Paths for Families
A 15-month organizational rebrand and website redesign.
This project meant a lot to me. After more than 30 years, Adoptions Together had built deep roots, a strong reputation, and genuine impact across DC, Maryland, and Virginia. But we had grown into so much more than our name suggested, and our team felt strongly that our brand needed to reflect the full breadth of the work we do. Rebranding as Paths for Families wasn't just a name change; it was an opportunity to tell a stronger story about our mission, vision, and impact in the community.
This was a project that pushed me to grow. Working across two vendor partnerships, contributing as a key member on internal project management, stretching into design decisions, and managing relationships up and across the organization allowed me to touch nearly every facet of marketing, project management, and organizational communication. I was honored to be part of it.
Responsibilities:
I served as a core member of the three-person internal rebrand team alongside our Director of IT and Operations and our Communications Specialist. Together, we led and project-managed the entire initiative, from vendor selection through launch, while maintaining our full regular workloads throughout.
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Managing a rebrand of this scale across two external vendors, a full internal staff, and a leadership team with competing priorities required constant coordination and clear communication. I helped keep the project moving by tracking deliverables, holding teams accountable to timelines, and navigating the complex decisions that come with changing something as fundamental as an organization's name and identity. That included managing up to leadership and ensuring that staff across the organization stayed informed, engaged, and set up to be true brand ambassadors, even when their bandwidth to participate was limited.
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While Teal Media led the visual identity work, I was deeply involved in the design process, providing feedback, weighing in on key decisions, and ensuring the new brand felt true to who we are. Once the new visual identity launched, I owned the rollout of every non-website branded asset: print materials, digital graphics, social media visuals, branded collateral, and more, ensuring they reflected the new Paths for Families brand.
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Launch wasn't just an external moment; it was an internal one too. I co-created and presented parts of our internal brand ambassador presentation to nearly 50 staff and Board members, with the goal of getting our whole team excited about the rebrand, aligned on the new brand identity, and equipped to talk about Paths for Families with confidence. On the external side, I partnered with 212 Communications on our PR strategy and was responsible for copy editing, designing and sending our launch email campaigns, and creating and publishing our social media posts, making sure every audience, from staff to the broader community, heard the right message, in the right voice, at the right time.
Results:
To ensure our new identity landed with clarity, we tracked audience perception through internal and external research before and 1 year after the rebrand. These insights shaped our approach throughout the process and gave us a data-driven benchmark to measure post-launch success.
External Survey:
+14%
Understanding of the organization’s range of services
+19%
Overall brand cohesiveness
Internal Survey:
+21%
Improved reaction to the new brand name
+11%
Ease of explaining and understanding the brand