The Quad Cities Cultural Trust was created in 2007 by three major funders in the area to support local arts and culture nonprofits. Unrestricted grant dollars are distributed each year to six organizations — the Legacy Partners. The Trust has a bold vision to broaden its support, be a leading voice for the arts and make the region an arts and culture destination. Accomplishing that will require significant fundraising, but first, The Trust sought Amperage Marketing + Fundraising’s help with an update to its brand.

The client has an active board and a small staff who were looking for a true partner in this process, an agency that could offer guidance that their team could execute .

Our approach: We started with a brand refresh, offering recommendations on messaging architecture and brand identity, including refinement of its name to The Cultural Trust, which was how the community already thought of the organization. The brand identity was updated with a refined logo, a joint project between the client and Amperage, and a fresh palette.

We also assisted the small but mighty organization in creating the mountain of new marketing collateral, a brand video and media kits, all for the brand rollout. Amperage then provided a comprehensive communications strategy to guide their ongoing efforts for digital content, email, PR and social media.

The refreshed brand had a positive reception in the community, and The Cultural Trust further engaged Amperage to conduct a feasibility study on its behalf — the first step in fundraising.