HMW amplify the voices of For Good through community storytelling so that we can best illustrate the organization’s impact?

A semester-long partnership between For Good, a 503(c) nonprofit in Braddock, Pennsylvania, and DSI students to establish and amplify the organization's community-driven initiatives through strategic brand development and storytelling.

Project Duration:
January 2023 – May 2023

People

Brielle Mariucci – DSI

Maggie Wong – DSI

Giselle Fetterman – For Good PGH

Kristen Michaels – For Good PGH

Hats Worn

Visual Designer

Brand Strategist

Design Researcher

Workshop Facilitator

Context:

For Good is a grassroots nonprofit organization based in Braddock, Pennsylvania, that transforms community generosity into meaningful support for neighbors in need. Founded by Kristen Maser and Gisele Fetterman, the organization operates on a simple but powerful belief: everyone has the capacity to help others, and small acts of kindness can create profound impact.

The Challenge: To develop a cohesive brand message and voice co-designed by Braddock’s community members.

Since For Good was founded in 2017, they have been relentlessly supporting and caring for Braddock and the surrounding communities. While their work has created meaningful change, their focus on responding to immediate needs has left them without a cohesive way to communicate their impact and vision. This limits their ability to attract partners, secure funding, and expand their reach to help more community members.

Project Goals:

1

Shift away from a resource distribution model towards a mutual aid centered vision.

2

Strategize how For Good can better measure their impact on community members and for future reporting and program development.

3

Communicate For Good more effectively to the public and external stakeholders.

4

Facilitate a community workshop to discover community strengths in order to redefine For Good’s mission, vision, and values.

Phase 1: Discovery

Our initial research focused on understanding Braddock's rich history and current state, mapping the ecosystem of stakeholders, and analyzing For Good's existing initiatives and organizational structure.

Key Findings:
Community Context

**1. Severe Population Decline**
Braddock's population plummeted from 21,000 in 1920 to under 2,000 today, reflecting industrial decline's devastating impact. The continuing 2.69% annual decrease signals ongoing economic and community instability.

**2. High Poverty Rate Among Black Population**
70% of Braddock's 1,589 residents are Black or African American, with nearly 40% living below the poverty line. Many are single mothers, families experiencing food insecurity, or individuals struggling with addiction, highlighting the critical need for accessible community support systems.

**3. Strong History of Collective Action**
Despite economic challenges, Braddock has consistently demonstrated resilience through community organizing and mutual aid initiatives. This legacy of collective action informed our approach to community-centered brand development.

Key Findings:
Organizational Assessment

**1. Outdated Mission Statement**
The existing mission statement failed to capture For Good's current scope of work and impact. Website content contained outdated initiative information, making it difficult for stakeholders to understand their current activities and achievements.

**2. Inconsistent Value Expression**
Only 2 of 4 programs demonstrated diversity & inclusivity, and 1 expressed accessible giving. This misalignment weakened For Good's ability to communicate their core values.

**3. Fragmented Program Narrative**
While each initiative effectively responded to community needs, For Good lacked a clear framework for communicating how their various programs work together. This made it harder to demonstrate their collective impact and secure resources for growth.

Phase 2: Ideation

After identifying organizational gaps and understanding For Good's context in Braddock, we focused on redefining their brand through a community-centered approach. We immersed ourselves in research of successful nonprofit organizations including North West Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition and Center for Urban Pedagogy, analyzing how they express their perspective and purpose in their work., conducted workshops with the For Good team, and engaged directly with community members to co-create a mission and values that would authentically represent their work and impact.

Co-designing with the For Good team

1. Values Workshop

Through collaborative sessions, we used interactive exercises to explore the leadership team’s vision for the organization. These workshops included visual mapping exercises and collaborative brainstorming sessions that helped surface key themes and values.

The reflection worksheet (right) guided For Good's leaders through questions about their motivations and understanding of the organization in their own words. Through their responses, we began to uncover the emotional foundations of their work and the values that drive their initiatives.

By synthesizing their responses (below), we mapped the connections between For Good's purpose and values. This process revealed key themes and emotional drivers that would form the foundation of their
new values and mission statement.

2. Brand Visioning Workshop

Building on our initial findings,
we facilitated a collaborative brand visioning session (right) to evoke stories and explore how For Good's values could be expressed visually.

This workshop helped bridge the gap between their organizational values and their public-facing identity.

The brand look that emerged out of this exercise (below) complimented our language expression exploration and positioned For Good in a vibrant community that is creative and hands-on, while also acknowledging the industrial history of Braddock.

Co-designing with the Braddock Community

1. Stakeholder Interviews

We conducted in-depth conversations with long-time volunteers and program participants to understand their perspectives on For Good's impact. These discussions revealed powerful stories of community transformation and highlighted the organization's unique approach to community support.

