What We Do

Every brand, messaging, or communications project must start with a clearly defined goal. What are we trying to accomplish? How will success be defined? How will we know we’ve achieved our goal? We help organizations define goals that are specific enough to guide decisions and realistic enough to be meaningful. Then we build the measurement strategy that keeps everyone accountable to them.

Research and analysis takes many forms. Sometimes the necessary research is internal: What communications stumbling blocks is your staff experiencing? Sometimes it’s external: How are you perceived? How are audiences thinking through an issue? What are the dominant frames? Oftentimes, the work needed has already been done: there’s a rich throve of academic research on demographics and public attitudes. We help pair your project with the right amount of research, and advise on ways to get it done.

Consistency and repetition of well-considered messages and stories is a vastly underutilized resource in the nonprofit sector. We believe in the power of words and stories to set narratives and support change. It all starts with systems: guidelines and templates for creating content that permit flexibility and creativity while staying on-message and on-frame. We help you get the story straight, then carry it through across media.

Visual brand, creative design, and images are supporting elements that speak directly to our gut feelings and quick impressions. Before you can capture their attention with words, you must draw their eye with visuals that are appropriate yet memorable; delightful yet goal-aligned. A logo, a color palette, a typography system: these are not the message. They’re the message made visible. When they spring from a strong narrative foundation—a clear sense of who you are, what you stand for, and who you’re speaking to—they do their job beautifully: making the intangible tangible, and making the familiar feel like home. When they don’t, they’re decoration.