Facilitate a naming and branding process for the Friends of Rhode Island Main Street Task Force who are working to create a new Business Improvement District (BID) in DC's Brentwood, Edgewood, Brookland, Rhode Island Ave.NE, 12th Street NE and Catholic University neighborhoods.
The Challenge: Bring multiple stakeholder groups including community leaders, property owners and business owners together to strategize and agree upon on how to name, brand and position these distinct neighborhoods as one and garner support for the formation of DC's newest BID.
In an attempt to figure out where the proposed new BID would "fit" into DC's BID network, we looked at a map of all of the other BID's and their branding in order to quickly assess their relative size, operating budgets and branding (names, positioning and visual identity).
Working together with John Stover & Associates, Michael Altman led the Task Force consisting of community leaders, property owners and business owners through an initial exercise designed to uncover some of the more compelling character attributes of the collective neighborhoods.
The Outcome: Finally we worked through a structured naming process, asking ourselves whether the BID name would primarily be geographic, historic or experiential in nature, or just be purely invented...or something else? Ultimately, the group came to consensus and decided to present itself for the moment as the Greater Brookland BID. It is presently working through next steps to gather the necessary signatures required in the process of formally petitioning to establish the BID.
