Ashoka is an international organisation that promotes social entrepreneurship. Through Changemakers it aims to build a global movement where anyone, anywhere can take action to solve a social problem in the community. Ashoka, a pioneer in the field of social entrepreneurship, was Founded in 1980 and it works with social entrepreneurs or individuals with innovative solutions to the society’s most pressing problems. One of Ashoka’s many programs is Ashoka Changemaker Schools, an endeavour to enable all students to become changemakers. In these changemaker schools (across the world), students are taught the essential skills of empathy, creativity, leadership and teamwork so that they can find solutions to the most complex of societal problems. Ashoka Changemaker Schools are identified and selected through a meticulous process and through the years Ashoka has fostered more than 1,300 Ashoka Fellows globally and supported more than 375,000 young people who are practising changemaking in 50 countries.
One of the key challenges through this journey was creating and maintaining a unique identity for the various schools that are a part of Ashoka’s Changemaker program. Each of these schools had their own brand and when they came under the umbrella of changemakers, integrating and identifying them as part of the Ashoka umbrella, while imperative, became a challenge. Further, each country where this program ran, had their own interpretation of the larger brand and created their own version of the Changemakers logo and collateral, which was a huge impediment for the larger cause and brand of Ashoka. It was then that the team of Ashoka Changemaker Schools in India, reached out to Headless Hippies, a creative agency that helps brands make friends with people.
While the challenge posed to Headless Hippies was of unification of the brand identity for Ashoka Schools in India, what followed was a unique take on leadership/ being a changemaker, a global identity adopted by Latin America, India, USA and other schools and some revelations for the leadership team at Ashoka itself.