LACASA Unveils New Logo, Mission Statement and Website

Major sponsors and supporters were among the first to see LACASA's new brand identity, during a celebration Tuesday night.

The nonprofit organization unveiled its new logo, mission statement and website, while giving tours of its newly renovated facility, that now includes offices for the Family Resource Center which late last year.

The nonprofit also announced its new name change. LACASA previously stood for the acronym Livingston Area Council for Spousal Abuse, since its formation in 1981. The Board of Directors unanimously voted in December to shorten it to just LACASA, because the organization now represents more than just spousal abuse.

Communications Director Robin O'Grady said she spent thousands of hours working on the whole brand identity since August.

"We really wanted to be much more approachable and less intimidating," O'Grady said. "A lot of people have a misconception that we only serve women and children, but we also serve men. There are many male sexual assault survivors and we have had men stay at the shelter as victims of domestic violence. So the whole brand idea was to appeal to all genders, all age groups and avoid cliches."

The new logo is a tri-colored circle of orange, purple and teal and was designed by Sally Strand, a Michigan native. The colors are customized and called, safe sunrise, non-violent violet and sea of change teal.

O'Grady said that while the logo represents the circle of safety the organization provides, there have been many different interpretations.

"Some people think it's the family triad, others think it's the trinity of the three issues that we deal with and one person said she thought it was a circle of angels," O'Grady said. "It's been interesting hearing what everybody thinks. Because our artist was a fine art artist, we were looking for something that was very soft, very original."

LACASA's new website began in September at Give Camp, a national nonprofit that helps other nonprofits develop websites. From there, Maria Stuart, a LACASA board member, took the reigns and guided it to the finished product along with O'Grady's help

"What I really like about the new website is that there are all sorts of resources and links for people," Stuart said. "It has so much information, with local, state and national links. There's a section for parents, a section for teens and more."

The one thing that remained the same from the former website is the "Exit Now" button at the top of the page, which takes the viewer to Google and erases the browsing history.

Stuart said they are currently working on making the button more prominent on the new site.

The new website is available at www.lacasacenter.org.

Editor's Note: This story has been changed to correct the spelling of Maria Stuart's name.