The Volunteer Action Centre (VAC) has been serving Waterloo Region for almost 40 years, providing connections and leadership to support the development of individuals and organizations through volunteerism. They were actively involved in the Region’s pandemic response, and have since been reenvisioning their priorities and services to address what volunteering will look like going forward.

We started with some stakeholder outreach to get a wide range of authentic perspectives on how partners, funders, staff, and volunteers view the organization. We uncovered a lot of meaningful insights, and there was a lot of positive feedback about VAC and the important work it’s doing. There were strong feelings uncovered about the overall potential of the organization and its ability to evolve to meet emerging needs in the community. Participants also reached a general consensus that VAC should strive to increase its awareness and recognition within the broader community, which involved addressing it’s organizational identity and external perception.

As part of that perception shift, we wanted to establish a more clearly-defined brand identity that would help increase visibility and appeal to new potential partners and funders. They decided to move from Volunteer Action Centre to Volunteer Waterloo Region, and we helped them to develop a fresh new visual brand to go along with it. They’ve always been a leader and innovator in their local social service sector, and felt that they needed to update their look and feel to demonstrate that.