Grassroot Soccer: Rebranding an International Health Organization

Refreshing a nonprofit brand that leverages the power of soccer to equip adolescents with information and services to live healthier lives.

Adolescents cheer and hold soccer cones.

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Client Type

International Health Organization

Location

Global and Hanover, NH

Services Provided

Branding
Logo Design
Messaging
Templates

Project Team

Grassroot Soccer is an adolescent health organization that leverages the power of soccer to equip young people with the life-saving information, services, and mentorship they need to live healthier lives. Evolving from an HIV-focused organization to an all-encompassing adolescent health organization, they sought a design and communications firm to partner with on a brand refresh, which included a new logo, a new tagline and name evaluation, an updated brand guide, and materials to reflect the revised brand.

What the Client Needed

Grassroot Soccer wanted to refresh its brand identity so that it better represented the work they did across adolescent health. They required new brand language, including top-level messaging, a new tagline, and an evaluation of the organizations’ name and whether to change it. They also wanted a new logo, color palette, typography and brand guide, as well as common communications templates applying the new brand, such as Google Slide decks, InDesign and Canva templates, one-pagers, and social media templates.

What We Did

Held an initial kickoff meeting: This helped set standards for communicating with each other and get on the same page about a shared vision for the project for both the brand messaging and visual identity.
Led small team workshops: We facilitated two workshops – one for messaging and one for visual identity — with the Grassroot Soccer team to gain a deeper understanding of what the current challenges were and what the brand and language should transform into.
Developed refreshed brand language. Using existing research from the Grassroot Soccer team, we evaluated the existing name, explored options for name changes, built several tagline options, and helped develop top level messaging.
Developed a new logo, color palette, typography, and brand identity guide. We ensured that the brand followed WCAG standards for color contrast.

Our Impact

Since launching the new brand, the Grassroot Soccer team has felt a renewed sense of energy and excitement across its organization and audience. The color palette is now seen as a better representation of the organization’s work, and the logo stands out in a crowded field of international nonprofits working in adolescent health. We received word that the staff are more excited about the new brand, and have spoken about how the logo and color palette is easier to work with to create dynamic materials.
A long-time consultant of the organization who is working on an annual event wrote, “I mean there’s just no comparison to previous years. The new branding just elevates everything.”
Key stakeholders, funders, donors and supporters have offered lots of positive feedback, appreciating how the new logo looks modern and contemporary, is creative and unique, and the colors are fresh and exciting.
Coaches working in South Africa and Zimbabwe were excited to be part of such a momentous organizational transformation – and excited how the new logo stood out against their yellow t-shirts!
Even a former participant in a Grassroot Soccer program expressed his enthusiasm for the new logo on social media.
The refreshed branding was also applied to a new website, more accurately and effectively telling the Grassroot Soccer story. Grassroot Soccer also storyboarded and shot new explainer videos featuring the new branding, which are critical communication pieces for explaining their approach and what they do.
Once the branding was unveiled on social media, engagement increased. Grassroot Soccer’s posts announcing and celebrating the launch received much more engagement than their typical content does, and they saw a significant spike around launch.

“Brevity & Wit were an incredible partner to us in working through a transformative rebrand for our organization that marked the start of a new chapter, while also preserving more than 20 years of brand equity built over our history. The team at Brevity & Wit are thoughtful listeners and learners, working first to understand our programs, audience, and unique positioning inside and out, allowing them to bring creative concepts forward and eventually work together with us to hone in on a new look that is fresh, exciting, unique, and creatively represents soccer and health. Throughout the whole process, Brevity & Wit exemplified patience, flexibility, transparency, humility, and creativity, using their keen design eye to create for us a new brand that is visually beautiful and reflects the organization we are today. We would enthusiastically recommend them to any organization seeking support on navigating their branding needs, whatever they may be.”

Ethan McCoy, Communications & Marketing Senior Manager and Olivia Swindler, Digital Communications Senior Coordinator

For those of you who are interested in a more in-depth background and description of our process, the below text is for you:

Grassroot Soccer is an adolescent health organization that leverages the power of soccer to equip young people with the life-saving information, services, and mentorship they need to live healthier lives. Over the past two decades, Grassroot Soccer has shifted from an HIV-focused organization, to an adolescent health organization that helps young people navigate their most pressing health challenges, including HIV, mental health, sexual and reproductive health, gender-based violence and more.

