Transforming a visionary brand to propel the work of change makers and deepen their social impact
Benefolk
Benefolk, formerly The Xfactor Collective, is an Australian professional services intermediary focused on the social sector. They connect not-for-profits, charities and impact-focussed businesses to the very best professional services and resources, with a vision to eradicate change maker burnout. To support their impact goals, they decided to rebrand, which included a new name, new brand identity, refreshed business model and operating model.
Brand strategy and research
Name development
Brand creative and ID
Web design
Key messaging
Copywriting
The work
The Xfactor Collective was founded in 2018 by Julia Keady, whose vision was to look at new ways to reduce burnout in the social sector. The first stage was to bring together Australia’s leading consultants and professional services in a collaborative network and make it easier for organisations to find expertise and support. Alongside this, the organisation innovated a number of new ways of accessing support that did not exist in the sector and set up its own charity arm to help achieve the mission.
After a 5-year ‘pilot’ where 300 organisations accessed professional support, 9000 accessed free resources, and Xfactor was able to put changemaker wellbeing on the map, the opportunity to scale the impact became too compelling to ignore, and the work to rename and rebrand the collective began.
“The challenge was to find a new name that was workable around some significant trademark restrictions in the industry, that also embodied the essence of the business”, explains Darren Taylor, our MD & Head of Strategy and Research. “Their primary purpose is to eradicate changemaker burnout and to provide a community of talented, like-minded aligned specialists to support changemakers at critical moments, and this work needed to deeply respond to that”.
The new name – Benefolk – does just that. “Bene reflects the many good things associated with our sector – such as benefit, benefactor, and benevolent – while folk speaks to the wonderful people who make up the sector.
The impact
The name change and rebrand were distinctive and doubled down on Benefolk’s key differentiation – that they are of the sector and for the sector. The new brand ID was also designed to be distinctive from the big 4 and other management consulting companies. The objective was to create a name and brand that consultant members, clients and partners would all be proud to stand alongside. We also needed to express the essence of that new brand with visual work that communicated the organisation’s professionalism and presented a deeply united offering to the community it represents.
The process over 12 months involved consultation with all stakeholders, including the HQ team, consultants, clients and partners. This included concept testing of the name and brand identity. Because it’s been a very collaborative community, it’s been important to take a co-design approach, and the feedback received at those points helped shape the result. The result of that co-design process was that it really galvanised excitement about the future of the organisation. It was something people really wanted to be part of.
