OUTREACH DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
Beyond the Housing: Telling ODC’s Nonprofit Brand Story
Outreach Development Corporation (ODC) has long played a pivotal role in creating affordable housing opportunities and supporting families in need throughout the western Twin Cities suburbs. While their work was meaningful, their public-facing materials and visual identity did not fully reflect the organization’s professionalism or warmth.
What began as a video project grew into a broader partnership focused on strengthening awareness of ODC’s community impact and helping more people understand the heart behind its work.
Telling Story Through Video
The Outreach Development Organization first came to CEL with the idea of creating a longer video to introduce the organization and explain its work. Through the planning process, CEL helped reshape the concept into two shorter, more focused pieces: a brand anthem video and a story-centered video.
This approach gave ODC more flexibility in how they could share their story across platforms. The brand anthem provided a clear, memorable introduction to the organization’s mission, while the story-based video featuring LaDonna Hoy, ODC’s Community Engagement Director, brought a more personal perspective to the work. Together, the videos highlighted ODC’s leadership, care, and long history in the area.
In partnership with Motion Productions, CEL guided the video process from early concept through production, including storyboarding, scripting, interview planning, and coordinating with ODC stakeholders and community partners. The result was a pair of videos designed for maximum impact and helping viewers connect with the people and true purpose behind ODC.
Brand Refresh Rooted in Housing and Hope
As ODC’s story came into focus, CEL also worked with the organization to refresh the visual identity supporting it. The goal was not to reinvent ODC, but create a brand that felt more current and recognizable in the nonprofit space.
The refreshed identity kept teal as ODC’s grounding color, preserving a connection to its history. CEL added brighter accent colors for new energy and warmth to the palette, heling the brand feel more vibrant, welcoming, and current.
Housing imagery became central to the new logo and brand elements, creating a more obvious connection between ODC’s name, mission, and the communities it serves. By weaving the familiar “ODC” shorthand into a series of house forms, the logo transformed an internal shorthand into a more memorable symbol of connection and belonging.
"This is fabulous! It took a village, and we made it happen! Kudos to you and the team for all your hard work. I am very thankful—you are all rock stars!"
~LYNN GROLL, ODC DIRECTOR
Extending the Brand Beyond the Logo
To support the refreshed logo, CEL developed a complete visual system to help ODC’s brand feel cohesive across its new website, presentations, and outreach materials. A custom pattern inspired by homes and neighborhood shapes carried the idea of community beyond the logo, while supporting icons gave ODC flexible design elements to use throughout its communications.
Practical Tools for Outreach
ODC’s refreshed brand needed to work in everyday settings and across a wide range of audiences. As the organization regularly presents to community partners, donors, and other stakeholders, CEL created a set of practical materials to help ODC communicate with clarity:
- Presentation deck: A branded template for speaking engagements, board conversations, and community presentations.
- Flyer template: A flexible outreach tool for sharing updates, promoting initiatives, and communicating with partners.
- Letterhead: A polished foundation for official communication.
- Brand style sheet: A simple guide to help ODC apply the refreshed identity consistently.
Together, these tools gave ODC an easy way to carry the refreshed brand into its day-to-day outreach and community conversations.
A Website That Makes the Mission Clear
With the refreshed brand in place, CEL updated ODC’s website to better reflect the organization’s work and improve how people find and understand it online. The process began with an audit of the existing site, focusing on accessibility, search visibility, user experience, and content clarity.
For ODC, the answer wasn’t a new platform. It was a more thoughtful approach to the site they already had, with updated visuals, clearer navigation, and warmer, more direct messaging. Geographic references to ODC’s housing communities in the western Twin Cities suburbs were added to support local search, while new history and news sections gave the organization space to share ongoing updates, partnerships, and future work.
A Public Presence That Reflects the Mission
What began as a single video project became a more complete storytelling system for ODC. Across the refreshed brand, video storytelling, website updates, and outreach materials, CEL helped the organization build a public presence that better reflected the care, purpose, and community impact behind its work.
The result gave ODC more than a new look—it created a stronger foundation for the organization to share its mission, connect with partners, and help more people understand the role ODC plays in creating affordable housing opportunities throughout the western Twin Cities suburbs.
