A bold new presence for an established non-profit
A new website for the Victorian Women's Trust.
A new website for the Victorian Women's Trust.
Victorian Women’s Trust (VWT) is an independent advocate for women and girls. Since 1985, they have been promoting true gender equality through annual grants, targeted research, education, policy submissions, events and more.
Mary Crooks AO, Executive Director felt the VWT brand needed an update to properly reflect the organisation’s stature. VWT staff envisioned a brand that would make supporters feel empowered, inspired, hopeful, validated, included, and reassured.
They approached Ackama to help in defining this new face, and developing a communications strategy to match it.
Ackama ran a series of strategic workshops to understand the current state of the organisation and their strategic goals. Together, we created a strategy to dial in the focus to specific campaign areas. The aim was to reduce the total number of campaigns, allowing the VWT team to focus on fewer but more ambitious activities for a bigger impact.
Once we understood VWT’s strategic direction, we could start crafting an authentic brand that would help them meet their goals. We set out to create a bold visual representation of VWT’s belief that great change is possible, and that feminism is for everyone.
The result was an identity system that has empowered VWT to communicate in a more confident and meaningful way. The core values and aspirations of VWT were the tools we used to sculpt and refine the voice of the Trust.
Allyson Perham felt that, “Ackama’s team of designers and marketing experts unpacked our motivations and core values as an organisation. This was then distilled down into the overall look and feel of the Victorian Women’s Trust going forward. This process was hugely collaborative and required a great deal of trust – after all, our brand identity has to encapsulate who we are and what we’re about in a way that is completely authentic. Ackama delivered on all accounts.”
The VWT website was the major engagement point for new and old supporters, and so needed updating to reflect the new brand. The existing site had served its purpose well, but had become outdated and no longer represented the powerhouse that VWT had become.
Ackama focused on creating a platform that was modular and easy to manage and update, so VWT wouldn’t need to rely on them for updates post launch. This meant that events like media coverage or political activity could be responded to on their website with no need for a developer or designer to get involved.
One of the outcomes of the extensive strategic work carried out with Ackama was the production of a gender equality event hosted by the Victorian Women’s Trust. Titled Breakthrough, it was the “largest gender equality conference in the nation’s history” (The Age, Nov 28). Featuring over 130 speakers, performers, and an audience of 1,000 people, this two day event focused on where we were as a nation and where we needed to go to secure gender equality for women and girls.
“Breakthrough was a triumph that could only have been achieved after the important ground work undertaken with the Ackama team. Our new branding, strategic direction and website were integral to the success and magnitude of the Breakthrough event.”
– Mary Crooks AO
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