We’ve got a new logo! We recently went through a brand adjustment, and with our new logo comes a new tagline: “Advocacy. Transparency. Accountability.”
In the past, we’ve talked about our organization as being built on the pillars of “balance, transparency, and accountability.” Now, we’ve obviously changed one of the words and formally adopted those pillars as our tagline. When we used to talk about our organization, we talked a lot about balancing out the public narrative in Utah. That’s where the term “balance” came in. Whether in public discourse or in the state legislature, reasoned policy emerges from good-faith discussions where all points of view are given the opportunity to be heard. We took–and still take–balance seriously by making sure alternative viewpoints are heard not only in the halls of power, but in the press, the blogosphere, and across social media.
And nothing about that has changed. We still believe that political discourse in Utah is unbalanced in many ways. But as Utah has changed over the past 8 years, our organization has morphed. We began to realize that the term “advocacy” was a better descriptor for the work we do. We advocate for a Utah that is always moving forward and including more people, and that work–like when we fought for full Medicaid expansion, worked to end gerrymandering, or fought for politicians to respect the will of the people by honoring the legislative intent of the ballot initiatives–is something we’ve come to be known for.
We were founded in response to a huge political scandal that nobody was talking about. Our founder, Josh Kanter, realized there was no conversation about the scandal because nobody knew about it, and nobody knew about it because the political power players involved had not been held accountable. Josh saw a real need for an organization like ours, and thus began Alliance for a Better Utah–the voice of accountability and progress–to ensure something like that does not happen again.
A lot of Utahns have become cynical about politics because of how Utah politicians conduct themselves and how one-sided the conversation always seems to be. And we’ve seen that cynicism reflected in low voter turnout rates and general apathy about Utah politics. But in 2018 that changed, and it was because people felt empowered to make change through the ballot initiatives. People felt they had a voice, and when people feel like they have a voice they show up. And when they show up, Utah progresses.
When our organization makes noise, either because of a political scandal, or to act as the progressive voice in the public arena, people hear their values and views being spoken to, and when people hear their values being spoken to, they feel empowered and engaged. When we speak up and when Utahns show up, it’s another step toward progress.
We’re thrilled about our branding updates, and we’re looking forward to the next step in our journey toward an even better Utah.
