Client
The Global Fund to End Modern Slavery
Expertise
Brand Messaging
Brand Strategy
Collateral Development
Search Engine Optimization
Website Design
Website Redesign
Website Strategy
Stronger Branding to Achieve a Powerful Mission
Challenge
The Global Fund to End Modern Slavery (GFEMS) has solidified itself as one of the leading innovators in the anti-trafficking space. GFEMS takes a unique approach, working with governments, civil society, and the private sector to ensure their interventions address the underlying economic systems that perpetuate modern slavery, making it economically unprofitable.
Despite its powerful mission, GFEMS needed to do a better job communicating who they are, what they do, and why it’s important. Taking such a distinct approach to achieve an incredibly difficult goal requires speaking to all audiences with varying familiarity of the Fund’s mission––from the general public to partners, funders, and peers.
GFEMS’s existing website was developed quickly to get the organization off the ground. It didn’t reflect their expertise, innovative brand, or effectively secure partners and donors. To establish itself as a leader in the anti-trafficking field, GFEMS website needed the ability to scale over time, with the addition of new geographies, sectors, and content.
Beyond Definition was brought in to refresh GFEMS brand identity, support their design needs, and completely overhaul their website.
Outcome
We helped the startup evolve into an empowered, ambitious brand equipped to navigate different audience segments and secure funding from major partners, grassroots organizations, and individual donors. GFEMS’ refreshed brand weaves story into its identity––ensuring every element furthers GFEMS purpose, mission, and vision.
Their website was moved to WordPress, with a simplified site structure focusing on the user, not the organization. Through updated visuals, a better information architecture, and a well-developed strategy, we improved the user experience to encourage site visitors to learn more about GFEMS programs, projects, research, and partnerships, while reinforcing their position as a leader and innovator.
Ending modern slavery requires bold approaches, investments, and resources at an unprecedented scale. Now, GFEMS has the brand, messaging, reach, and tools to make it happen.
“Beyond Definition has helped us to elevate our global appeal, modernize our identity, and create messaging that reflects the innovation and effectiveness of our work. Most importantly, they care about helping us achieve our mission, and are invaluable partners in helping us get there.”
Phase 1Discovery & Research
We set out to help GFEMS create a stronger brand identity system to more accurately communicate the purpose of its mission. Our team conducted in-depth research and analysis for both the brand and website. Following the early discovery and research work, it became clear that GFEMS had the knowledge, stories, thought leadership, and resources to disrupt the human-trafficking industry for the better. They needed a slight refresh of their brand to give them more flexibility and consistency, especially in different countries, and a website that was more organized and relevant for ALL of their audience segments.
Phase 2Brand Refresh
We built out the GFEMS brand voice and persona to make it more recognizable and engaging. While the expertise of their team was clear, GFEMS visual assets and external messaging weren’t memorable. They needed assets that would work everywhere, from the Halls of Congress to their grantees in the field to communities and cultures across the globe.
Through our brand strategy work, we were able to focus on making the GFEMS identity match the impact and reach of the organization’s mission. This included expanding their color palette, refining their persona and brand pillars, establishing an iconography system to show the Fund’s system-based approach, which can be difficult to acquire in their work, and developing a vision statement to communicate their bold hope for the future: a future where people come before profits, and systems that exploit the vulnerable are completely eradicated. GFEMS cannot heavily lean on stock photography, so we designed flexible, intelligent visuals that upheld their ethical guidelines.
Phase 3Website
The GFEMS website is a critical tool in advancing the Fund’s mission, driving partnerships, aiding fundraising, creating allies, and sustaining momentum. For general audiences, it needed to be a storytelling site explaining the issue of modern slavery and how they could get involved. For funders and partners, the site needed to go deeper, explaining how different areas of work connect while encouraging partnerships and contributions. For the anti-trafficking field, the site needed to present and organize a growing body of knowledge, stories, thought leadership, and resources.
Through rigorous analysis, multiple in-depth interviews, card-sorts, and discussions, our team worked alongside GFEMS to develop a website strategy that presented the Fund’s work in a compelling way to their different audiences.
Compared to their old site, we explored the Fund’s work in a compelling way, with an efficient and engaging user experience. Most importantly, we designed the site to open up GFEMS’s support beyond high net worth individual donors and major funding partners, welcoming grassroots organizations and individual donors to join their mission.
GFEMS Sitemap
