Kidworks is a staple nonprofit in Orange County that walks with students from Pre-K to B.A. to develop confident, self-reliant adults who are equipped for the workforce and motivated to give back to their community. This year, they are celebrating 30 years of impacting the community and bringing hope to Orange County’s under-resourced neighborhoods. KidWorks informed us that their website was “clunky” and wasn’t serving their audience as well as they wanted it to. With their 30-year celebration quickly approaching, they asked us to aid them in developing a marketing strategy and content worthy of their celebration.
Our team stepped in and got to work improving their branding and website so they could grow their reach and impact for the next 30 years and beyond!
Customized Website
Kidworks' original website was developed through Squarespace, which is a great starting place for business, but with the growth of the nonprofit and the technical features desired to best serve users, it was necessary to move from a templated Squarespace site to a customized WordPress site.
We got started on our website roadmap process to align on technical needs and goals to implement a custom-designed and developed responsive website built on WordPress CMS. The roadmap process starts with meeting with the client to receive any information needed to develop the website, and then the 454 team will research and deliver back a comprehensive document that outlines the future website’s content strategy, website navigation, homepage wireframe, site architecture, design, technology recommendations and requirements for desired future functionality. Once approved, we are off to the races!
One crucial goal that KidWorks had was that the new website would serve the families, students, and donors in both English and Spanish. With this in mind, we were able to use plugins on WordPress to manage multiple language variations of the site to broaden their reach and effectively communicate to their target audiences. Our team also incorporated videos and developed a custom mega menu to feature special events and calls to action to better engage website visitors and help with easy navigation throughout the site. We got to tie it all together by implementing the new brand messaging, design, and colors we developed in their brand guide.
Without further adieu, you can check out their beautiful new website here: https://kidworksoc.org/.
Impactful and Cohesive Branding
In today's competitive landscape, building a strong and memorable brand is essential for standing out among the crowd. Having excellent Brand Messaging and a working Brand Guide is your blueprint for creating a successful brand presence. KidWorks wanted to develop messaging and sustainable branding to help them stand out and effectively communicate to their target audience — especially with their upcoming 30-year celebration.
Throughout the Brand Messaging process, our Brand Strategist met with KidWorks to dive into who they are and how they want to communicate who they are. We then created and presented key messaging for their brand including: Value Propositions, Key Messaging, Tone of Voice, Sales Pitches, and Calls to Action. Each of these pieces must be cohesive and unique to KidWorks.
The last piece that ties everything together, was creating the KidWorks Brand Guide. This allows for all of your essential branding to be documented in one place — creating an aligned and sustainable resource that internal teams and vendors can tap into to maintain cohesive branding across all Marketing and Sales initiatives. Our team designed and developed this Brand Guide resource for KidWorks that included the following: Logo Usage, Fonts and Typography, Primary Color Palette, Secondary Palette, Imagery Guidelines, and their new and improved Brand Messaging pieces.
"Our partnership with 454 has proven invaluable. Their innovative, cross-team approach has resulted in premium content that can be used to better engage our donors, partners, and families. We will continue to partner with them in the future." - Beckie White, Sr. Manager of Marketing & Communications
We are so grateful for the partnership with KidWorks along with the trust and collaboration throughout the rebranding process. Projects like these are what really make it MATTER for us.
If you’re interested in hearing more about how we can enhance your marketing efforts through branding or a website, fill out this form to start a conversation with our team.