Jigyasa Tuli

About Contact

Let’s Stay Neighbors

Neighbor to Neighbor is a project about Detroiters — friends, family, strangers, children, elderly and neighbors. Foreclosure is a longstanding, systemic and abundant problem in Detroit due to extremely high property taxes. One resource for people is the City’s Property Tax Exemption (PTE) program.

Almost 30,000 Detroiters qualify for the city’s Property Tax Exemption Program, but only about 6,000 apply every year. We were approached by Neighbor To Neighbor and Rocket Companies (previously Quicken Loans Community Fund) to understand how we could spread the word, and help Detroiters apply for this program successfully.

TEAM
Sarah Cremering, Yasmin Ali, Josh Krauth-Harding, Will Callis, Erica Heathcote, Matt Nielsen, Tracee Hartley

CLIENTNeighbor To Neighbor, Quicken Loans Community Fund

TIMELINE
3 months

What do we know about Property Tax Exemption?

We went through all the documents given to us by Neighbor To Neighbor to build a basic understanding of their challenges, and also conducted a brand audit.

We started by building some contextual knowledge about the PTE program and policies. We took a look at Detroit’s history first, tracing back our steps to understand the complex systemic issues, leading up to today.

We also audited the application process from different perspectives including — how to fill it, Neighbor To Neighbor’s current outreach and brand.

What can we learn from people who have been through this process before? What about people who will benefit from it?

Our guiding principle for this project was — we are learning from people who have been through this process, we are not the experts. We involved ourselves in a volunteer-led workshop for filling out PTE forms, cold-called residents to talk about PTE and talked to different residents who had been through the process multiple times.

We interviewed and spoke to people who had applied to PTE before. Many of them spoke about how it helped them come out of unsafe housing situations. Many of them had also become volunteers to support the Neighbor To Neighbor mission and spread awareness.

Based on our interviews and the documents — we formalized a journey map for the application process. There were a lot of moving parts and pieces in this process involving people to go to different locations, collecting paperwork, finding a notary and submitting the application.

These are key words we repeatedly came across during our conversations with residents about their housing situations, their opinion on Neighbor To Neighbor, and their experience working as a canvasser or volunteer for this process.

Our biggest themes — Trust & Access.

We identified different research themes that spanned across awareness, access, trust, stigma, language and safety.
Most of these themes largely correspond to the lack of trust in the policy itself, and logistical barriers a to finish the application.

To increase awareness of PTE, to strengthen Neighbor To Neighbor and help those who need it — we decided to tackle the issue of trust — by creating a unified visual identity for Neighbor To Neighbor and a designing a bold campaign for PTE. For logistical barriers, we decided to create DIY mail-in application kits and overhaul the language on the application form itself to make it easier to fill.

Our themes as synthesized after the research process.

First iteration & feedback loops

Our first round of presentations to our stakeholders — Neighbor To Neighbor organizers, Quicken Loans Community Fund, Detroit City Council and resident Detroiters — was an informal walkthrough of our process (crazy walls with many notes and drawings) as well as some initial prototypes of deliverables. We proposed the following;

Brand & Campaign

A loud and bold identity that empowers people to take charge of their homes and encourages them to apply for PTE — this was our vision for Neighbor To Neighbor.

We also wanted to be strategic about our campaign, using social media, wheat paste posters, grocery bags, volunteer identification and radio ads.

DIY PTE Kit

A Do-It-Yourself Kit inclusive of resources (bus routes, notary lists and workshops in the are) and dates to remember to fill out the Property Tax Exemption applications from the comfort of their homes. This would mean less going out to collect paperwork, and directly mailing it in to the location.

Guided PTE form

The complex and jargon-y language of the original PTE form makes it difficult for people to understand how to fill it — and almost impossible for those who have a different first language. We worked under the guidance of The Work Department to create instructions using simple words which would aid ESL speakers in comprehension

Our studio walkthrough with some prototypes and proposals for Neighbor To Neighbor’s brand.

Some early iterations and notes about the re-designed application form

A prototype of a DIY Mail-In Kit

Other collateral to organize documents in one place and keep important dates and reminders upfront

Neighbor To Neighbor’s new identity

Inspired by the grid system of Detroit’s neighborhoods, infused with bold lettering while keeping the mark from the old identity, we presented the new vision for Neighbor To Neighbor.

Social Media & Motion

An important aspect of this identity was having a social media presence to stay connected.
I used bold colors and blocky motion to reiterate the essence of the brand.

[Increase volume]

Outreach

We created a number of different outreach assets that were scalable — from a public-facing billboard, a radio-ad, to wheat-paste posters as well as branded gear for volunteers and canvassers.

Impact

This work was put into execution by Neighbor To Neighbor and supported by the City of Detroit and Quicken Loans Community Fund which resulted in an increase in applications filed from 6,000 (in 2019) to 17,500 (in 2020). The Property Tax Exemption program continues to grow and has expanded to different cities including Cleveland, OH and Atlanta, GA.

Final presentation to our stakeholders. (Spot me mid-sentence on the right!)