of multi-year partnerships

What began as a single film project for the alliance’s annual major plus donor Gathering in 2018 has blossomed into a dynamic, ever-evolving year-round collaboration. Each year's Gathering partnership includes opportunities for bold creative work, including new stories from the field and new ways to shape the guest experience.

The Gathering is designed for not only newcomers to the movement but also the committed returning audience who already understand the mission in depth. They know the long-term goal, the key milestones, and the context that has shaped the movement over time. They deeply care about the work that has already been done as much as they anticipate where it will go next.

Because this audience returns each year, we build on what they already know to deepen engagement. Each year’s story builds the conditions for the next one to land with greater depth and resonance. For example, when illumiNations began integrating AI into its Bible translation work, we knew the topic carried real sensitivity for parts of the donor community. Because we had spent years building familiarity with that audience, we were able to introduce the subject carefully and deliberately, laying a foundation one year that made it possible to go deeper in the years that followed.

Storytelling requires stewardship

The stories that sit at the heart of illumiNations’ work travel across languages, cultures, and contexts before they reach the people collected at the Gathering. As those stories move into a wider setting, the responsibility of our creative work is to ensure that the original meaning and cultural integrity is carried through.

Most recently as part of this partnership, OX had the privilege of producing and directing a film that followed the unfolding story of the Bible’s translation into Korean Sign Language. The KSL community shared their journey in their own language, allowing viewers to witness the process through their lived experience. Our responsibility was to safeguard that story as it moved through each stage of interpretation, from signed expression to oral translation and finally into English subtitles, ensuring that the meaning carried through every layer of communication.

That same principle of stewardship shapes the design of the Gathering itself. Long before guests arrive, their experience is prepared through invitations, prayer cards, and digital touchpoints that orient the community toward the stories they will encounter. Throughout the event, visual design, film, stage, music, performance, and environmental spatial elements work together as a single integrated experience, one that holds the mission’s complexity, honors the communities at the center of the work, and gives donors a clear sense of what their continued investment makes possible.

Intention over speed

Eradicating Bible poverty by 2033 depends on a donor community that stays deeply connected to the work across many years. OX’s partnership with illumiNations has given us the opportunity to grow that connection over time, building an understanding of the mission and its community that shapes every creative decision we make together.

Every film, design asset, and event experience has been built as part of a single integrated story, one that carries the threads of previous Gatherings forward while opening space for what comes next. That continuity is what allows the creative work to do what it set out to do: inspire people to remain committed to a mission whose most significant chapters are still being written.