Non-Profit – Award Winning Brand

Client: MicroCredit-NH
Principal: Linda Fanaras
Account Manager: Abigail Burton
Creative Director: Craig Spara
Production: Paige Moody
Website: MicroCredit-NH

MicroCredit-NH, a non-profit business development program of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, is the only statewide provider of both loans and business education for small businesses with one to five employees, known as microenterprises. Microenterprises make up more than 87% of New Hampshire businesses, and are integral to the state’s economy. With a mission to strengthen the sustainability and profitability of New Hampshire’s microenterprises, MicroCredit-NH supplies loans from $500 to $15,000, business training, and networking opportunities to entrepreneurs across industries.

Founded in 1996 and inspired by the Nobel Prize-winning Grameen Bank model, MicroCredit-NH serves business owners through a system of local business groups throughout the state. It also offers alternative membership levels for individuals unable to attend group meetings. MicroCredit-NH members have access to a Members Only website for business tutorials and online networking, special business development conferences, and a variety of online and offline solutions to boost the success of their marketing efforts. Specialized educational and loan programs for artists, dairy farmers, and North Country entrepreneurs are also available.

The Challenge:

As the only widely marketed, statewide retail program of the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, MicroCredit-NH relied heavily on free media and guerilla marketing tactics to build its membership, community partner alliances, and funding opportunities. However, the program did not have a recognizable brand to help connect its many services (including business group meetings, workshops open to the public, office hours, and program orientations) and the regional manager staff that delivered them statewide. MicroCredit-NH sought Millennium’s assistance to lead a program rebrand; to include a newly designed program logo that would resonate with members and partners, as well as an accompanying identity package, website redesign, and marketing collaterals to build strong brand recognition.

Evaluation & Research Conducted:

MicroCredit-NH is a member of the Association for Enterprise Opportunity, the national association for microenterprise development organizations. As an important national and statewide advocate for microenterprises, it was critical that MicroCredit-NH’s logo be fresh and unique, like the variety of services the program provides its membership.

To ensure that MicroCredit-NH would have a distinct brand, Millennium researched the logos of other national, regional, and statewide business development organizations. This assisted Millennium in identifying commonalities among these images to avoid, as well as opportunities to creatively utilize design elements and color to launch an attractive, cohesive, and engaging brand for the program.

At the conclusion of its research, Millennium recommended a two-phase approach to the project, with the first phase to include logo, tagline, and overall brand development. To ensure proper brand saturation in the market, the second phase would consist of an integrated marketing campaign designed and facilitated by MicroCredit-NH/New Hampshire Community Loan Fund marketing staff, with execution support from Millennium.

The Solution:

MicroCredit-NH expressed the desire to look progressive and above-the-curve with its new brand identity. Millennium designed a series of 8-10 logos that ranged from traditional to contemporary in style, and MicroCredit-NH tested them in focus groups that consisted of New Hampshire Community Loan Fund co-workers, MicroCredit-NH members, and community partners. The results of the focus groups overwhelmingly favored a crisp, modern logo that alludes to the growth of microenterprises through MicroCredit-NH’s support. The logo’s contemporary shades of blue and green were striking selections that elicited a strong majority of positive reactions.

The new logo served as a springboard for MicroCredit-NH’s identity package, which Millennium designed and produced. The package includes letterhead, envelopes, business cards, posters, pocket folders, mailing labels, a PowerPoint master slide presentation, electronic letterhead, e-mail footers, electronic data sheets, note cards, interactive PDFs for business training purposes, and training binder covers. These materials unify the new brand by creating consistency across MicroCredit-NH’s online and offline touch points. Previously a significant challenge to the program, standardized branding throughout MicroCredit-NH’s materials and electronic communications immediately proved to increase client, prospect, community partner, and funder response rates. It also served to elevate MicroCredit-NH’s professional reputation as one of the major business development partners in the region.

For the second phase of the project, MicroCredit-NH’s in-house marketing staff worked closely with Millennium to strategize an integrated marketing campaign. The goal was to roll-out the new brand in a manner that incorporated all of MicroCredit-NH’s online and offline messaging. Millennium rebranded MicroCredit-NH’s existing web site with a sleek, modern, and entrepreneurial style inspired by the look and feel of the program’s new logo. As an event-centric organization, MicroCredit-NH also needed professional materials to promote itself at conferences, trade shows, and expos. Millennium designed several sizes of event banners for these purposes, as well as a sidewinder – a portable, vertical roller banner stand. MicroCredit-NH staff reports the sidewinder is the eye-catching draw to its booth at every trade show and conference in which it participates.

Additionally, Millennium created new program brochures and postcards for MicroCredit-NH’s marketing staff to strategically disseminate to its various stakeholders. These final pieces of the rebranding project were integral to the effectiveness of MicroCredit-NH’s offline marketing solutions. The brochures include professional photographs and stories of member entrepreneurs across the state and the unique ways they used MicroCredit-NH to grow their businesses. These are delivered and mailed to banks, libraries, employment support programs, community resource centers, among many other locations, to pique interest in the program. The postcards were created to be internally tailored to upcoming events, making them versatile both state- and program-wide for the program’s various direct mailings.

MicroCredit-NH’s new brand effectively represents the scope and variety of business development services MicroCredit-NH provides its members. Its distinctiveness and wide appeal, accompanied by a strategic and comprehensive integrated marketing campaign, have proved successful in attracting new members, increasing enrollment in MicroCredit-NH program orientations and business development conferences, and improving relations with the media, community partners, and funders. MicroCredit-NH’s innovative new brand continues to improve the program’s marketability and professional image. Notably, Millennium was awarded an International Summit Creative Award for its high-quality rebranding work with MicroCredit-NH.