Making Culture Tangible: Wisdom Tree’s Brand Positioning
what i did
Brand Strategy & Positioning Research, & Digital Communication Audit
for
Wisdom Tree
context
Wisdom Tree is a non-profit focused on strengthening leadership within the NGO ecosystem. Through their initiatives, such as the Deep Learning and Development Cohort (DLDC), they aim to empower NGO leaders to design scalable, sustainable, and impact-driven interventions. Their work operates at the intersection of leadership, organizational design, and educational equity with stakeholders ranging from HR Leaders to funders and partner NGOs.
Wisdom Tree came to me whilst being well-established in its space. They had a functional website, a modest social presence, and a steady revenue model. However, the communications team consisted of just one person, which limited both capacity and strategic depth. While they had internal documents that attempted to define their brand positioning, these were surface-level and didn’t provide the clarity or direction needed to anchor communications over the long term.
The objective was to help Wisdom Tree sharpen its brand strategy and positioning. The specific mandate covered brand strategy, social media and website content audit, and communication strategy documentation. The need was clear: while the organization was delivering meaningful impact, their digital presence wasn’t communicating it effectively. They needed to bridge the gap between what they were achieving and how it was perceived by stakeholders.
problem
Wisdom Tree’s mission is powerful - developing leaders who can transform & build organizations that last. Their programs were carefully designed, and their community-building efforts had already generated strong outcomes. They had credibility in their niche and were respected for their unique approach to leadership development.
However, several communication challenges prevented them from translating this credibility into broader recognition and growth:
Impact communication: While their outcomes were meaningful, they struggled to convey the second- and third-degree impact of their work, such as how leadership development cascaded into stronger organizations and better 2nd degree leaderships.
Perception of intangibility: To external audiences, the work often came across as “fluffy” or non-essential, because the results weren’t communicated in ways that felt tangible or measurable.
Complexity of offerings: Their programs were sophisticated, but this complexity made them harder to explain, especially to people unfamiliar with leadership development.
Fragmented positioning: Messaging across their website and social channels lacked alignment, meaning the story shifted depending on the platform diluting their credibility and limiting their ability to attract funders or participants.
goals
The project aimed to create a clear, actionable communication framework that aligned Wisdom Tree’s digital presence with its real impact. This meant:
Strengthening brand positioning and messaging
Going beyond surface-level articulation to define a sharper, more resonant brand position. The goal was to ensure that Wisdom Tree could clearly express who they are, why their work matters, and how it delivers impact in ways that resonate with both participants and funders.
Conducting a website and social content audit
Reviewing their existing content with a critical lens, identifying gaps in messaging, inconsistencies across touchpoints, and missed opportunities to highlight impact. This audit wasn’t just evaluative but also prescriptive; it provided specific recommendations to improve communication and align it with stakeholder pain points.
Building long-term positioning for credibility and philosophy
Moving beyond tactical fixes to articulate Wisdom Tree’s broader philosophy in a way that builds trust and credibility over time. This involved defining a communication strategy that could scale with the organization and help them better demonstrate the depth and value of their work.
success criteria
Strengthened digital presence: A clearer strategy that enabled more focused, resonant communication across social channels and the website.
Internal alignment: The key benchmark was giving the team a shared language and foundation for their messaging.
Clarity in positioning and offerings: Success was defined by the ability to clearly articulate Wisdom Tree’s philosophy, services, and impact in a way that resonated with their audience.
Stakeholder feedback as a success metric: Positive responses from core stakeholders were identified as a key indicator of whether the strategy resonated and felt authentic to Wisdom Tree’s essence.
Expectation alignment: Success was always framed as strategy and clarity, not execution, and the project delivered against that.
approach
The project began was approached by doing a deep dive into Wisdom Tree’s world — reviewing past communication, existing material, and engaging in stakeholder conversations to uncover how the organization viewed itself versus how it was perceived. This helped surface both the richness of their philosophy and the points where their messaging fell short in clarity and accessibility.
Building on this, I decided to apply frameworks like BrandStrand and brand archetypes to structure their identity, alongside a communication gap analysis that mapped audience needs to current expression. Competitor research revealed where similar organizations leaned too heavily on jargon or abstract framing, allowing us to carve space for Wisdom Tree to differentiate.
The strategy centered on simplifying layered narratives into clear, actionable messaging, and balancing their philosophical depth with tangible outcomes to resonate with funders, NGO leaders, and HR professionals alike.
process
Phase 1: Discovery
The first step was to deeply understand Wisdom Tree at its core—beyond the surface of programs and offerings. I worked closely with the founder and the communications lead, holding multiple calls and stakeholder interviews to get a sense of their processes, aspirations, and challenges. Together, we explored the organizational structure and services, and the emotional drivers behind their work. This wasn’t just about fact-finding; it was about uncovering the values and philosophies that sat at the heart of Wisdom Tree.
To ensure alignment, I consolidated these findings into a “What We Heard” document, capturing both rational inputs (like their vision, goals, and communication channels) and emotional undertones (like their desire to be seen as credible, yet deeply human). This document acted as a touchstone throughout the project, helping stakeholders feel heard and creating clarity around their own self-perception—something they hadn’t fully articulated before.
Phase 2: Research & Audit
Building on the discovery, I conducted a comprehensive audit of Wisdom Tree’s website, social media presence, and existing collateral.
