Overview
Two LA-based nonprofits had each made employment their mission. Eventually, the decision was made to merge the two organizations and serve a larger population. We aimed to maintain some of the brand identity and familiarity of each while creating new, unified branding – and we accomplished this through careful planning, strategy, and design.
The history
In 2021, two nonprofits decided that they could make a bigger impact together than they could separately.
Group Effort Initiative (GEI), launched and financed by Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively in 2020, empowered underserved communities with a path towards employment in the entertainment industry. Evolve Entertainment Fund (EEF), a program developed by the Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles in 2018, provided their participants with the training and education they needed to secure full-time employment. As EEF developed further, it became clear that merging with GEI would allow that momentum to continue.
Merging identities
The question that comes to mind during any merger is, of course, “What does this mean for their individual brands?” We wanted to preserve traces of each organization’s identities, so we aimed to combine both websites into one powerful, all-encompassing site that still felt familiar to their audience.
This would require a combination of strategy, design, and website development.
We decided to create a new Group Effort Initiative website using the structure of the existing Evolve Entertainment Fund website. After replicating the EEF site as our template, we planned to update the branding to match GEI, redesign key pages, and create a more user-friendly site by including additional functionality. Our overarching goal was to provide GEI with a fresh website while reusing as much of the existing EEF content as possible.
Where to begin
We began by redesigning key pages like the ‘home’ and ‘about us’ pages. This design included the usage of new brand colors and a new logo, created by the Maximum Effort team (Ryan Reynolds’s company). Their groundwork meant that all design rules were established before starting the site transfer and finishing out accessory pages.
We wanted a system that was easy for the organization to maintain, which meant that we wanted to choose our programs carefully. We went with WordPress for the framework because making edits to the site could be done by anyone. We then chose WP Engine for hosting because updates run automatically, the backup feature is a necessity, and the customer service is second to none.
Accessibility
One aspect that needed to stay top-of-mind with the new site was accessibility. It needed to be much more ADA-friendly, so we included enhancements and modifications that increased the usability for people with disabilities. We used a theme that was ADA compliant out of the box, ensured buttons were labeled appropriately, and considered font sizes, spacing, and color. And to ensure the website was up-to-snuff, we used the Accessibe plugin to make sure we didn’t miss anything. This plugin also includes added functionality so the site is user-friendly for everyone. (Learn more about Accessibe here.)
The result? A website that could be expanded and managed by their staff and was accessible to everyone.
