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The World Bank

CIVIC: Amplifying People-Centered Innovation in Global Development

The Challenge

Across the world, civil society is teeming with innovation. Communities are leveraging creativity, deep contextual knowledge, and scalable solutions to address complex development challenges. But too often, these grassroots solutions stay local—isolated from the support and pathways to integrate them into formal policy and budget priorities that could help them reach more people at scale.

Civil society organizations are essential to inclusive, resilient global progress, yet they are often overlooked in major decision-making forums. To shift this paradigm, the World Bank launched CIVIC: The Civil Society and Social Innovation Alliance. CIVIC is a global program and multi-donor trust fund that focuses on amplifying the role of civil society and social innovation to strengthen climate resilience, gender equality, youth empowerment, and health systems. To help the initiative launch with intention, clarity, and lasting resonance, iF was brought in to shape CIVIC’s external engagement strategy and develop its visual identity and storytelling assets.

 

“Our partnership with iF helped us translate the promise of CIVIC into a memorable and cohesive visual identity and compelling narrative. We now have the tools to consistently tell stories that amplify our mission and grow this initiative.”

Aly RahimProgram Manager, CIVIC

Our Approach

To ensure our work authentically represented CIVIC, we hosted a series of generative workshops with the World Bank team to surface thoughtful insights into their needs, shape external engagement for key events—such as the World Bank’s annual Spring Meetings—and identify champions and co-funders to help share CIVIC’s story. Together, we uncovered opportunities to raise awareness and build momentum among partners, funders, and advocates.

To channel this momentum into a cohesive identity, we worked with the World Bank team and key partners to define CIVIC’s guiding values, key messages, voice, and target audiences. In parallel, we developed a visual language with a new logo, color palette, and brand guide to establish a consistent look and feel viewers would connect with. Together, we created a dynamic visual identity and story that could grow and evolve over time.

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It was a priority for the CIVIC team to maintain this visual identity after our engagement, so we designed event materials, swag, and Canva templates, providing tools to easily create new content in alignment with their narrative and style.

Next, we focused on creating engaging storytelling assets to bring CIVIC’s story to life. We built a public-facing web page, crafted ‘About CIVIC’ content, and produced an animated video and social media posts to clearly communicate the initiative’s purpose and promise. Each piece was designed to meet audiences where they are—whether discovering CIVIC for the first time or attending CIVIC-hosted events.

What if the answers to our biggest challenges already exist and are just waiting for the right support to scale?
Civil society and social innovators all over the world are creating grassroots solutions to meet pressing needs in their communities.
Women are boosting their earning power with new land-leasing models.
Citizens are co-designing health services with their governments.
Indigenous youth are using digital tools to protect sacred lands.
However, too many of these solutions will never reach their full potential. Many changemakers lack the resources, networks, and influence to scale their solutions.
The World Bank created CIVIC to grow local impact into systemic change.
CIVIC connects local changemakers to the resources, leaders, and systems that can help widen the reach and impact of their solutions.
We know the best solutions come from those closest to the problems. It's time to elevate local innovators as the driving force for change.
Let's shape the next era of progress together. Join us at civicglobal.org to get started. And follow us on LinkedIn to see where we go next.

Building on this foundation, we equipped the CIVIC team with tools for ongoing amplification: an advocacy toolkit to help champions share the story of CIVIC online, a LinkedIn strategy, and a prioritized list of events with tailored engagement ideas to build visibility and interest over the next year. Alongside these, we developed an investment case to illustrate the initiative’s value and impact to potential co-funders and a thought piece for external publication, ensuring the team has both practical tools and compelling content to engage diverse audiences.

The Outcome

Every asset we created was made to be modular and user-friendly, empowering the CIVIC team to continue to boost their story long after our engagement ended. With a suite of branded tools and strategic assets—and prioritized opportunities for when, where, and to whom to deploy them—CIVIC is scaling its online presence, attracting new partners, and growing its influence on the global stage. 

From a unique and compelling visual foundation to new avenues and ideas for engaging target audiences, iF’s deliverables and strategic insights are helping CIVIC tell bold stories that center civil society at the heart of global innovation.
The World Bank

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