Nonprofit Branding from Scratch with Generation Tree

A Case Study of Nonprofit Branding

A new client – originally called 5K Trees – came to CGC late last year with a mission of planting 6 million trees in urban communities across the U.S., but first they needed a name and a brand that would convey the broad scope of their vision. We started the nonprofit branding discussion by talking about the brand identity (fun, youthful, happy, generous, connected, and future-oriented), an analysis of what others in the space are doing, what we wanted the name and logo to convey, and who the key audiences would be for this tree-planting initiative – student volunteers and their parents, potential partners, and donors.

We considered lots of different names – including Tree Party, Tree It Forward, and Planting Happiness – but we all agreed that Generation Tree conveyed the key messages of youth (with a play off of Generation Z), fun, and paying it forward. With a name in hand we handed logo design off to our amazing design team and, as always, they came through with a lot of great options from which to choose.

nonprofit branding

The team narrowed down the options with the client and, working closely with the designer to tweak colors and fonts, ended up with a fun, clean, flexible logo that is youthful, but still professional. And we have several color palettes to work with for marketing, a very important consideration in nonprofit branding – or any branding! We also agreed that a solid tagline would reinforce our messaging, so we use “Planting Happiness One Tree at a Time” in marketing materials.

nonprofit branding

Stay tuned – the Generation Tree website and social media accounts (@MyGenTree on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) are launching this month and their first tree adoption event is June 8-10 in Los Angeles. From nonprofit branding to website development to social media management and fundraising, you’ll be hearing a lot from us about this great organization.

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