ILF Rebrand: Naming is HARD

RAFT Team, September 16, 2019

Type “baby name books” into Amazon and you get over 10,000 results.

Type “baby names” into Google and you get 1,460,000,000 results in 0.65 seconds. Let’s take a moment to think about how crazy it is that Google can do that.

Naming a baby, a business, or in this case a nonprofit is hard. Actually, after going through the process, let’s capitalize that:

Naming is HARD.

This capital letter HARDNESS of finding a new name for Indrani’s Light Foundation became even more challenging when we realized how emotional, especially for Indrani, the renaming process was going to be.

Indrani’s Light Foundation has had its name for 12 years, so deciding to change that name brought up a lot for Indrani. The team wants to honor and show deep gratitude for Indrani and her willingness to go through this process.

So, before we share a blog post about the actual renaming process (and some the of names we went through….there are a few doozies), we want to share this video of Indrani talking about the renaming process. Below she shares some examples of why this new name is such a great fit for the work we do at Indrani’s Light Foundation.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/359572356?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0

So yes, our new name is RAFT, Resilience for Advocates through Foundational Training. We all know what resilience means: the ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change. The foundational part is the stuff we teach, like the following:

  • How to set and keep a boundary. Brené Brown defines boundaries in her book Rising Strong as "simply our lists of what’s okay and what’s not okay." Once we know how to set a boundary, then we have to set boundaries with everybody, especially the people who love us and the people we love.
  • How to say "no." Many of us were taught to say "yes" to everything, even the things that aren't good for us. Saying "no" brings freedom and joy.

This is Part 5 of our rebrand story. Read previous articles about our rebrand below:

Part 1 Rebranding ILF: A Story of Change
Part 2 Our Brand’s Highs and Lows
Part 3 A Solidified Brand Profile
Part 4 Playing in the Visual Sandbox