she builds power

For nearly 20 years, the Global Women’s Water Initiative had empowered women in sub-Saharan Africa to bring clean water to their communities. The organization provided material support and challenged stereotypes by enabling women to perform work traditionally reserved for men, such as building and maintaining water and sanitation systems. By 2024, however, its name and identity no longer reflected its full scope of work. The initiative isn’t just about water; it now addresses the interwoven challenges of potable water, food production and economic health.

A strategic brand transformation had to reflect the evolution of the organization’s mission. We framed our work around a key insight: empowering women creates a mutually beneficial dynamic exchange, yielding greater strength and potential for all. We worked with founder Gemma Bulos to rename the initiative She Builds Power as a declaration of agency and leadership. The new brand reflects the organization’s embrace of collective infrastructure and its function as a platform for social and economic enrichment. We built a scalable design system called Blueprint, finding inspiration in technical schematics to represent indigenous knowledge, infrastructural projects and the complex systems that underlie sustainable economies. Blueprint’s visual elements evolve and repeat, showing how power is constructed incrementally.

With a bold name that opens doors for women everywhere, She Builds Power is a rallying point for funders and collaborators and source of pride for the women it serves, equipping them with the agency and resources to build and sustain healthy communities.