Empower4life
- FRESHSTART BRANDING
Empower4Life (originally named Empower 410) is a non-profit organization whose primary mission is to teach homeless children the skills they need to be happy and healthy. With backgrounds in education, the team at Empower4Life takes a “teach a man to fish” approach to helping homeless youth.
Challenge
Empower4Life (E4L) came to Redstart Creative for help refining their brand and messaging. Specifically, their communication objectives were:
Craft
an authentic and compelling story that matched and supported their unique culture and strategic goals.
CREATE
a clear, more focused message — delivering the right message, to the right audiences.
Increase
awareness, improve communications, spark growth—in an increasingly competitive environment.
our Process
Redstart Creative engaged in the STORY process with multiple stakeholders at E4L to identify gaps in communication and provide them with the information and tools needed to find their voice and tell their unique story. Once we dove into their mission and unique approach, we were able to identify a few key things that were holding them back:
1. The brand personality and tone was not aligned with the organization’s true personality.
The words they were using to convey their message were too general in tone and did not directly align with or draw on the organization’s founding principles or core motivation.
2. Their website offered many features of their organization, without explaining the benefits.
The content on the homepage of the website and elsewhere hinted at their value proposition, yet the conclusion was relatively unstated.
3. Nothing answered the core “Why?” questions:
“Why does helping homeless children matter?” “Why do the ‘three intertwining components’ matter?” Or “Why does Empower410 do what it’s doing?”
4. Their website and other communications offered no compelling call to action
for the curious or interested visitor — no answer to the question, “Where do I go from here?” Most importantly, the website didn’t concisely answer the question, “Why should I choose to engage with Empower4Life?”
The Results
SOLUTIONS/PRODUCTS
Redstart’s first recommendation for E4L was to establish an authentic tone for their brand that could clearly articulate their founding principles and core motivation. Here’s how we did that:
1. Recommended a name change from Empower 410 to Empower4Life. We felt that although “Empower” addressed the goals of the organization, the “410” was confusing. After proposing several effective options, the organization chose Empower4Life as their new name.
2. Suggested a new tagline that was meaningful and memorable. “Teaching homeless kids to be happy and healthy is our top priority,” summed it up clearly and effectively.
3. Established a new mission statement that conveyed the passion around the work they do in specific terms: “To teach children to develop the skills needed to be healthy and productive in school, feel empowered to overcome challenges they face, and inspired to learn, grow and succeed the rest of their lives.”
4. Crafted an “About Us” page that shared the history of their organization, the unique educational needs of homeless children, the reasons WHY they were inspired to create E4L, and their unique approach to addressing these needs.
5. Designed a new logo that embraced the new tone of their brand. This meant a new logo and brand elements such as colors, icons and fonts. Together, these elements reinforce E4L’s key message and personality.
— Jennifer Cox, Empower4Life MDwww.empower4lifemd.org
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