We help brands discover their vision. voice. substance.
Our tight-knit team of strategists and designers is deliberately small, allowing us to fully focus on your brand, as an extension of your team.
Our Story
Substance was founded in 2005 around a simple belief: that organizations with something worth saying deserve brands that say it with conviction. For twenty years, we have worked with nonprofits, foundations, healthcare systems, and purpose-driven companies at moments that matter.
Our engagements are built around organizational rebrands: the work that requires stakeholder alignment, board consensus, mission clarity, and a visual system that can hold all of it together. We have led 75+ organizations through this process. We know the terrain, and we know how to navigate it
We are a small team by design. You work directly with the people doing the work.
Our Guiding Principles
01 Strategy before aesthetics.
Every visual decision is grounded in strategic intent. We start with research, stakeholder interviews, and a thorough understanding of your organization.
02 We build consensus.
Brand and communications work succeed or fail on internal buy-in. We build alignment throughout the process, not just at the presentation.
03 We focus on relationships.
Most of our long-term clients started with a single engagement. We become the studio they return to for the next phase, the next campaign, the next transformation.
Team/Strategic Partners
Matthew Brett
Founder and Creative Director
Matthew founded Substance in 2005 and has directed brand strategy for 75+ organizations facing complex transformation. Notable projects include brand strategy for Neovia Logistics’ $1.17 billion operational carve-out from Caterpillar, strategy and launch for Google’s C2C customer cloud community (60,000+ members), and the Thresholds rebrand that generated a 28% increase in contributions.
His strength is navigating the stakeholder dynamics, organizational politics, and strategic complexity that determine whether a rebrand serves or disrupts an organization’s mission. His work has been recognized by Communication Arts, Print Regional Design Annual, Creativity, Graphic Design: USA, and The One Show.
Matthew received his BFA in Graphic Design from Kent State University and has been a guest lecturer and design critic at the University of Notre Dame and Columbia College Chicago. He is also a PADI certified rescue SCUBA diver and painter.
Rachel Cali
Research and Strategy Lead
As Research and Strategy Lead, Rachel Cali helps clients unlock the insights hiding in their marketing data, whether through a full digital marketing review or a customer survey. Her work spans national nonprofits like Feeding America, international corporations like IMCD Group, and family-owned businesses like Writing Academy and Spoleto Study Abroad, along with Chicago nonprofits including Resilience, the McCormick Foundation and Ignite.
Rachel holds a BA in Performance Studies from Northwestern University.
Lindsay Mullen
Nonprofit Strategist & Brand Advisor
For more than a decade, Lindsay Mullen has worked with nonprofits and foundations tackling some of the world’s biggest challenges, including education, environment, healthcare, homelessness, workforce development and social services. She’s driven by helping organizations redefine and reimagine their brands, strategic plans, marketing, fundraising and people strategies to create greater mission impact, and she has led major rebranding efforts for organizations, guiding the selection of new names and identities and their rollout to clients, staff, funders and media.
Lindsay also helps nonprofits navigate complex communications challenges, including supporting the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation through its archive lease to the Museum of Modern Art, and has built awareness and fundraising campaigns for organizations like the Robert R. McCormick Foundation and Mainstreet Organization of REALTORS. Lindsay holds a degree from the University of Wisconsin School of Journalism and Mass Communications.
Alyssa Conrardy
Nonprofit Strategist & Brand Advisor
Alyssa Conrardy is a strategist recognized across the nonprofit sector for her ability to lead research-driven strategy, fundraising, marketing and communications work that advances missions and drives social change. With a background in journalism, she brings a strong sense of storytelling to the traditional and digital communications she helps shape, and she has a particular focus on using data to guide sound decision-making.
Alyssa writes and speaks widely on the intersection of marketing and social impact, serving as a regular columnist for Nonprofit Quarterly and appearing in The Wall Street Journal and PRWeek. She has trained nonprofit professionals at conferences including Upswell, Cause Camp, Classy Collaborative and Boys & Girls Clubs’ national and chapter meetings, advised and mentored for Impact Engine, and sits on the board of the Great Books Foundation.
Select Clients
Professional Services
Accenture
Alter Domus
Caterpillar Logistics Services
Corbett, Duncan & Hubly
Delta Institute
Elevate Energy
Endurance Environmental
Kroll
Marco Consulting Group
Neovia Logistics
Prosper Strategies
Ropella360
Education
Candor Health Education
Carole Robertson Center for Learning
East Maine School District 63
Erikson Institute
Great Books Foundation
St. Matthias Elementary School
University of Illinois Chicago
Healthcare
Alexian Brothers Health System
AMITA Health Care Network
Lurie Cancer Center
National Alliance on Mental Illness
Northwestern Medicine
SCA Health
Thresholds
Pharmaceutical
Abbott
Abelson Taylor
AstraZeneca
Eli Lilly and Company
Merck
Private Equity
Midwest Mezzanine Funds
Prism Capital Corporation
White Oak Global Advisors
Technology
ASUG
Center for Financial Services Innovation
Industrials & Manufacturing
Atlantic Carbon Group
Caterpillar
New Star Lighting
Tangent Technologies, Inc.
USG Corporation
Law
Baker McKenzie
Secretariat
Vedder Price
Not for Profit
AIDS Foundation of Chicago
Aspen Institute
Chicago Park District
Community Memorial Foundation
Forefront
Great Books Foundation
HistoryMakers
Ignite
Knight Impact Partners
Lynn Sage Breast Cancer Foundation
National Alliance on Mental Illness
National Association of REALTORS
Nourishing Hope
Park District of Oak Park
Pathlights
Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation
Resilience
Robert R. McCormick Foundation
South Side Community Media
Trellus
YMCA of the USA