VALLEY BLOOM
Helping a 30-year nonprofit change its name — without losing the people who built it.
NONPROFIT
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REBRAND
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SQUARESPACE
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COMMS STRATEGY
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DESIGN
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NONPROFIT 〰️ REBRAND 〰️ SQUARESPACE 〰️ COMMS STRATEGY 〰️ DESIGN 〰️
When Assistance League East Valley became an independent nonprofit, it needed a new name, a new website, and a way to tell longtime supporters about the change without rattling them. I led the communications strategy, designed and built the site, and planned the rollout — on a 10-week clock set by a hard disaffiliation deadline.
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Brand & comms strategist · Web designer · Project facilitator
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Stakeholder strategy · Messaging and rollout plan · Collateral design · Squarespace build · Launch plan · In-Person Training
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Squarespace (new build)
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10 weeks · Launched June 2025
THE CHALLENGE
A name change is a trust problem, not a design problem
This was never a website refresh. Valley Bloom had spent three decades earning the trust of donors, volunteers, thrift-shop customers, school and city partners, and the families it serves. A new name risked confusing or worrying every one of them at once.
Two constraints shaped every decision. The change had to land before a May 31 disaffiliation deadline, and the organization is entirely volunteer-run — so whatever I built had to be simple enough for a non-technical team to maintain for years, not just survive launch week.
The Approach
I worked the transition as a system, in order.
Before any design happened, I mapped who needed to hear what, and when. Each step set up the next one.
01
Stakeholder & message discovery
I mapped every audience touched by the change — donors, volunteers, members, thrift customers, school districts, city partners, business neighbors, the general public — and sequenced who should hear about the rebrand first, and how.
02
Communications framework
From that map I built a messaging framework the whole team could speak from: warm, confident, consistent. It led with local impact, volunteer leadership, and continuity of mission — and made it easy to point people toward the many ways they could keep supporting the org.
03
Website strategy & prioritization
I facilitated a feature-prioritization exercise with the team, scoring every idea on its value against the effort to maintain it — protecting a volunteer team from overbuilding.
04
Platform decision
A non-technical team needed a site they could actually run. I translated the platform options into plain language, and we chose Squarespace — managed, low-maintenance, and strong on what the org needed.
05
Design & build
I designed and built the full site in Squarespace: program storytelling, donation and volunteer pathways, events, and thrift-shop visibility — mobile-friendly and SEO-conscious throughout.
06
Phased launch & rollout
I sequenced the public reveal so supporters were prepared, not surprised — starting inside a donor event and rippling outward to partners, social, and press, with the brand going live last.
07
Training & handoff
I set up a Canva brand kit, trained the team on the site, documented the systems, assigned a clear owner for each area, and supported two weeks of post-launch refinements.