Key observations included:
Content was verbose and difficult to navigate, often burying important details.
LinkedIn content resonated okay with their B2B audience, but Instagram remained underutilized.
Offerings such as DLDC were not clearly explained or easily discoverable.
The About section was dense and jargon-heavy, with little attention to storytelling hierarchy.
Calls-to-action were inconsistent, and proof of impact (case studies, metrics) was largely missing.
Parallelly, I conducted a competitive benchmark across five organizations (Pravah, Vyaktitva, CollabX, ILSS, Dasra), analyzing how peers in the leadership and capacity-building space structured their narratives, showcased impact, and connected with funders. This analysis looked at everything from website clarity and program visibility to design language and tone of voice. The gaps were stark: peers were sharper in articulating offerings, leveraging strong visuals, and framing impact with metrics and case studies.
To deepen the audit, I also mapped audience language, pain points, and psychographics by reviewing leadership reports, funding guidelines, and NGO thought leadership. This multi-pronged research ensured that the strategy wasn’t just inward-looking but also rooted in sector trends and external perceptions, analyzing how culture-focused organizations explained intangible impact.
Phase 3: Analysis & Synthesis
Armed with a mountain of raw insights, the next step was to bring order and meaning. I applied structured frameworks—SWOT, Jobs-to-be-Done, Value Proposition Canvas, BrandStrand, and thematic affinity mapping—to cluster patterns and distill actionable insights.
Every interview quote, every note from competitor analysis, every pain point from leaders was coded into themes. This systematic clustering revealed critical gaps: their audience didn’t know when to approach them, couldn’t see the tangible benefits of their services, and often misunderstood their work as abstract “fluff.”
Key insights included:
The need to show process + impact together to make intangible outcomes more relatable.
The importance of clear offerings and audience segmentation to reduce cognitive load.
A strategy to address both NGO leaders (primary audience) and funders (secondary audience) with tailored messaging.
Emphasizing Wisdom Tree’s differentiators—customization, Indian lens, and blending spirituality with management—without overwhelming the narrative.
The breakthrough came when I overlaid three lenses: what users wanted to hear, what competitors were doing well, and what Wisdom Tree uniquely offered. This triangulation created a clear brand direction.
For example, while many peers positioned themselves around leadership training or organizational development, Wisdom Tree’s differentiator was treating Indian philosophy and culture as a strategic lever. Framing their work at this intersection was not just novel but also deeply relevant to impact-driven NGOs in India. This clarity became the backbone of the brand strategy.
Before finalizing, I shared intermediate outputs like draft positioning notes and comms gap analyses with the team, ensuring early alignment and collaborative refinement.
Phase 4: Strategy & Documentation
The final phase was to translate analysis into a cohesive strategy and actionable documentation. Here, the aim was to define positioning and to give Wisdom Tree tools they could sustain internally.
I built a multi-layered strategy: a long-term brand positioning guide, immediate website improvements that didn’t require infrastructure overhaul, and a lightweight but research-backed social media playbook.
The playbook detailed channel focus, ecosystem learnings, content pillars, formats, posting frequencies, and fresh content ideas giving their lean team a structure they could actually execute.
To ensure consistency, I created brand guidelines outlining voice, tone, and messaging rules anchored in clarity, trust, and credibility. Most importantly, I bridged the gap between audience expectations and organizational aspirations: defining the words users would trust, stripping out jargon they were tired of hearing, and sharpening Wisdom Tree’s differentiators.
The final strategy didn’t just tell them what to say, but gave them confidence in how to show up balanced between credibility for funders and resonance for leaders. This way, they could occupy a unique space in the ecosystem: credible, thoughtful, and unapologetically human.
insights & impact
The collaboration with Wisdom Tree was deeply rewarding and marked by mutual trust and curiosity.
Client perspective:
The Founder shared: “I loved the rigor of work and quality of the outputs. Smrithi understood our unique context and brought meaningful insights backed with data to help us bridge the missing links in our brand positioning.”
Their Communications Lead added: “We especially appreciated the in-depth research documents and thoughtful suggestions for our social media communication. Her deep dive into the brand was thorough and offered meaningful insights. What stood out most was her genuine curiosity about Wisdom Tree — she took the time to understand our essence and articulated it in a much simpler and clearer way, something we often miss while wanting to share everything about Wisdom Tree.”
Early impact:
The new brand positioning has already started being implemented internally in decks and communication, and externally in their social media presence.
Sustained value:
The work continues to serve as a foundation for Wisdom Tree’s clarity in communication and direction for growth.
reflections & takeaways
This project was personally enriching as much as it was professionally challenging.
Immersing beyond tech: Coming from a tech-heavy background, I had to step out of my echo chamber and deeply engage with India’s social impact and NGO funding landscape. This taught me the value of adapting my lens to contexts far removed from my own.
Making culture tangible: What’s often dismissed as “fluff” became a strategic lever when framed through impact. Positioning culture in measurable, outcome-driven terms unlocked clarity and resonance with stakeholders.
What I’d do differently: I would’ve loved to stay involved during the execution phase to ensure the brand positioning came alive across touchpoints and share live examples of how to make it practical.
Above all, this project reinforced a core belief I carry into every role: new contexts and new people are catalysts for fresh perspectives, sharper decisions, and deeper growth.