Increasing community awareness.

AchieveMpls is the public fundraising and resource organization for Minneapolis Public Schools, born out of a merger of Youth Trust and Minneapolis Public Schools Foundation in 2002. When it approached Azul 7, the young organization, then called Achieve!Minneapolis, was leading all of its communications and outreach with its programs, losing awareness opportunities for AchieveMpls itself.

Prioritizing the organization.

Azul 7 worked with AchieveMpls to help the organization increase recognition and support in the community. The first step was to strengthen the brand by clarifying and organizing its focus. Azul 7 developed a three-pronged nomenclature to categorize 200+ student programs, grants and funds. ‘Resources for Schools,’ ‘Programs We Manage,’ and ‘Programs We Support’ offered greater definition for the brand and its operations. This strategy helped AchieveMpls clearly identify itself as the parent organization in the organizational hierarchy, rather than continuously leading its strategies with individual programs.

A brand to support.

With a solid foundation to build on, we helped create a clear, recognizable brand for the community to support. Azul 7 recommended a new, simpler name, moving from Achieve!Minneapolis to AchieveMpls. We created a new identity that puts students, donors, parents and volunteers at the center of the brand, communicating that AchieveMpls supports Minneapolis student success at several levels.

Azul 7 took a journalistic approach in shooting photos of students in Minneapolis schools, putting a real face to the group’s purpose. The logo, color palette, photography and other identity features help AchieveMpls differentiate itself from Minneapolis Public Schools, which it serves, but doesn’t operate under. Using the new image system, Azul 7 designed the supporting AchieveMpls website and carried the visual identity throughout print materials such as the organization’s annual report.