Brand Strategy
Facilitation
Project Management
Stakeholder Management
Restoring Promise® is a flagship initiative of the Vera Institute of Justice initiative, which works with state and local agencies across the country to reform correctional facilities to improve safety for both correctional officers and incarcerated people.
Restoring Promise® had already proven its model. Violence had declined inside participating units, correctional culture had begun to shift, and the results were attracting national attention. The challenge was no longer proving that the work mattered. It was convincing community leaders that they were being heard, convincing government officials it could work in their jurisdictions, and convincing funders to invest in its expansion.
To grow, the initiative needed to major investment, expand into new state correctional systems, and establish itself as a credible implementation partner in a crowded reform landscape. It was important to develop a brand platform for communicating that work in a way that appealed to and balanced the these different stakeholders with a versatile identity that could flex enough to speak to all.
The Process
Working with leadership, program teams, government partners, and community organizations, I held informal stakeholder interviews to help define Restoring Promise®'s positioning, clarifying what differentiated the initiative and building alignment among stakeholders around a shared strategic vision for a brand. I then led the brand development in partnership with Hyperakt, translating that strategy into a cohesive identity while guiding stakeholders with diverse priorities toward a unified creative direction that reflected both the initiative's restorative justice philosophy and the practical realities of proposing a new model to government and philanthropic partners.
The Identity
The identity was designed to balance two competing needs: feeling human enough to resonate with community partners, while remaining credible with government partners and institutional funders. Drawing from the Indigenous philosophy of the initiative's community partner, the visual language incorporated symbols of healing, growth, and renewal into a flexible brand system that could adapt across audiences without losing its distinctive identity, including a typographic system that flexes between clean-cut and freehand letterforms depending on the audience.
Within a year of launching the new brand platform, Restoring Promise® secured more than $10 million in new funding commitments, including from Arnold Ventures, and expanded its government partnerships into three additional states, increasing its jurisdictional footprint by 50%.
More importantly, the project established a brand foundation for the initiative's next stage of growth, one capable of earning trust across government, philanthropy, and community partners while positioning Restoring Promise® as a category-defining model for correctional reform.
Reflections
Delaney Weber, Hyperakt
Abigail Fisher, Hyperakt
Deroy Peraza, Hyperakt
Ryn Adkins, Hyperakt
Eric Wang, Hyperakt
Lauren Jones, Hyperakt