Canada’s first gay charitable organization is entering a new era.
The Ottawa non-profit formerly known as Pink Triangle Services was rebranded as Kind over the summer, after trying to change looks for the last few years.
“At the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015 everything was aligning and we knew it was time to go all in,” says Carling Miller, executive director of Kind.
The opportunity to rebrand was provided by Stiff, an Ottawa based communications agency. Stiff holds the contest Brand Zero, which offers local charities a chance to spread their message with a stronger brand.
James Hanington, CEO of Stiff, says that PTS was the unanimous choice among Brand Zero finalists.
“That gave us a real sense of the appetite for normalizing what a lot of people are going through, and that we could actually play a big part in doing that,” says Hanington.
Kind was chosen as the name because of the many different kinds of people that the organization represents.
“Mankind, womankind, humankind, every kind,” Hanington says. “If only we were kind to each other.”
The name is stylized with an asterisk (as *Kind) to represent a person’s omitted information, showing that there is more to people than just their name.
Miller says the opportunity to collaborate with Stiff and see her organization from an outsider’s perspective was an amazing and grounding experience.
” Because we are also members of the communities it can sometimes be difficult to see things objectively and to be really honest with ourselves. They provided a mirror and helped us dig deep into a lot of uncomfortable places with our previous brand.”
The fact that Kind does not represent a singular group of people presented an enormous challenge for Hanington and his staff.
“When you think of it from a branding perspective, we had to come up with an identity for an organization whose very mission is to nullify the idea of identity.”
Hanington says that they set out in creating a brand that would not focus on any particular group.
Miller and Hanington agreed that the Pink Triangle brand needed to evolve.
The pink triangle was used in during the Second World War inNazi concentration camps as a badge to identify gay men, who were grouped together with rapists and pedophiles.
Miller says that it made sense at the time for Pink Triangle Services to reclaim the symbol by naming their organization after it. However, now that the public has a greater knowledge of the sexually marginalized community, Miller says it was time to adapt.
“As our communities evolve and our concept and knowledge of sexuality and gender expand, so too must the organizations that are deeply rooted within those communities.”
Their effort to represent a wider group of people raised some questions from inside the community. Some followers of Kind’s Facebook page expressed concern that the name is not directly tied to homosexuality.
“Some people assume that a name like Kind, which doesn’t have any immediate association with anything LGBTTQIA, is detrimental; but it actually creates a really great opportunity to talk about the space, and the people, and our passion for mutual liberation and autonomy,” says Miller.