The Sparrows
- Naming
- Core Messaging
- Visual Identity
- Graphic Design
- Website Design & Development
Where families find their people
The Sparrows walks with adoptive and foster families before placement, through the first year home, and into the seasons no one warns you about.
Founded in 2011 by Mark and Kelly Raudenbush and based in Eastern Pennsylvania, The Sparrows now serves families across the country.
The challenge
After fifteen years, The Sparrows had grown from one family into a mature organization with a program families apply to and wait for, a clinical practice, and a retreat couples have returned to nearly every year since 2012. The public presence did not reflect the fullness of their work.
The previous name, The Sparrow Fund, gave people the impression that they were focused on grantmaking rather than the relational care their team actually provides. The website had been built for who they were when their organization was founded, not who they had become.
They had also been working toward launching a capital campaign. That raised the stakes on a specific gap: the distance between what the team on the ground knew about their work and what a first-time donor could see from the outside.
A shorter name that sounds like the work
The team landed on The Sparrows. Their Executive Director, Kelly, put it to her own community this way: “For years, we’ve been The Sparrow Fund. Starting now, we’re The Sparrows.”
They are the same organization, with a clearer name, and a visual identity and website they are proud of.
Our approach
Our team focuses on messaging first, so we talked to their leaders about the importance of establishing clarity in their messaging before anything was designed.
We worked with them to map how the organization actually works, from the families it serves to how the work is funded. Those findings anchored everything that followed. The engagement moved in distinct phases, from messaging to visual identity to a completely redesigned website.
Naming
We tested the strongest options against two real moments: a major gift conversation and a first call from an overwhelmed parent. The word Fund struggled in both. It named a foundation that writes checks rather than a team that sits with families. The organization became The Sparrows.
Core Messaging
A full messaging guide covering vision and mission statements, core values, brand voice, problem and solution statements, program descriptions, positioning and target audiences, brand narrative, and elevator pitch. Anyone on the team can draw from it, from the executive director to a first-year staff member.
Visual Identity
A refreshed logo built around a bird icon, with lockups for print and digital use, a warm color palette, and typography pairings, all documented in a brand guide. Letterhead, a slide template, and other collateral carried the new look into daily use.
Web Design and Development
A new WordPress site at thesparrows.place with a page builder the team maintains on its own, a mobile-first layout, and a vetted set of plugins.
Brand Messaging
Liminal worked with their team to understand who they are, what they do, and why it matters. The result was a comprehensive messaging guide the whole team can reference and draw from, so their communications are clear and compelling, whether they come from the executive director or a first-year staff member.
Vision. We envision a world filled with families where each person can grow, heal past hurts, and experience hope together.
Mission. We walk closely with adoptive and foster families to strengthen the relationships that carry children and their grownups forward.
Their messaging framework includes:
- Vision, and mission statements
- Core values
- Tagline and brand voice
- Problem and solution statements
- Program and service descriptions
- Positioning and target audiences
- Brand narrative and elevator pitch
- A lexicon of words the organization uses and avoids
A website built to communicate with the families The Sparrows serves
They named what the new site had to accomplish.
- Help a family understand the Family Care Program and apply it in one sitting
- Explain the clinical services without clinical language
- Make clear who Together Called is for and how to register
- Give donors an honest picture of where their giving goes
Left: the previous homepage at the start of the engagement. Right: thesparrows.place today.
Other pages from the new site
The Outcome
The Sparrows now has a name that aligns with their work, a messaging guide the whole team can use, and a site live at thesparrows.place with matching email accounts.
The materials match the quality of the care. That matters most for what comes next. The Sparrows is now poised for a capital campaign with a story any team member can tell and tools a donor can trust.
A brand that represents the work
“When our website went live, I felt intensely proud. I feel intimately involved with the content and the shaping of it, and there’s not a single section that I’m not confident IN and proud of. It’s the first time in 15 years that I feel good about how we explain our programs. I’ve never been able to articulate it clearly, and now I can. It feels like us now. I feel like it’s a work of art. It’s beautiful. I love it.”
Kelly Raudenbush
Executive Director, The Sparrows
Let’s work together
If your programs are stronger than your story, that is a fixable problem.