National Immigration project

introduction

Partnering through Shared Core Values

National Immigration Project (NIP) protects the rights of all, including noncitizens entangled within the criminal justice system, victims of government abuse and misconduct, and those facing summary removal.

NIP approached rootid with a new strategic vision and a recognition that their brand and the organizational name needed a refresh to reflect their vision for the future. This included fresh messaging, a new visual identity, a new organizational name and a new website to support their membership base.

As a membership organization, it was important to bring members into the design process to ensure that the entire community contributed and felt a sense of ownership around the process.

renaming a national organization

A Name that Reflects that Community it Serves

The original organizational name, National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, presented a challenge. It connected the organization to a well-respected and nationally known group, the National Lawyers Guild.

However, during research we also heard that because it was so long, very few people made that connection. The name also didn’t capture the energy and passion behind the community.

As a nationally recognized membership organization we needed to be careful about the renaming process. It was important to keep a connection to the past while also creating a name that reflected the community and the vision of the organization.

rootid and NIP worked together to create an education and listening process that created a community-centric approach to the process. Members and key stakeholders participated in a series of workshops and town halls that elevated the voices and ideas of the community.

The final name, National Immigration Project, put the immigrant community front and center. The tagline helped to showcase the passion and energy behind the organization: “Lawyers for the movement.”

logo refresh

Stakeholder Input Drives Logo Redesign

Once the renaming process was completed, rootid set out to rebuild the visual identity and organizational messaging.

The goals of the refresh process were to keep ties to the original identity but add new energy and apply a more current aesthetic. The new logo represents National Immigration Project’s expertise in law and justice, legitimacy in the courtroom, while giving space for the spirit of activism.

Through a series of feedback sessions, rootid narrowed the initial logo concepts. To maintain the connection with the original organization name, the final logo is not a total redesign but a visual refresh with brighter, energetic hues compared to the original palette. The typography was updated to feel more current and intentional, while still maintaining a bold, solid personality.

key brand messaging

Giving the Brand a Voice that Resonates with a Community

With the visual logo developed, rootid moved to the development of brand messaging.

During our research process, our team developed a set of target audience profiles. These profiles focused on the driving values that connected these audience segments to the organization. Based on those connections, our messaging team developed a set of key messages for each target audience.

The messaging was revised and finalized through a series of message testing sessions with representative stakeholders.

This messaging was later utilized in our content strategy process as we developed the website content.

Website content Strategy

Organizing and Restructuring a Existing Website

Utilizing the key messaging developed during the branding phase, rootid’s team continued building a digital content strategy grounded in community research.

rootid helped NIP create a site navigational structure for members to find events, resources and the latest news. Our content strategy team also focused on site entry points and how to move new site visitors to conversion points to increase membership and event attendance.

Drupal 9 web development

Making Complex Web Pages Easy to Create and Manage – No Code Necessary!

rootid builds Drupal editing experiences that are intuitive and easy to use. With a custom administrative interface, NIP site editors could make simple visual changes to the website without any code!

With a simple drag and drop experience, editors can move content around the page and create dynamic interfaces that have been proven to increase user engagement and improve mobile experience.

advanced website search

Building a More Robust Resource Search Engine

Some of the most valuable content on the NIP website are the resources they provide for free. rootid’s designed and developed a robust search interface for NIP site users so they could search and filter for specific resources to support their legal work.

For NIP, we created a simple editing interface that made categorizing and publishing resources really simple to do.

Search engine optimization (SEO)

Leveraging Topic Expertise to Increase Website Traffic

During the discovery process, rootid identified that the resources section of the NIP website was a huge opportunity to attract new visitors to the website. Individuals who were searching for specific legal documents that covered these specific topics were likely targets to become NIP members.

We felt one of the best ways to generate more of these users on the site, was to move important content that previously lived in PDF’s onto the NIP webpages. This allowed search engines to index and surface the NIP site in search results.  As traffic built in the resource section of the website, we started to see more opportunities to convert users into members.