2. Community Workshop

We designed and facilitated an in-person interactive workshop where community members shared their visions for Braddock's future and reflected on For Good's role in achieving those aspirations.

Activity 1: Vision Mapping
We provided each group with a large board containing inspirational images, where participants could place sticker dots on images that resonated with their vision for Braddock's future 10–15 years from now. During the share-out, we conducted live synthesis on a whiteboard, identifying key pillars of the community's vision and collecting stories that supported these pillars.

Activity 2: Impact Reflection
Participants completed individual worksheets designed to capture their personal connections with For Good. The worksheet contained spaces to document:

Meaningful memories
Significant places
Important people
Notable events
A larger space for reflecting on the major theme that emerged from these elements

Activity 3: Story Circle
We concluded with an open conversation where everyone shared their stories, creating space for emergence and new perspectives. This dialogue surfaced powerful themes that would later inform our storytelling approach.

Findings from the
Community Workshop (below)

There was a consistent resurfacing of the themes ‘love without judgment’, ‘relentless love’, ‘beauty’, and ‘revitalisation’ that was used across all community members present at the workshop.

Phase 3: Prototypes for
Brand Implementation

Building on the rich insights from our research and community engagement, we developed comprehensive brand system of communication tools and template to help For Good tell their story more effectively. This phase focused on translating community stories and organizational values into compelling visual and verbal elements that would resonate with both internal and external stakeholders. These solutions were designed to be easily implemented and maintained by their team after our engagement ended.

Prototype 1: Foundation – New Brand Statements

Prototype 2: Community Voices

Recognizing that For Good's impact is best told through community stories rather than numbers, we developed a storytelling framework centered around three key themes that emerged from our research:

Love Without Judgment: Stories that demonstrate For Good's unconditional acceptance and support of all community members.

Intergenerational Impact: Examples of how For Good's work creates lasting change across generations in Braddock.

Inspiring Care: Narratives showcasing how community members support each other and inspire a ripple effect of giving.

These three meta themes aim to show the way For Good’s work proliferates and inspires impact. We see this series as having many positive outcomes:

creating a collective voice of For Good that can be amplified to the world
fostering deeper connections with outside partners, funders, and potential volunteers
cultivating a more sincere and human version of impact measurement

It is the values that contain the work, and it will be the meta themes that allow the work to expand and connect.

Additionally, stylistic elements including brand colors and graphics have been applied to add whimsicality to the visual identity, along with ensure visual cohesiveness and boldness across all collateral. These shapes can be used in different ways across communications collateral, as shown in the following prototypes.

Prototype 3: Templates

Social Media

We created various new designs (based on For Good’s existing layout posts on Instagram) using Canva, as requested by the team, that are:

Easy for the For Good team to edit
Consistent with the new visual direction
Adaptable for different content types (events, stories, updates)

Presentations

We developed deck templates to help For Good present their work more professionally to external partners and funders.

Prototype 4: Support Materials and Tools

To facilitate implementation, we created several support documents:

1. One-Sheeter Brand Guide (right)

A concise visual guideline showing:

Typography usage
Color specifications
Shape applications
Image styling

2. Capacity Building Tools (below)

Through our research and community engagement, we recognized the critical importance of capacity building in grassroots organizations like For Good. Conversations with the leadership team highlighted how true impact measurement needs to encompass multiple dimensions:

Reflection: Understanding what went well and why Evaluation: Identifying operational needs and gaps Measurement: Defining clear outcomes, categories, scope, goals, and metrics

This holistic view of organizational health led us to develop two key resources:

A) Self-Care Toolkit (below left)

Understanding that community work can be emotionally demanding, we created a reflection-focused booklet to help team members:

Build awareness of personal needs
Identify practices that maintain well-being
Live aligned with their values
Support personal and organizational growth

B) Impact Measurement Guide (below right)

A practical framework for documenting and communicating For Good's impact in ways that honor the qualitative nature of their work.

Project Reflection and Learnings

While we delivered a comprehensive set of brand and communication tools, the true value of this project lay in the process itself. Our primary focus was on developing deep community engagement, practicing participatory research methods, and learning to facilitate meaningful co-design sessions. Though time constraints of the semester prevented additional rounds of testing and long-term impact measurement, the project successfully achieved its core mission: amplifying For Good's voice through authentic community storytelling.

Key Learnings:

The power of participatory design in creating authentic, community-driven solutions
The importance of creating safe spaces for community members to share their stories
How to facilitate workshops that encourage meaningful dialogue and collaboration
Ways to balance organizational needs with community voices