Case Studies.

In 2014, PTS developed the Church Planting Initiative to plant new faith-based communities. However, as the initiative developed, PTS realized that they needed to generate a new name for this initiative in order to accurately represent and advance what they had built for the community.

As they dove into the project, they realized that they were experiencing difficulty thinking about the organization from the community’s perspective and needed a way to reflect on who they were and who they wanted to be from a different viewpoint. They looked to TrailBlaze to guide them through the process of discovering their full potential.

TrailBlaze went to work determining the best way to guide them through the process, starting with the recommendation to put together a diverse core focus group that would help determine the new name for the initiative. In taking TrailBlaze’s advice, PTS chose a diverse group of individuals, each of whom impacted the result of the entire project

Through a human centered design process, TrailBlaze facilitated conversations to delve into the benefits of the program, what the group’s hesitations were, and how they could grow and progress to help better their community. The diverse voices that were included in the project led to dialogue that was productive and fruitful due to the unique perspectives each individual brought to the table. The conversations centered around an internal assessment, an external assessment, and a verbal identity session. During the internal assessment, the group analyzed their strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities as an organization and dove into the core of the work the initiative strived for and the student relationships it fosters. The external assessment allowed the group to discuss their core audience through an empathy map in order to identify what prospective students were feeling and looking for when they looked at different programs. They discussed what aspects of their initiative would attract prospective students and identified that their core audience valued trust in the process of shared learning. This conclusion led the group to identify the why behind their initiative and aided in the generation of the initiative’s new name.

TrailBlaze then guided PTS to the generation and creation of their new name. With exploration of the program internally and externally, the project team turned its focus to words that describe the program. This was to begin to narrow the focus on critical aspects of the program. The team explored words that prospective students use to search for the program, outputs of the program, and community inputs. The TrailBlaze team began to iterate on a name that encompasses some of the same themes that were identified throughout PTS’s discussions, keying in on three words that seemed to have the largest impact among the group: “Innovation,” “Community,” and “Church.”

Through careful consideration, the group identified “Center for Adaptive and Innovative Ministry” as a representative new name for the initiative. TrailBlaze then helped the internal communications team develop a new brand for the center so they could adequately identify themselves to their community and prospective students.

The diverse group of voices that PTS called upon truly made an impact in the ability to develop a representative and inclusive name for PTS’s initiative that rings with a positive connotation throughout the city of Pittsburgh and beyond.