Sorting out our branding has been challenging, but productive work. We will have brand and legal guidelines that all staff must follow when using our name and logos in print or digital use. In order to protect our trademarks and name, we have to be smart and careful in how we use our brands. We've been loose in the past, but we will have to be more organized and consistent in the future.
Via: We are Via. All staff, no matter what team, are simply with Via. We wear the Via logo, we all have ONE email address with @vianations.org, and the Via logo will be the primary logo we use everywhere. We have a trademark registration pending on the style and look of our Via logo. So you'll see the TR (trademark) superscript on our logo, and once it's confirmed, it will change to an R (registered).
Pronunciation: Are we (vee-ah) or (vi-ah) or (wee-ah). We are not 'branding' the pronunciation. If you're Indian, it's ok to say (wee-ah), if you're a northerner, you can say (vi-ah). We are not going to control the pronunciation of what is a known and common word.
Via CANNOT be used as a preposition: In order for the Trademark Office to recognize our use of Via as a brand and mark we protect, we cannot use it as a normal preposition, otherwise it tells the world that this is a normal word, and nothing special. When speaking verbally, this is not a big deal. It's easy to use the phrase, "We're reaching the nations via the nations" when communicating our name change. But when we print something or post online, we don't want to use the phrase, "We are reaching the nations via the nations." Or, "We are reaching the nations via students." If you'll notice on our printed pieces and website, we say "THROUGH". "We are reaching the nations through the nations," or "through churches," or "through generosity."
Via Nations: Our primary business legal name will be Via Nations, though we will publicly call ourselves Via. The only time you'll see a Via Nations logo is on the back of our publications (books and studies). We have a trademark registration pending on Via Nations.
Center for Mission Mobilization - This name isn't completely going away for a while. For various legal reasons, we'll keep it on donation receipts and with the IRS for a while, probably 5 years. If you look us up with the IRS, Guidestar, or other listings of non-profits, we will likely still be under the name Center for Mission Mobilization.
Legal Name: We have multiple names registered with the State of Arkansas and under consideration with the US Trademark Office. Our IRS recognized legal name is still Center for Mission Mobilization, and we will keep it that way till about the year 2027 for various legal reasons. We have a DBA (Doing Business As) license for Via Nations and other variants as well.
Via Students, Via Generosity, Via Families: These are categories for our website and team names. They are solutions for various leaders and people we work with, but not separate entities. We will not refer to these areas as ministries, divisions, or subsidiaries. We are all one. Our field staff and operations staff work with all of these areas fluidly, and we don't need to present ourselves as 4 separate ministries as we did in the past, which led to great confusion and hindered our growth. We will not have logos for these team names. We might refer to Via Generosity or Via Families as a proper noun, but we want to work hard to present ourselves as one ministry with multiple solutions. We will have more direction and information on this soon.