Volunteer: Brand Style Guide Development

Overview

This is a volunteer opportunity provided by Taproot Foundation, a nonprofit creating social change through pro bono connections. We’re looking for a volunteer with a strong eye for branding to help us create a clear, practical Brand Style Guide that captures who we are and helps us show up consistently across everything we do. Right now, our materials get the message across, but they don’t fully reflect the heart behind our work.

We want our brand to feel warm and grounded without being heavy-handed. Our mission is to remove financial barriers so middle and high school students in low-income communities around the Houston metro area can stay connected to their school activities, build confidence, discipline, and a real community. We want our look and voice to match that heart.

• Start with a conversation to understand our story, values, and how we want to come across.
• Review what we currently have (logo, colors, fonts, website language, photos) and suggest thoughtful improvements that feel true to us.
• Create a simple, easy-to-use Brand Style Guide that includes:
  • A defined color palette
  • Font recommendations for headlines, body text, and accents
  • Clear logo usage guidance (we have a basic logo and are open to refinements)
  • Tone of voice and messaging guidance, with examples
  • Image and photo guidance that emphasizes real moments and authenticity
  • A few light examples of how the brand shows up (social post, email header, donation message)

• The final deliverable would be a practical document (PDF or shared doc) that we can hand to anyone helping with our website, social media, donor communications, or printed materials, so everything looks and feels consistent without us starting from scratch each time.
• Timeline: we believe this project can be completed in 4–5 weeks with weekly virtual check-ins on Zoom.
• We will provide photos, existing language, inspiration examples, and timely feedback to keep things moving.

We’re a small, responsive team and will provide photos, existing language, inspiration examples, and timely feedback to keep things moving. This project will help us live out our mission more clearly and consistently by giving our organization a strong, unified brand that reflects the heart behind our work. A well-defined Brand Style Guide will help us communicate who we are, what we stand for, and why our work matters, across our website, donor outreach, social media, and community materials.

With clearer branding and a more intentional voice, we’ll be better positioned to connect with donors, churches, schools, and community partners who want to support students but need to clearly understand the impact of their support. This means more trust, stronger relationships, and increased support for our programs. Most importantly, this project directly supports the students we serve. Stronger branding helps us reach more people who can help remove financial barriers for middle and high school students, allowing them to stay involved in school activities like sports, band, and other extracurriculars.

When students can participate, they build confidence, discipline, and a sense of belonging that stays with them well beyond the school year.

We’ve taken time to prepare, so this project is focused, collaborative, and set up for real success. Our leadership team is fully aligned on the need for clearer, more consistent branding, and we’re ready to move forward. We’ve already gathered key materials the volunteer will need, including access to our current website and branding assets, approved photos, draft language for our mission and impact, and examples of brands and nonprofit work we admire.

We have a clear understanding of our audiences—families, donors, schools, churches, and community partners—and can share thoughtful insight during kickoff conversations to help guide branding decisions. We also know what we’re looking for from this project: a practical Brand Style Guide that reflects our faith-inspired values and can be used across our website, donor communications, and outreach materials. From a working standpoint, we’re responsive and committed partners.

We’ll review work promptly, provide clear and honest feedback, attend scheduled check-ins, and respect agreed-upon timelines. We value the volunteer’s expertise and see this as a true partnership, not a one-way task list.

You Can Skate, Inc. Mission:
To help students stay connected to their school activities by removing financial barriers to participation.