Seeking a shift to their visual branding and top-level messaging, Grassroot Soccer sought out Brevity & Wit to partner with on a brand refresh, along with new brand language.

Our goal was to create a comprehensive visual brand for Grassroot Soccer that brought its story, impact, and value to the surface. We held in-depth discussions with Grassroot Soccer to ensure we fully understood the brand’s current positioning, its existing brand research, and future trajectory. Feedback from the board, partners, coaches, and adolescents that Grassroot Soccer serves were all integrated into the language and logo.

For the language phase of the project, we ran a workshop with the Grassroot Soccer team to gain a better understanding of the messaging direction. This included reviewing research on the organization’s audience, as well as discussing potential use cases for the brand (e.g., how a board member may pitch a potential donor about the organization). Ultimately, the organization name and tagline (Grassroot Soccer, Playing for Life) remained the same, but the descriptor, “An Adolescent Health Organization,” became a welcome addition to the Grassroot Soccer brand.

Once we moved into the design process, we offered Grassroot Soccer options and opportunities to provide feedback and discuss the visual direction. The final logo symbolizes the tie between the organization’s health programs and soccer — and aerial view of a soccer pitch and negative space of an adolescent’s head, body, and heart. It highlights Grassroot Soccer’s focus on the sport as a pathway for health, as well as its commitment to each individual adolescent in the communities they serve. The new color palette primarily features various greens — not only symbolizing a soccer pitch, but also health, trust, and growth. And in a nod to the organization’s previous two decades, a cranberry red is included as an accent color.

We recommended an iterative approach where we helped develop brand language and design a new logo to create a strong new brand foundation before designing templates and other materials. Below is what we delivered:

Project kickoff: We held an initial kickoff meeting with our B&W team and the Grassroot Soccer team to help set standards for communicating with each other and to get on the same page about a shared vision for the project.
Develop refreshed top level messaging, tagline, and organization name: We worked with the Grassroot Soccer team to co-create a new one-sentence tagline, considering any existing brand language and centering it as the cornerstone of the new tagline. Based on a workshop and the new language, Brevity & Wit also helped refresh topline messaging that could be easily communicated to the organization’s four target audiences. We also evaluated the existing name of Grassroot Soccer, taking into account pre-existing interviews and research provided by the Grassroot Soccer team, and made new naming recommendations accordingly.
Created logo refresh concepts: At this stage, we built upon the refreshed messaging and language of Grassroot Soccer, and created new logo concepts. Once we had two to four strong concepts to choose from, we presented the refreshed logo options to the Grassroot Soccer team for discussion, input, and feedback. Together, we narrowed down the ideas until the final logo was created.
Built color palette and selected fonts: We built out a strong, versatile color palette to complement the new logo, and ensured the color combinations were accessible for everyone—particularly those with low vision and color blindness. The color pairings embodied the emotions and goals we united around at the beginning of the project. Similarly, the selected fonts to use across all brand materials are legible, clear, and capture the personality of the new brand.
Produced a comprehensive brand guide: The brand guide is a source of truth for everyone that touches the brand. It keeps the new brand consistent, cohesive, and strong. The brand guide includes in-depth guidance on the visual aspects of the brand, as well as the brand voice/tone. This brand guide is the north star for how to keep the brand inclusive, and provides guidance on how to use the brand and maintain its integrity.
Create brand materials + templates: We developed materials that reflected the new brand and made them usable for the Grassroot Soccer team. The materials included several templates for InDesign and Canva, including brief, one-pager, and social media templates. We also developed presentation templates in both Google Slides and Powerpoint.
Brand launch: Once the visual identity was finalized, the brand guide was handed off to a third party web development team to set up the Grassroot Soccer website.

Ultimately, we created branding that fits Grassroot Soccer’s personality, enhanced their work’s impact on the community they serve, and set them up for success as the organization grows and evolves.