The Consilience Group

THE CONSILIENCE GROUP

Overview

Consilience Group LLC, a women-owned consultancy based in Memphis, Tennessee, is dedicated to organizational transformation and providing equitable, people-centered services. The firm works extensively with public, non-profit, and philanthropic organizations across various social sectors at local, state, and national levels. As consultants, our three-month engagement focused on creating strategies to increase revenue by improving their branding and marketing, overhauling their social media tactics, and considering the development of a membership-based platform or toolkit. The firm's goal is to secure larger, long-term contracts and expand its influence

My Role

User Research

Brand diagnostic workshop facilitation

Co-creation workshop facilitation

Branding strategy

Timeline

10 weeks

Client Reach

Consilience group engages their stakeholders through human-centered design methods. They ground all their services in a Socio-Ecological Framework: Their system designs are shaped by the system of Care values and principles that create reliable ways for people to get individualized, person-driven services by working together across multiple providers and systems to use data-driven, culturally-sensitive service collaborations.

Brand Presence

After conducting a search of Consilience Group's presence on multiple platforms, we found that their offerings were only listed on a few websites. It appears that the messaging regarding their offerings, past clients, and overall influence lacks specificity and clarity.

Problem Statement

How do we envision growing the Consilience Group by expanding its brand, marketing, social media presence, and a (yet-to-be) designed platform/toolkit while adhering to the core principles of its ethos?

Brand Diagnostic Workshop

With key stakeholders who have been asked to participate, the brand diagnostics workshop addresses specific problems, difficulties, or possibilities and offers short-, medium-, and long-term solutions.

The major goal is to have "all-in," feel more connected, and activate the strategic action plan rather than just giving approval or buying into a proposal that has already been created by another department or an outside organization.

1.Pains, Gains, Dreams, Nightmares Activity

Finding out what we know, what we think we know— and what we don’t is the heart of the brand diagnostics workshop. Gains, Pains, Questions & Ideas is a simple feedback grid adapted from the IBM Design Thinking Field Guide that allows teams to gauge the status of any particular subject or project in progress.

2.Brand DNA

In the brand DNA exercise, participants were prompted to generate a list of descriptive terms that best encapsulate their brand, followed by a group discussion to determine a consensus on the top three terms.

This activity aimed to foster an understanding and visualization of diverse perspectives and perceptions that individuals hold towards the brand.

3.Blue Ocean Strategy

The blue ocean strategy helps in doing a general analysis of the top 5 of Consilience Group's competitors in the market.
It is based on 10 performance indicators that are marked on the X -axis.
According to the secondary and primary research, 10 performance indicators are :

Human centered design
Social impact
Social media strategy
Empathy
Strategic planning
Employment
Marketing
Client retention
Growth
Collaborations/Partnerships

Value Pillar & Insights

After extracting the sticker summary and classifying the focused activities based on the repetition rate, we came up with three directions and opportunities for CG for future development, and conceived an implementable approach

Opportunity Area

The findings from the Co-creation Workshop and the Brand Diagnostic Workshop revealed the two key opportunity areas: Impact creation (Social Media, Branding) and Revenue generation (Marketing, Platform/toolkit).

Branding: Enhance brand identity with consistent language

Marketing: Devise collaboration strategies to position as the organization as a SME

Social Media: Develop an action plan for social media through a content calendar and sample posts highlighting milestones and successes.

The Solution : Brand Strategy

Our analysis revealed a significant inconsistency in the application of the existing brand language. To address this, we consolidated the brand language into a single document and made subtle enhancements to boost its visual appeal. By streamlining the brand language and establishing clear guidelines, we aim to forge a strong brand identity that resonates with our target audience, thereby increasing brand recognition, fostering customer loyalty, and driving business success.

Design Toolkit : Designers must learn everything from creation to profitability for success. A design toolkit can aid designers or a team with an all-inclusive list of vetted industry design tricks and more.

A social media toolkit is a 'how to' guide for the social media strategy that provides clients with the basic knowledge and resources needed to ace CG social media campaigns. It includes CG necessary tools, social media content calendar, case studies, post templates, and more.

A content toolkit provides support materials for every stage of the content lifecycle and can help create resonating content for CG's audience. It aids in strategic content decisions, ethical standards, and improving content success.

Brand Guidelines

Marketing

We analyzed McKinsey & Company, a consulting firm that has effectively leveraged collaborations and partnerships to enhance its marketing strategy and increase its impact and revenue model.

We then identified five primary channels to prioritize on enhanced collaboration and partnership opportunities. The strategy aims to facilitate collaboration and partnerships to aid the company in broadening its offerings, accessing new markets, and establishing a reputation as a socially responsible enterprise.