The Philadelphia City Fund
Rebranding a complex service with a complicated past.

The rebrand of a fiscal sponsorship and grantmaking organization is not the sort of news one expects to power multiple headlines across a big city. However, for the Mayor’s Fund for Philadelphia, this news was the culmination of a period of real transformation. With a new board, executive director, strategic plan, and enhanced fiscal transparency protocols, the Fund was ready to express a fresh start. 

what we did

Branding
Messaging
Website development
Media relations
Social media strategy
Print + digital collateral

Welcoming a New Chapter

To cement their new chapter and emphasize their status as an independent non-profit, we helped the Fund become the Philadelphia City Fund. A new wordmark combines the brick hue of historic Philadelphia with fresh typography – ideal for an organization that makes high-impact civic projects come to fruition. We also helped the PCF team reimagine their website from top to bottom, provided a comprehensive communications plan, developed infographics and presentation decks that explain the Fund’s work, and handled media relations for the brand launch. It was the perfect opportunity to explain the Fund’s mission and role to reporters, City departments, and the public.

“Congratulations on the public launch and rebranding! It was great to see the Inquirer article and take a trip over to the redesigned website. All of us in Philly nonprofits know what it means to inherit a challenging situation and be tasked with turning it around. Congrats on a job well done.”
From Dormant to Dynamic

Our efforts resulted in millions of media impressions, a dramatic increase in the Fund’s web traffic, a reinvigorated social media presence, multiple new City projects in the pipeline, a big jump in direct contributions to individual projects through the new website, and a demonstrably improved understanding of the Fund’s role by City departments, philanthropic peers, potential grantees, and the public.

celebrating a singular year

After the successful launch of PCF’s new identity, we helped them tie a bow on a singular period of transformation with their first impact report, a dynamic digital publication we were honored to conceive and design. The web-based report reflects a year of unprecedented activity for the Fund – from the relaunch of their signature Community Grants program, to the support of an unusually wide range of civic projects, to the launch of that new identity, which garnered a shelf’s worth of brand development, marcom, and design awards.