Reinvigorating a storied nonprofit brand

The Challenge

Bread for the World turned to Pinkston to help the organization evolve its 50-year-old brand with a mission to end world hunger. Pinkston helped to preserve its existing donor and supporter relationships while positioning the organization for future growth.

Pinkston’s Approach

Pinkston leveraged a range of capabilities – including strategic positioning, research and design – to modernize the Bread brand for the 21st century. We facilitated branding sessions with the Bread leadership team to define the storylines, character traits and messaging that best humanized the brand and represented a unified and emboldened future. After eight weeks of rigorous experimentation, exploration and ideation, Pinkston gathered Bread’s top executive team to consider 50+ concepts and to form an aligned vision for the new brand identity. 

A rough sketch of a simple bowl and figurative table sparked an epiphany: when it comes to hunger, there is a place set at the table for everyone – for all of us. Why not create a comprehensive system that could show the scale of the problem – and the solution – and celebrate the moments, people and actions that contribute to their mission?

The creative breakthrough was to create a shape and pairing that would encourage deeper discovery and bridge an abbreviated brand name, “Bread,” to the 50-year-old organization. The logomark was expanded into a comprehensive design system, including custom typography, color palettes and graphic elements.

Results

The new leadership approved the brand strategy and worked with Pinkston to build and roll out the new brand identity across its digital ecosystem. Pinkston crafted digital marketing strategies, including organic and paid social media, SEO-optimized blog and website content and updates, in addition to building a new website which launched in 2022.

For Bread, this brand repositioning and launch has a greater value than merely an updated logo or recognition of a new leadership team. This initiative helped the organization to recognize the need for a unifying body with a strong voice as a means to end world hunger.

After the conclusion of the branding phase of this partnership, Pinkston worked with Bread to help coordinate and produce a documentary about the intersection of climate change and hunger, including arranging interviews in Kenya with UN officials, local farmers, agricultural scientists and more.