The Closet of the Greater Herndon Area

Situation
Summary background of the organization
The Closet is a community thrift shop that offers affordable clothing, furniture, and other apparel and equipment to low income individuals. By working with social services, The Closet is able to distribute much of their stock throughout the area, free of charge to the recipients. In addition to their storefront activities, the group reinvests any money leftover after overhead costs into local charitable organizations.

Obstacles
The communication challenges faced
The group sought to pursue local business with the hope of increasing the amount of donations to their store’s stock to serve more neighbors in need.

Design Response
The steps and solution taken by the CreateAThon design team
The design team began by creating a logo to symbolize their work. It is literally an opening closet door, but is intended to evoke the concept of doors opening to different facets of the community. A brochure was created to further define the group’s message to the target audience and included imagery of the store and its employees, adding a human face to the organization. The overall design features a clean and clear presentation of the information to allow the message to shine through.

The consultant worked with The Closet leadership to assess current problems and evaluate target audiences, messaging and marketing programs. After clarifying the different target audiences and current communication vehicles, the consultant recommended simple, low-budget, higher-frequency communication tools and shorter, more direct messaging to successfully reach the more upscale shopper and potential donor. Impactful, easy-to-execute changes in store layout and hours were suggested to improve the flow of traffic and encourage donors to shop the store. Proposed events were revamped to work within The Closet’s area of expertise and current resources, in order to increase effectiveness and resulting retail sales.

A note from our client
“We love it! We’ll use this everywhere we can, on trucks, on windows, everywhere. The brochure really reflects The Closet. This will impress people and draw attention. The Web site will prove to be a really valuable tool.” ---Laura Greenspan, President.