Fundraising consultancy Bentz Whaley Flessner was a company built by industry pioneers during a time when it could gain market share based solely on the expertise and reputations of its principals. Success was measured on the ability to close sales and bill hours, and the company established itself as one of the premiere fundraising consultancies by working this sales-centric model—but along the way, they forgot the value of developing their brand.

Today, fundraising is big business. A new generation of philanthropic leaders looks to fundraising consultancies to help them advance their institutional missions via panoramic thought leadership, multidisciplinary methodologies and data-supported decision science—and while competitors may be able to speak to these demands, Bentz Whaley Flessner had the opportunity to be brand that actually solves for them.

To this end, we partnered with BWF to evolve their brand strategy in a way that reflected the not only the consultancy’s new leadership, but also their commitment to modern, dynamic and visionary expansion of their legacy in pioneering industry practices.

At its core, the new brand (and newly shortened name, BWF) is the expression of the cultural transformation from a group of individual people ruled by one perspective to a unified team guided by the same methodology (the BWF Way) and dedicated to empowering the next practices of essential philanthropy.

This project included strategic research, stakeholder interviews, naming, logo and manifesto.