HACES is a nonprofit based in Lake County with 20 years of experience providing navigational support and expertise. Department of Justice-accredited, HACES specializes in immigration law and offers expert guidance on immigration cases. Operating on three pillars—legal, education, and health—HACES divides its services to address different aspects of clients’ lives, aiming to improve their overall quality of life.
Contractor
2021-2023
Marketing & Development Coordinator
2023-2025
January 2021 – Present
Five-Year Project
A newsletter is published monthly.
As a medium-sized organization, HACES receives funding from foundations, donors, and grants. It is also a well-recognized community resource, working closely with both community members and partner organizations.
Monthly newsletters are produced to keep stakeholders informed of ongoing initiatives while strengthening business relationships, reinforcing brand positioning (how the organization is perceived), and building brand reputation (establishing trust and credibility).
Each issue includes program updates that highlight impact through both qualitative data—such as client testimonials—and quantitative data, including key statistics. The newsletters also showcase staff commitment to continuous improvement and promote upcoming events.
While my coworker develops the content, I design each newsletter using our CRM platform, Bloomerang, ensuring visual consistency with the HACES brand and clear communication of the intended message.
01
Visual Brand Identity
HACES’ mission is to provide expertise and navigational support for immigrants and citizens to become knowledgeable and empowered members of society. It operates from a foundation of three pillars: legal, education, and health, so everyone has their personal, private, and professional needs met. The brand’s tone is serious, experienced, trustworthy, and passionate, establishing itself as an expert dedicated to addressing the needs of its community.
Color Scheme
Visual Brand Elements
Squares and trapezoids are key players in HACES’ visual branding.
The shapes above are a well-known combination used often for flyers, the HACES letterhead, posters, social media posts, etc. The exact combination or variants of the shapes are consistently used.
02
Imagery
HACES’ brand tone and visual identity are always on the top of my mind when I design the HACES newsletters. To reinforce brand recognition, consistent design elements were used over a span of 4–5 years. These included:
Throughout the newsletter, Hope can be seen:
Sharing program updates
Encouraging readers to volunteer or donate
Inviting the audience to participate in fundraising events
Reporting on funds raised through recent fundraisers
January 2021- March 2022
Photos
Throughout the newsletter, photos are used strategically:
In collages to capture multiple moments or themes
Alongside quotes to highlight client testimonials, or to emphasize a statistic
To introduce and support storytelling
Paired with graphics to draw attention to key messages
Statistics
05
Outcome
After analyzing data across four years of consistent monthly newsletter distribution, it is evident that HACES has significantly expanded its email outreach. Starting with approximately 274 constituents in 2021, the subscriber base grew to 759 by 2024—a 177% increase.
The most notable rise in open rate occurred between 2021 and 2022, with an 8% increase. While this metric remained relatively stable afterward, it held at an exceptional level even as the audience continued to grow.
User interaction saw a slight dip from 2021 to 2022, followed by steady improvement in the years that followed. Though a few outlier months are visible in the mean, the median reflects a clear upward trend in engagement, indicating that readers became increasingly responsive over time.
In summary, HACES expanded its outreach by gaining 485 new subscribers and maintaining strong engagement, as demonstrated by the “Open Rate per Year” and “Clicks per Year” data from its consistent monthly publications.
Testimonial
Diana has worked with our organization, HACES, for several years, handling most of our graphic design work, including maintaining our website, create graphics and logos for our special events and creating and managing our monthly e-newsletter. We’re very pleased with the work that she does and I have enjoyed working with her. Diana is professional, easy to work with and very talented, I highly recommend her services!
