Mercycorps, one of the biggest nonprofits in America, Transfer Online and Jagalee Interactive were looking to create a fintech portal with a noble cause.

Mercycorps envisioned a new venture that enabled low-income individuals to invest in commercial real estate in their neighborhoods risk-free, with the goal of solving asset poverty one neighborhood at a time. The Community Investment Trust (CIT) opens a pool of investors to individuals with less resources, and builds the possibility to strengthen communities and create empowered lives.

We led a creative team to design the brand, financial portals and educational materials from scratch, including a visual direction and a new, digital experience to make investing in commercial real estate less intimidating for those new to investing. This required a friendly, exciting and welcoming branding approach with a simplified UX experience that reduced the amount of complex concepts and learnings for someone investing for the first time.

The result was a digital experience that is an extension of the logo we designed, where vibrant colors are deliberately placed to guide a user through different steps. The learn center was also created with the end client in mind as someone that has no experience in investing and requires a bit more guidance delivered through a visually compelling, responsive experience that breaks down the information into more digestible pieces. The investing platform itself required a new backend control management system that was created by scratch from the great team at Jagalee Interactive to bring everything together.

The logo we pitched represents three basic concepts: the people in those communities where the investment is happening, the buildings they are investing in and the concept of growth, that was represented with the ascending logo design. ascending structure of the composition.

The project itself continues to grow, and Mercycorps is on its way to get a second Real Estate Investment Trust.