Arbor Day Foundation
www.arborday.org
I led the strategy for the Arbor Day Foundation from pitch to identity.
The Arbor Day Foundation is one of the nation’s leading nonprofits: they were founded almost 50 years ago and have planted more than 500 million trees across the world. But their brand needed to evolve to plant the next 500 million trees.
I worked closely with their senior leaders to capture the core of who they are, and build a beautiful, powerful, attention-grabbing, world-changing, anything-is-possible brand that’s going to literally save the world.
Research
Executive Advisory
Stakeholder Engagement
Brand Architecture
Brand Strategy
Sub-Brands
Brand Identity
Messaging
Brand Positioning
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Arbor Day had a complex brand architecture filled with competing and confusing sub-brands and initiatives that weren’t tied to the parent brand. They were doing so much great work but not getting the credit and recognition of having a unified brand architecture and experience.
“We work across the world in so many different ways and there were times our network did not see the connection they had with one another through the Arbor Day Foundation,” said the CEO of the Arbor Day Foundation, Dan Lambe.
They also needed to modernize the brand to better connect with ALL audiences. They have a really strong base of supporters, including many older generations – which is great! – but they needed to look to the future as well, and expand into a mass movement, especially with challenger brands competing for attention. Arbor Day Foundation has big ambitions, and you don’t accomplish big, audacious goals without building a massive movement that anyone can be a part of. You’ve got to admire an organization that accomplishes something incredible and then says “we’re just getting started.”
In my research, I identified a key insight to build the brand on: There was an opportunity to build a movement that people would strongly identify with: we can each make a real difference in making the world, and the future, better by planting trees – and Arbor Day Foundation will unite us to do that like no other brand can.
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I worked hand-in-hand with the Arbor Day Foundation’s leadership team for months to craft a strategy and brand that fit them, preserving the things that were working and evolving where they needed to. This was a true collaboration, with constant communication, sharing, and input from throughout their team.
The result was a brand strategy and identity that reflects the core of the Foundation, their legacy, and their loyal members, while evolving to be more effective and engaging for the next 50 years.
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My team and I created an entire system for them to align their brand with everything that they do, creating greater consistency, authenticity, and trust.
From there, I worked with the creative team to build a modernized, vibrant, inspiring brand identity and simplified brand architecture.
The new brand strategy and identity reflects the incredible, world-changing work that Arbor Day has been doing for 50 years, and will keep doing for the next 50 years and beyond. This brand strategy and identity – along with their incredible team, partners, and members – is going to help them to plant millions of trees around the world.
The brand evolution creates a clearer connectivity across its programs and sub-brands to better align each with the Foundation’s iconic brand.
“Through these changes, we seek to highlight both the breadth and depth of our network and how everyone in it is working in unison to shape a better future.”
“There is real momentum gained when everyone associated with the Arbor Day Foundation sees one another and understands our individual actions are collectively adding up to leave an outsized imprint on the world.”
“Now, our partners should more readily recognize one another and recognize the incredible breadth of this unique network they share. We believe this will help them understand that the good they're doing in their own corners of the world is contributing to a global canopy — and a global movement — through the Arbor Day Foundation.”
– Dan Lambe, CEO, Arbor Day Foundation
