Illuminate the light in every learner.

Teach For America is an ambitious organization that has changed lives for decades. However, it currently sits at a crossroads. Strong headwinds exist, including Corps Member declines for a decade, decentralized programming, certification, brand, and a larger nationwide reckoning. The organization needs to clarify its role and unify to move forward. 

TFA came to Barkley needing a unifying, aspirational idea and a practical roadmap to help the brand achieve its vision.

Once you experience the light of a student, you’ll seek it for life.

There is a brilliant light that lives inside every student. A burning desire to learn, achieve, belong. Our nation’s schools radiate with the lights of millions of learners, but the forces of educational inequity dim their potential. But once an educator experiences a learner’s light, they keep seeking it for life. You take this valuable experience with you and use it to continue to impact education regardless of what you do.

As Teach For America enters a new era in the fight for educational equity, we’re calling on a new generation of creators to be teachers. To be partners with those brilliant lights, bold, innovative doers for educational equity, and everyday coalition builders with teachers, parents, and communities in a “change needs to happen now” moment in this country.

The lights and learners must happen in more than just classrooms to enter this new era. So we’re igniting the power of our 70,000+ network, those with a fierce belief in students no matter who they stand in front of today.

We’ll keep learning together as a unified team, creating realizations nationwide. And this force will collectively find and scale innovative paths to assist the bright lights and brilliant minds of every student in every community. 

Our new rally cry is simple: to illuminate the light in every learner. 

With the Red Thread as our guiding focus, we created a new brand that is bold and purposeful, just like TFA’s work. We designed a new logo that symbolizes a fierce network of teachers who unite to protect — and nourish — the light in every learner. We brought in artwork from real students to share their unique perspectives. Every element we created, from our ADA-compliant color palette and open-source fonts to our voice and tone, speaks to the bright, equitable future that TFA is working toward.

TFA’s new design system and branding are rooted in diversity, equity, and inclusion. A brand that inspires creativity and answers the hard questions. A brand that doesn’t just represent a spark but also acts as a spark.