GOLincolnGO

Updowntowners is Now GOLincolnGO!

Hopefully you’ve heard by now that we’ve changed our name!

As a 26-year-old organization, our mission is still the same - to enhance the social, cultural and economic vitality of Downtown Lincoln through the production of special events, our events are the same and our members are still fabulous! This new name represents the energy, vision and spirit that members, volunteers, sponsors and staff bring to the community and the events we produce for Lincoln. GOLincolnGO expresses a sense of community and our desire to move forward as an organization.

We realize a name and logo change for an organization with such a long history is quite a big deal, so we enlisted the help of some of our most talented local advertising agencies. Bailey Lauerman and Swanson Russell executed research on the current feel of the organization to figure out which direction to go next. The process started a year ago with a membership survey, followed by phone interviews with random members and a name change mentioned at several committee meetings. PLAY Creative helped with naming and brand creation. The Board of Directors had final say with a vote to change the name and logo.

We embarked on what I’m told is called a “soft launch” last Thursday, meaning that you’ll begin seeing our new name and brand appearing in the community. However, official launch will occur at Celebrate Lincoln International Festival on June 18. The time was right to start getting our new name out there, as we’ll begin pushing Downtown Performance Series, Celebrate Lincoln and Special Olympic Town materials out to the public.

Along with this launch, and thanks to a grant from the Lancaster County Visitors Improvement Fund, we’ll also have a newly updated website in June! I am beyond giddy about it, as seen in previous posts. I’ll have to buy Firespring’s staff cookies or something.

Perhaps my favorite thing about our brand change is my new email address! I am now frances@golincolngo.com. Do you have any idea how difficult it was to spell our fschoonveld@updowntowners.org while one the phone?! It was almost a five minute process. Now if only I could train people to spell my first name right, I’d be golden…

Anyway, I realize a name change will take some getting used to, but I hope you’ll give it a chance and keep an open mind! We’ll be able to do a lot with our new colors and the name is much easier for people to wrap their head around. It’s an exciting time to be a GOer!

Frances