United States Artists (USA) is an L.A.-based artist-advocacy nonprofit supporting America’s finest artists across a variety of disciplines. Every year through its USA Fellows program, USA donates $50,000 apiece to 50 artists in the form of unrestricted grants — more than $12 million since 2008. For the first five years of its existence, USA relied upon a core of private foundations for its financial support.
In 2010, as part of its growth and ambitious vision, it hired DISTINC to create a massive web portal where everyday people could make donations of any size to certain artists’ projects. USA’s timing was ideal: the success of the 2008 U.S. Presidential fundraising campaign and success of sites like Facebook had proven the viability of mass-donation and social networking models, and USA was eager to expand its microfunding possibilities while at the same time appeal to a wider demographic.
UNCOVERING THE ESSENCE OF A BRAND
Tasked with creating a name, a distinct URL, and a brand identity for the initiative — all of which needed to necessarily complement and enhance the existing USA brand — DISTINC began by conducting “better understanding” interviews with key USA players. The research allowed DISTINC’s team to intimately know their client’s needs. “Our naming, positioning, and branding recommendations stemmed from these findings,” explains creative director Jean-Marc Durviaux. “We thought, ‘why create something entirely new when we can naturally build upon something USA already has?’”
One key lay in a close reading of both halves of USA’s mission statement: to invest in America’s finest artists and to illuminate the value of artists to society. DISTINC found USA had, over time, successfully focused on the first half while not fully embracing the second. This “and” became a key component DISTINC used to build consensus internally on what strategies to adopt. The recommended name, USA Projects, reflected a natural and consistent evolution for USA. It mirrored the tag for the group’s successful philanthropy investment program — USA Fellows — even as USA Projects illuminated specific works-in-progress and the artists working to create them. Collaborating with USA’s board, staff, and developer partners, DISTINC integrated the new initiative seamlessly into the existing site, designing a massive, scalable property whose architecture, interface, and visual language would appeal to artists and donors — the “&” — and whose brand identity was true to its lineage.
FROM ARTISTS’ PROJECTS TO AMAZING POSSIBILITIES
USA Projects is now fully integrated into UnitedStatesArtists.com, and fundable artworks by USA Fellows and invited artists receive support and attention from thousands of art lovers — a single community reflecting both halves of USA’s mission. Since its launch, the site has already raised close to $1 million in individual donations. Its interface and visual language, all but invisible to users, proves DISTINC’s ability to architect an organization’s successful online venture while celebrating the fullness of its philanthropic mission.
