As you may have heard, we emerged earlier this year from a soup-to-nuts strategic redesign of our programs, inner processes, staffing alignment and logo. Identity work guided by Portland-based Smith & Connors has helped ensure that a new website (to be unveiled in late November) draws directly from our mission and values to be more clear, more transparent and more responsive, and our new aspirational logo reflects Meyer's commitment to equity, openness, action and this state of Oregon we call home.
What's coming soon: an interim website where functionality and clarity guide design; new program details reflecting the input of stakeholders, grantees and partners; and several new hires, bringing the total number of new staffers and fellows at Meyer since April to ten.
But let’s go back in time a few decades. We started as the Fred Meyer Charitable Trust in 1982. Our logo was just our name, in a solid-looking serif font. In the mid-1990s, we changed our name to Meyer Memorial Trust, kept the font style and added a wine-colored background. Then a dozen years ago, we introduced a red and white logo with three triangles, shadows of the M’s in our name, and Futura typeface. We have sported that bold, modern, patchwork logo ever since. It has served us well but as Meyer grew and evolved, the logo began to feel two-dimensional, a little sharp-edged and kind of inscrutable. In short, our logo no longer captured or conveyed what Fred Meyer’s foundation had become.
With our program redesign, we thought the time was ripe for a fresh look. You may see a ribbon. Ticker tape. A wave. When I look at the logo, I see movement, upward mobility and hope. It makes me think of equity.
From its colors – a nod to Oregon's waterways and forests – to the swell of the M shape, our new look is deliberate, thoughtful and welcoming. That's who we aspire to be, and who you’ll meet when Meyer ends our working hiatus and reopens grantmaking under our redesigned programs: a foundation that is determined to move the needle on affordable housing, education and the environment, and within the state’s nonprofit sector. We aim to make Oregon flourishing and equitable for all of us.
Stay tuned for the soft rollout of highlights about our new programing before the year ends, and more details early next year. The full schematics of how to apply and where we are focusing funding will be announced by the end of the first quarter of 2016. Turns out real change takes time. We appreciate the input and feedback we've gotten so far – nearly 1,000 stakeholders from all corners of the state. We’ll be updating you on that process in December. And stay tuned for the next step outlining our grantmaking and related program strategies.
– Doug