Future Foundation: Building a Brand for a National University

Over the past 70 years, FEMA’s Emergency Management Institute (EMI) has trained millions of Americans in emergency management, disaster and crisis response. When they brought in my team in 2023, EMI needed to position itself for the future–expand its target audience, embrace emerging technologies, adapt to changing threats, and promote strategic collaborations–by conceptualizing and developing a new, national-level emergency management university. 

EMI brought my team in to perform a methodological assessment of a proposed new name for a university, one that would include the current EMI, to inform how best to position a future preeminent academic and training organization for emergency management professionals. What they got was much more. 

Our Work

Over the course of 4 months, we helped design the visual identity (logo, style, and design systems) and the brand language for the National Disaster & Emergency Management University (NDEMU).

Our work broadly involved:

• Deep research and literature review on FEMA and EMI's history, reputation, and challenges
• Exploratory workshops and multiple focus groups with emergency management thought leaders to gather qualitative and quantitative data
• We also performed a market analysis to validate key findings in the exploratory workshop and focus groups
• Building a framework for assessing the current and alternative names or brand identities, and process mapping to support the final naming decision
• Designing  logo treatments, color palettes, brand hierarchies within FEMA's style guide
• Developing brand language: mission, vision, service description, pillars, and value statement
• A comprehensive activation roadmap to launch the University. 

  NDEMU launched in September 2024 (with a slightly updated logo) as a national-level institution to train, educate, and prepare the next generation of emergency management professionals. Our work helped lay the foundation for future marketing opportunities to drive enrollment, promote hallmark courses and trainings, open new doors for partnerships, and enhance the reputations of both EMI and FEMA–institutions that collectively train over 1 million individuals annually.   Check out the image gallery below to see the visual assets, brand langauge, and audience personas we created.

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