Neka Creative:
WHERE LISTENING LEADS TO MOVEMENT
The following work reflects how Neka Creative and its partners work together to lead culture and narrative change in complex, divided environments, in service of a more connected Minnesota.
The Work:
- research
- brand workshops
- strategic direction
- brand blueprint
- messaging matrix
- brand launch plan
Case Study
Everybody In
The Situation:
Minnesota was last in racial employment equity. That reality was not abstract, and it was not easy to confront.
What we didn’t know, and what we avoided, was hurting us. So we chose to engage it directly.
Everybody In was created to do what fragmented efforts could not: bring people into the same room, surface hard truths, and move forward together.
The Challenge
The Twin Cities held the worst racial employment gap in the country. Conversations about race, opportunity, and responsibility were tense, and trust was uneven.
Closing the gap would require one of the most contentious and high-stakes efforts in the state, requiring engagement in polarized environments across Minnesota. Urban and rural communities brought different realities, and public, private, and nonprofit leaders faced real political and civic risk.
Alignment was necessary. Comfort was not guaranteed.
The Work
Neka Creative led Everybody In as a statewide movement, not a stand-alone service engagement.
We helped shape the concept, design the engagement approach, and lead a multidisciplinary team to carry the work forward. Our role focused on facilitation, strategy, and narrative development, guiding sustained dialogue across Minnesota in places where division had stalled progress for generations.
The work centered on bringing people into the same room and holding space for honest conversation. Sessions were designed to surface tension and shared values side by side — naming past barriers, confronting uncomfortable realities, and articulating what collective responsibility could look like moving forward.
From this work emerged a unifying manifesto: plain-spoken, grounded in lived experience, and strong enough to hold difference while pointing toward shared purpose.
The effort spanned sectors and geographies, connecting public agencies, private employers, philanthropy, education, and community leadership. Organizations throughout the state took part, including The Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation, as active collaborators shaping strategy, participating in facilitation, and stewarding the work together.
Rather than applying a one-size-fits-all solution, we built a tailored approach rooted in listening and real-world complexity. This was not about delivering a campaign. It was about building a movement designed to last.
The Impact
Everybody In helped move Minnesota from fragmented efforts to shared responsibility.
The work produced a unifying narrative for employment equity, aligned public, private, and community leaders across difference, and established the structures needed to sustain collaboration over time. Rather than ending with a single campaign moment, Everybody In created a shared framework that partners could continue to activate, adapt, and carry forward.
Case Study
Careerforce
The Situation:
Workforce systems only work when people can find their way through them.
For too long, Minnesota’s workforce resources were strong but fragmented — spread across agencies, regions, and programs that did not always speak the same language. CareerForce was created to bring clarity where complexity had become a barrier, and to make opportunity easier to navigate for everyone.
The Challenge
Minnesota’s workforce development system was complex by design and difficult in practice.
Job seekers, employers, and partners encountered a patchwork of programs, terminology, and entry points that varied by region. Agencies and providers were working hard, but alignment across the system was uneven, and no shared framework existed to connect efforts at scale.
The challenge was not just branding. It was coordination, trust, and usability across a statewide public system.
The Work
Neka Creative partnered with the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development to help unify the system under a shared framework.
We led strategy and facilitation to align agencies, workforce boards, education partners, and employers around a common vision. Through collaborative sessions and cross-sector engagement, we helped define a clear structure and shared language that could work across regions without erasing local context.
That work resulted in CareerForce — a durable identity, messaging system, and set of tools designed for adoption, not just launch. Built to scale statewide, the framework made the workforce system easier to understand, easier to access, and easier for partners to carry forward together.
The Impact
CareerForce brought coherence to a fragmented system.
The work aligned partners across Minnesota, clarified how services connect, and established a shared platform that continues to support workforce access and coordination statewide. More than a rebrand, CareerForce created lasting infrastructure for a system designed to serve people better — at scale.
Case Study
Reconnect Rondo
The Situation:
Some wounds are physical. Others are generational.
Rondo was a thriving African American community until a highway cut through its center, displacing families, destroying businesses, and severing opportunity. ReConnect Rondo was created to repair what was lost — not symbolically, but materially — through restoration, ownership, and long-term equity.
This work asked a simple question with a difficult answer: What does it take to make things right?
The Challenge
ReConnect Rondo advanced during a moment of extraordinary disruption.
The work unfolded amid a global pandemic, at a time when in-person engagement was limited, public trust was strained, and legislative timelines did not pause. At the same time, the initiative faced longstanding skepticism and misunderstanding about what a land bridge could accomplish and who it was for.
The challenge was not only technical or political. It was deeply human — rebuilding confidence while navigating uncertainty.
The Work
Neka Creative partnered with ReConnect Rondo to help move the initiative from vision to action under unprecedented conditions.
We supported inclusive engagement and strategic communications during the pandemic, adapting how people gathered while maintaining momentum. Through facilitated sessions, interviews, and workshops with community members, organizational partners, and policymakers, we surfaced shared priorities and clarified what restorative development could look like in practice.
That work shaped a clear strategic direction: a restorative movement centered on an African American cultural enterprise district connected by a community land bridge. Built on earlier movement-building efforts, including Everybody In, the work translated shared purpose into coordinated action at a critical moment.
The Impact
ReConnect Rondo achieved tangible results in the midst of uncertainty.
The initiative advanced through the legislative process, secured public funding, and helped lay the groundwork for Minnesota’s first African American cultural enterprise district. Community leaders were reenergized, public understanding increased, and policymakers engaged with the project as a credible, actionable path toward restorative development.
More than a campaign, ReConnect Rondo stands as living proof that complex, equity-centered civic work can move forward — even in the most challenging conditions — when strategy, trust, and persistence align.
Parnter Campaigns
Circlebox Research — Community Health & Equity Research (Ramsey County)
Circlebox Research supported Ramsey County Public Health through community-based research designed to surface priorities, perceptions, and points of alignment across diverse communities. The work informed equity-centered public strategy grounded in trust, lived experience, and shared values.
ACET — Statewide Community Engagement at Scale
ACET led large-scale, statewide engagement across Minnesota, facilitating dialogue with hundreds of participants across multiple regions in politically and socially complex environments. The work demonstrates the team’s ability to support inclusive participation, accessibility, and consensus-building under pressure.
Swim Creative — Courageous Public Messaging
Swim Creative has partnered on high-stakes public campaigns that required navigating controversy, public scrutiny, and political risk. Their work reflects comfort leading bold, values-driven messaging in moments when clarity and conviction mattered most.
