When a nonprofit is seeking to create a credible and sustainable business, it has to communicate its purpose, mission and make design decisions which are compelling to its audience — whether that audience is funders, supporters or customers.
After all, if an audience doesn’t understand who you are, why should they care?
Studio A had an identity crisis. It is a supported studio which creates educational and professional opportunities for artists living with an intellectual disability. The enterprise’s mission is to provide professional pathways for artists to achieve their artistic and economic aspirations.
Born of its parent organisation, Studio Artes, Studio A began its existence as Studio Artists — a program for attendees of the supported studio to launch their careers as professional artists. This automatically created branding confusion.
Studio Artes realised the potential to create and scale this model and engaged Boccalatte and Social Ventures Australia to help them achieve this goal.
Image: Detail from Studio A mural ‘Love owls and mermaids singing in the rainbow pop’ commissioned by The Art Gallery of NSW. Image by Diana Panuccio/AGNSW.
Our colleagues at Social Ventures Australia’s conducted business strategy and developed a model for them to become a social investment enterprise.
In parallel, Boccalatte engaged stakeholders from Arts NSW and Studio Artists to focus the Studio A on its core purpose and to establish priorities to contribute to strategic goals.
We started, as we always do, by capturing the issues facing Studio Artists. This process allows stakeholders to explore wider organisational and logistical issues beyond the current project. It often reveals blindspots challenging current thinking. Through this exercise critical insights into income streams were uncovered. Including for example, the critical role of design and brand positioning to attract philanthropy.
We reviewed all issues looking for patterns and themes, resulting in consensus on three strategic challenges for the project: Clarify Brand and Communications; Improve Commercial Strength and Enhance Professional Pathways.
Using this new perspective and strategic imperatives, Boccalatte developed a scope of work ensuring 100% of the design investment contributed directly to Studio A’s strategic goals.
From strategy to reality
Boccalatte recommended renaming the enterprise as Studio A. This created brand clarity and designed a bold new identity to convey the brand’s personality. A means of shifting the conversation and telling the stories to promote the ability, not the disability.
We streamlined the web development budget by recommending the SquareSpace platform. This gave Studio A a scaleable solution for their marketing and also created opportunities for building commercial strength through the built-in e-commerce engine.
Studio A have asserted their position in the Arts Industry and gained a standing with industry bodies such as ArtsNSW. They are expanding their brand awareness, increasing reach and impact with a view to increasing social impact and becoming self-sustaining — and we look forward to supporting them to achieve this.
Studio A engaged us to create a pitch document to demonstrate how their artworks could be used for licensed products.