capracare is a nonprofit organization founded by Jean Pierre-Louis, MPH, now the CEO and President of capracare, a native of Fronféde, Haiti, a small rural village in Haiti’s third-largest city of Les Cayes. He founded capracare to build and develop sustainable community health and education programs across Haiti and eventually across the globe. In its twelve-year history, capracare has never had a brand campaign or the ability to create and sustain one.

The organization has always had muddled messaging, inconsistent design, and no direction to achieve its branding goals. How it told its story, worked well enough in its early days but a change was needed as it grew in scope and ambition. 

As the Director of Content Strategy, I gave myself the responsibility to create a brand book that would be the north star for all aspects of capracare. The challenge in creating the brand book was apparent. Before I started, the documents I needed to research were scattered across hard drives, cloud accounts, and possibly nonexistent.

I had a four-step plan. First, understand what a brand book was; I learned from charity: water’s excellent example. Second, gather information about the organization. Third, interview board members, the CEO, volunteers, and two of our potential personas, to understand their thoughts on capracare. Fourth, compile all the information, the brand book example, with the interviews and mix it all to create the capracare brand book.

The final book included a brand voice, editorial guidelines, photography standards, logo, typography, and color palette.

Creating the brand book had the surprising effect of learning deeply about the organization. I now understand our why, what we wanted to do, and how we would do it; nothing else would have given me this outstanding education and insight. To this day, I still reference the brand book when I’m creating a design or writing messages. The capracare brand now has a different look and voice to captivate, excited, and earn donor trust.