Our 2017 Judges selected Kids In Crisis (KIC) as the second recipient of our Brand New Brand! pro bono initiative and we are delighted to have launched a new brand and website for the fantastic organization.
KIC provides 24/7 support to help children and families resolve conflict. Based in Fairfield County, Connecticut area, the organization offers emergency shelter, prevention workshops, in-school counseling, an emergency hotline and much more to kids, teens and families struggling with abuse, bullying and mental health.
The new visual identity system encapsulates the organization’s combined optimism and dedication to their mission. From their new logo to a vibrant photo library to their new website, IOP and our partners supplied the communication tools needed to speak to their most important audiences and created a platform to share their ideas and offer support.
The new Kids In Crisis brand launched in May of 2018, the result of months of collaboration between IOP, our partners and Kids In Crisis.
The fresh logo and tagline capture the mission and spirit of the organization. The photo collection showcases the spirit of the kids. And, the new visual identity is applied across communications tools, from PowerPoint and Word templates, to postcards and t-shirts, to the center of their communications: a new robust website we designed and built. See the case study.
Executive Director of Kids In Crisis Shari Shapiro said this:
“On behalf of Kids In Crisis and the children and families we serve, I can’t thank you enough for everything that you have done for us. We are better today because of you. Our message is clearer because of you. Our look is fresh and new because of you. We know we have our work cut out for us but we are up for it and thrilled. Ideas On Purpose really rocks!”
Once we prepped the design our development team went to work building the Kids In Crisis website in WordPress.
Why WordPress?
Although we’ve worked with many CMS platforms, WordPress is easy and often self-explanatory to use, with a consistent back-end across all pages. WordPress requires very little training and is already widely adopted. We wanted to give Kids In Crisis a website they could easily and painlessly maintain on their own.
The new site will help Kids In Crisis better reach their audiences, keep news and event information fresh, collect donations and — more importantly — make sure those in need of their services are always able to quickly and easily find what they need.
We had a wonderful photoshoot with Peter Ross, capturing the spirit of Kids In Crisis’ mission and the programs that they offer. The kids had a fabulous time—and so did we!
Beyond having fun with the Kids In Crisis community, we wanted to provide their team with a library of photos to use along with the new brand identity. The photos bring the programs to life and put faces of the types of kids they help front and center. And, the photos humanize the programs while demonstrating the positive impact.
With the UX underway, we went to work on the visual identity.
We explored a broad range of possibilities for the visual expression of the brand, and shared our favorites with Kids In Crisis. Once we aligned on the right choice, we went to work creating the full visual identity system. We are looking at color, typography and the way they communicate with their supporters. We look at how the identity needs to live, both digitally and in print. We are creating a living system, something that will serve Kids In Crisis for a long time, and won’t get stale.
The entire studio is having fun collaborating and contributing their expertise. We’re looking forward to the big reveal!
The old website was not working for KIC: it didn’t support their mission, fundraising needs, or even their operations. In fact, before we could finish our assessment, the site failed.
With a temporary page in place, we knew we needed to step back and assess who the site visitors were, what they were looking for and what Kids In Crisis needed them to know. Since there were no analytics, we talked to the team and made educated assumptions. (And, we put an analytics plan in place for the new site!) Through sitemaps and wireframes, we began the process of helping translate the strategy into reality. The planning will meet up with visual design in the next step.
Kids In Crisis (KIC) was seeking to broaden its message and expand its reach to children, families and communities. Top of mind goals were to increase awareness, easier accessibility and share knowledge of the critical resources and services they provide.
KIC needed a clearly defined North Star—something to help guide decisions and allocate resources.
Building on our learnings so far and with added insight of our BNB! partner, Alex Reid from 2&2, we realized the strategy was in plain sight and developed a new brand platform:
KIDS: The primary focus is those who keep kids, children and teens safe.
IN: They are in the moment, taking action in the moment of need.
CRISIS: They deal with the most serious issues needing immediate intervention.
We helped the team focus on their sense of urgency and three primary issues:
– Family conflict and abuse
– Mental health
– Bullying
Although KIC deals with many situations, these three represented the bulk of their focus.
KIC was thrilled (as we were) to have their essence articulated in a fresh and succinct manner.
Above: A selection of Kids In Crisis’s current printed materials.
The Brand New Brand! 2017 recipient is Kids In Crisis! Kids In Crisis provides 24/7 support to help children and families resolve conflict. Based in the Fairfield County, Connecticut area, the organization offers emergency shelter, prevention workshops, in-school counseling, an emergency hotline and much more.
We were lucky enough to meet with the team for an initial discovery meeting, and we’re excited to get the project started. We went on a tour of KIC’s facilities and learnt about their mission, their needs and their vision for the future.
This year, we enlisted Joanna Breitstein, Denielle Sachs and Jenny Sia to select the 2017 Brand New Brand! finalist. They generously donated their time, coming into the IOP office and offering their expert backgrounds to determine our finalist.
How Brand New Brand! Works
Brand New Brand! judging happens in two rounds. First, IOP experts and our partners make an initial selection of semi-finalists. We ensure the semi-finalists meet all of the criteria for a successful partnership and agree to basic terms (i.e., be able to participate in the workshop, attend presentation sessions and be able to support the ongoing implementation of the new brand). Then, we engage the help of our independent judges, who select the finalist of Brand New Brand!
Our 2017 Brand New Brand! Judges
Joanna Breitstein
Joanna Breitstein joined the TB Alliance in 2009. As Senior Director, Communications, she is responsible for charting and implementing the organization’s communications strategy and also serves as the primary contact for press inquiries.
Before joining the TB Alliance, Ms. Breitstein was the Executive Editor of Pharmaceutical Executive, a healthcare magazine focused on educating the executive leadership of the pharmaceutical industry. She worked for the publication for nearly a decade in roles of increasing responsibility, reporting on all aspects of drug development and commercialization. While at the magazine, Joanna pioneered an annual editorial series focused on neglected disease drug development, which garnered a Neal Award for excellence in business journalism in 2009. She also received a Neal Award for her cover story focusing on the convergence of diagnostics and pharmaceuticals and a Grand Neal Award in 2001 for a cover story on patient advocacy in oncology. In 2004, Ms. Breitstein won a writing fellowship from the Kaiser Family Foundation to report on the AIDS crisis in Africa.
Joanna is an active volunteer and serves as the President of The International HUG Foundation, a 501c3 organization whose mission is to help orphans and other needy children in Uganda. She graduated cum laude from Penn State University in 1995.
Denielle Sachs
Denielle leads The Tembo Group, a social impact consultancy that advises a range of organizations, including companies, family offices, and nonprofits that are looking to build, enhance or launch a major social impact effort. She founded the company after seven years as the Director of Social Impact for McKinsey & Company, where she architected and led the firm’s first ever, global corporate citizenship strategy.
She also built, launched and incubated McKinsey’s corporate foundation and it’s first program, which is committed to addressing global youth employment.
At Tembo, Denielle has built teams dedicated solely to leading good intentions to great ideas – moving initiatives from concept through to execution, launch and impact.
Over the last two decades, she has built organizations, boards and coalitions from the ground up, designed culture and thought leadership strategies that ignite movements, and led special projects for Fortune 500 businesses.
Denielle also serves as the part-time Executive Director of Blue Sphere Foundation, a nonprofit focused on safeguarding the planet’s oceans.
Jenny Sia
Jenny Sia is Senior Manager, Corporate Responsibility and leads global health grant making and impact investing for Pfizer Inc and the Pfizer Foundation, key elements of Pfizer’s strategy to improve access to medicines and healthcare. Through this she is responsible for the Pfizer Foundation’s impact investing strategy to support health delivery and social innovation, as well as programs to advance Women and Children’s Health and Non-Communicable Disease treatment in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Jenny has been a member of Pfizer’s corporate responsibility team since 2003 and has worked in several areas including public reporting, stakeholder engagement and investor outreach, and policy development. She spent a year in Beijing developing a Corporate Responsibility strategy for Pfizer China.
Jenny received a Masters in Public Policy with a specialization in international economic policy at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. She earned a BS from Tulane University.
