- Melbourne, VIC Australia
Society is strengthened through strategic investment in women and girls.
‘Australians Investing in Women’ invite all funders and investors across our country who believe in the importance of empowering women and girls to join them in empowering giving for a fairer future. Together they channel commitment into effective, measurable action by ensuring a strategic focus on women and girls in the practice of philanthropy and social investment.
AIIW decided to pursue a rebrand to better clarify their function and role as an organisation, with a goal to increase brand understanding and awareness. This clarifying work led to us facilitating a process with the Board of Directors to develop a new name and tagline for the organisation (previously Women Donors) to better articulate who they are. A new visual identity continued the journey and helped to emphasise their role as both an enabler/catalyst and sage advisor for their cause. We were privileged to partner with the AIIW team on their brand journey.
An evolution to support the desired future.
Like all purpose-driven organisations, AIIW’s work creates an impact far beyond themselves. Through their efforts they help women and girls reach their full potential, creating a ripple effect to families, communities, economies and society overall.
They act as a facilitator, motivating and catalysing the sector, providing thought leadership, direction, support, resources, tools and networks for those wanting to maximise the impact of philanthropy. They deliver resources and frameworks for the full spectrum of ways to integrate women and girls into the practice of philanthropy, including board composition, planning and objective-setting, research, staffing, investment and decision-making criteria, through to measurement and impact.
AIIW’s current identity was no longer congruent with their newly developed strategic direction, nor did it clearly reflect their values or inherent beliefs and ambitions for the future.
Our first step is always to examine brands in their full context, internally and externally, to ensure our advice and any action we take is strategic and effective in helping a client reach their goals.
By understanding AIIW’s ideal audience we were able to enhance the authentic aspects of AIIW that engaged their values and needs. With clearer messaging, visuals and language we were able to help shift perceptions away from the idea that they ‘only represent female philanthropists’ to the truth that they represent ALL philanthropists.
Strategically aligning a visual identity.
The insights and brand strategy work revealed a clear path for how the visual identity and language needed to evolve. This was not a ‘refresh’ for refresh sake but a strategic and intentional action to change perceptions and reposition AIIW for greater impact.
The new visual brand needed to have a sense of conviction, drive and leadership. AIIW is purposeful, determined and outcome-oriented. It needed to stand up confidently and communicate passion and purpose.
Layered on top of this, AIIW’s audience are those who want to be strategic and smart with their investments. The brand experience needed to earn their trust by embodying a feeling of wisdom and astuteness, creating certainty that through AIIW they will be empowered to make strategic and thoughtful decisions.
Our challenge was set. We had to create an experience that was carefully balanced between wisdom/astuteness and confidence/determination, two ideas, when expressed can easily be in conflict.
Building clarity and cohesion
A brand built with purpose, authentic beliefs and values has the power to mobilise and engage not just your audience, but just as importantly, your people. Our goal is to deliver extreme clarity on why you’re here, how you’re different, who you serve and what you deliver. Once defined, we provide the tools and guidance to empower you to ensure it’s clearly understood and meaningfully adopted throughout your business.
Typically, muted and neutral colours create a feeling of wisdom through their quiet confidence. They are refined, delicate and sophisticated in design as opposed to flashy or highly visual. A sense of certainty and strength is represented through a clean, minimalistic design that allows wisdom and knowledge to shine through. We balanced this with strong, bold, impactful colours and design layouts to create a look that is both understated and strong, to the point and functional. Definitive lines, shapes, colours and statements express wisdom, knowledge and agility.
The new visual brand reflects the confidence and determination AIIW embody to motivate and catalyse change.
