What began as a request to improve a dated set of communication materials became a long-term partnership that reshaped the way a non-profit tells its story.
In 2022, I travelled to Yetebon, a rural community in southern Ethiopia, to understand Project Mercy's work first-hand.
It was meant to be a discovery trip before a small rebranding project. It ended up shifting the entire trajectory of the engagement.
Project Mercy works across education, health care, food security, and community development. Their impact is significant, but their communications had fallen behind. The brand felt outdated. The story was difficult to follow. The website had been left to drift. And a single overstretched comms officer was holding the whole system together with limited tools and little support.
There was nothing unusual about this. Many founder-led non-profits find themselves in the same position. But it was clear that what they needed was not a cosmetic update. They needed clarity, consistency and confidence: the foundations on which a sustainable brand system could stand.
Being there changed everything
The first visit to Yetebon reshaped the work completely. Meeting teachers, nurses, leaders and community members brought a depth no document could provide. One thing became obvious very quickly: the organisation’s work was far clearer on the ground than in its materials.
The story existed. It just was not being told simply or consistently.
Since that first trip, I have returned five times, and met the CEO in Nairobi and Dubai. Each visit added context. Each conversation shifted the work a little further away from “assets” and closer to alignment, narrative clarity and capacity building.
The work beneath the work
On paper, the brief looked straightforward: refresh the brand, build a new website, create donor tools, tighten the story.
In reality, the deeper work was helping a small, stretched team understand, own and communicate their impact with more confidence. This was not about imposing a new identity. It was about uncovering and articulating what was already there.
The familiar patterns emerged early: a strong mission obscured by complex explanations, a dedicated team with no time to step back, communications that had grown by accretion rather than intention, and a story being carried, almost single-handedly, by one person.
This was the moment I reframed the brief. The task was not to “deliver a brand”. It was to build the foundations for long-term brand clarity.
Building a grounded brand identity
The identity refresh was deliberately gentle. A refined logo, a clearer typographic system, and a colour palette drawn from Yetebon’s landscape. The goal was not to reinvent, but to make the brand feel as human and grounded as the work itself.
Photography became central. I partnered with Barcot Wolde, an Ethiopian photographer whose images carry honesty and dignity. His photographs cut through the noise and brought the organisation’s work back to its human centre.
I built everything with usability in mind. A small team cannot maintain a complex system, so I created one that worked with their reality, not against it.
Communication tools that serve the story
With the identity in place, I rebuilt the organisation’s core communication tools.
The website needed clarity and structure, but also to be manageable by a one-person comms function. Working with Defijn, a South African web developer, we delivered a site that reflected the updated story and gave the team ownership.
The annual report soon became one of the organisation’s most important documents. It helped donors understand the breadth of the work, and it gave staff a narrative structure they could use everywhere else.
Over time, I created donor materials that simplified the message, removed unnecessary noise and gave the team ready-to-use tools for everyday needs.
Capacity building, not dependency
The most important part of the work happened in Yetebon during the training sessions. Tools only matter when people feel confident using them. I ran workshops on storytelling, brand consistency and practical communication skills.
Slowly, the brand stopped being a set of guidelines and started becoming a shared way of working. The team began to take ownership, not rely on outside support. This, more than any visual system, was the real measure of progress.
Measuring success differently
Four years on, the partnership continues. The brand is clearer. Communications are more consistent. Donors understand the organisation better. The team has the tools and confidence to tell their own story.
But the real success lies in something quieter. The internal conversation has shifted: from “What should we say?” to “We know how to say it.”
This work reaffirmed a belief that has guided many of my projects: brand clarity is rarely about design alone. It is about people, context and systems. It is about creating structures that allow teams to express their work with confidence. And in organisations like Project Mercy, that clarity becomes a form of service. It honours the work happening every day on the ground.
This project was not the linear brand refresh I expected. It was something better: patient, collaborative, and grounded in the reality of a small team doing big work.
View more work for Project Mercy: