Opportunity

The Indiana Charter Innovation Center (ICIC) launched in August 2024 as an early-stage organization seeking to make a swift impact on behalf of the state’s public charter schools. They needed a website, messaging, and marketing collateral to establish their credibility as an association and make an impact. ICIC sought help from Pen+Principle to develop an organizational brand that would enable them to meet their ambitious goals on time.

Approach

Pen+Principle understood that to take ICIC from newly-minted startup to established organization, they had to develop foundational messages to shape key communications elements.

Based on interviews with the target audience of charter school organization leaders, P+P came alongside ICIC to develop a messaging framework to support their organizational and legislative goals. We leveraged this messaging as well as ICIC’s basic brand guidelines to launch a full website within six weeks. In addition, we refreshed the organization’s original brand, created email marketing templates, updated all creative assets, and led the creation of new photos and videos to impact the importance of ICIC’s work. P+P also led ICIC’s media announcement and served as a media point during a contentious and busy legislative session.

Results

ICIC established itself as a key organizing body for the state’s charter schools.

Backed up by its new narrative and collateral, ICIC increased membership to nearly 85% of the charter sector and counting.  The group also achieved landmark legislation of ensuring public charter school students receive fair funding and support legislation. By embedding with their team, P+P helped ICIC establish a brand that supported the organization’s big goals to make an impact quickly.

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