LINKED FOUNDATION CASE STUDY
BRAND DEVELOPMENT • WEBSITE REDESIGN
Linked Foundation’s new website conveys the hope, joy, and dreams of women envisioning a better future.
Linked Foundation does good work. Sustainable, scalable good work. Its mission is: To promote and invest in solutions that improve the health and economic self-reliance of women and their families in Latin America. Founded by a former Silicon Valley executive, Linked operates with the same dynamism you’d expect from a fast-moving results-oriented tech company.
We were there with Linked from the very beginning. The branding needed to be powerful. It needed to impart the courage and dignity of women who were prepared to tackle the seemingly impossible objective of crawling out of poverty armed with only their own perseverance and grit.
We created a series of logo concepts that would subtly exude femininity, yet boldly manifest forward action and strength. We began with an image of a woman in motion, and refined it until we landed on the final logo: Two abstract female figures linked together in positive forward progress.
Those same threads of dignity, hope, strength, and action were woven
into images selected in the design of the Linked headquarters, as well as throughout its print material.
Fast forward to 2015. Linked had a moment to catch its breath and divert a sliver of its attention to address its outdated and unresponsive website. We agreed that it was time to refresh Linked’s branding, as well as initiate a website redesign.
As always, we began with discovery – industry jargon for listening, asking, and listening some more. We interviewed board members, collaborators, and partners; the new and old. With a clear picture of where we were and where we needed to go, we dove into design.
The website needed to juxtapose simplicity and rural poverty against hope and strength. It needed to feel culturally accurate, yet fundamentally modern.
This is the challenge of making authentic change in rural Latin America. Near non-existent infrastructure is juxtaposed against smart phones. You can call a family member in the United States while accompanying your burrow to acquire potable water.
Linked focuses on women. Why? Because it’s rare that a woman will ever leave her children. Because if the mother advances her quality of life, it’s highly likely her children will as well. Because when a mother learns about hygiene, birth control, and nutrition, she shares it with her family. Because girls and women spend 90% of their earned income on their families, while men spend only 30-40% on their families in these needy populations. The new website needed to reflect the deep nurturing commitment of women to their children no matter their circumstances.
Linked enjoys the unusual position of not needing to solicit donations. It is entirely self-funded. So unlike many nonprofits, its target audience is not potential donors, but rather potential partners or initiatives. Clear presentation of its investment criteria is paramount in attracting the collaborators Linked seeks.
For nonprofit organizations, every dollar that can go to doing good rather than to overhead directly benefits their constituents. Linked Foundation is a lean machine so its website needed to be designed on a platform that could be easily modified and updated without need for specialized skills. Together we concluded that a WordPress platform with a modified template would fit the bill.
Linked’s desire to share its knowledge-learned, as well as showcase the work of its partners led us to create a social media plan as well. We established an on-going training plan to gradually transfer knowledge in both the WordPress platform and Linked’s social channels to internal personnel.
“Designing North went above and beyond the call on our site. They built our brand and helped us to achieve relevance in the digital world. They remain our go to agency for all things digital and brand. Hugs and thanks.”
NANCY SWANSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF LINKED FOUNDATION