All work

International Rescue Committee

Brand expression and campaign system

A campaign system and brand resources for a $1 billion humanitarian organization.

Client: International Rescue Committee
Sector: Humanitarian
Scope: Campaign templates, brand guidelines, website, UX and accessibility
My role: Associate Director, Design and UX

1-minute version

The challenge: The IRC works in 40 countries. Its teams needed campaign and brand materials they could produce fast, without the brand drifting.
What I did: I led brand design and UX for communications and fundraising. I hired designers and led a team of up to twelve with agencies and freelancers.
The result: The campaigns helped raise over $30M online and at the Global Rescue Dinner, the IRC’s flagship fundraiser for high-net-worth donors in Manhattan.
Scale: $1B+ organization, 40 countries, a team of up to 12.

Challenge

A billion-dollar humanitarian organization moves fast: crisis appeals, advocacy, fundraising and news, often in the same week. The brand had to keep up without drifting.

Insight

Speed comes from the system. With a lean core brand and ready-made campaign templates, teams don’t start from scratch, and the work still looks like the IRC.

Solution

We built campaign templates within a system of branded resources for social and advertising, updated the brand guidelines, and worked on the website, including UX and accessibility studies. We also extended the brand to South Korea.

Results

Campaigns built on the system helped raise over $30M online and at the Global Rescue Dinner, the IRC’s flagship fundraiser for high-net-worth donors in Manhattan.

The system

The website, guidelines, a social toolkit and campaign posts, all from one lean system. Select any image to see it full screen.

IRC website page titled Who we are — **Website.** The “Who we are” page.

IRC website appeal page for the Ukraine crisis — **Website.** An emergency appeal page for the Ukraine crisis.

IRC website page on economic wellbeing — **Website.** An issue page on economic wellbeing.

Guidelines. Pages from the brand style guide: logo, color, type and layout.

IRC social posts with large impact figures and photos — **Social.** Impact figures turned into social posts.

Pages from an IRC social media toolkit — **Toolkit.** A social media toolkit for teams across the organization.

IRC campaign posts in black and yellow — **Campaign.** Campaign posts in the IRC’s black and yellow.

What I’d add today

Emergencies move in hours. I’d add motion templates to the campaign system, so teams could cut an on-brand appeal video the day a crisis breaks.

“Your hard work, reliability, and gentle way have been wonderful to experience. You made a great impact for IRC.”
Lynda Mota, Senior Project Manager, International Rescue Committee