A look inside our Austin team retreat and why intentional pause, thoughtful design and humanity-centered practices strengthen nonprofit and social impact teams.

Why Retreats Matter for Mission-Driven Teams | Black Sheep

Why intentional time together shapes the way we work, think and lead

Designing Retreats That Strengthen Mission and Momentum

Condensed

Digital Predictions for 2024: 7 Trends to Watch

As we look ahead into what we believe will be an unpredictable 2024, with new forms of technology progressing by the day, our team has been keeping tabs on the digital realm. We’ve listed the seven obvious digital trends that will seemingly shift the world in 2024. Let’s dig into the details of what 2024 could bring to the internet.

What marketers need to know about the future of digital content

Regular

Elevating Creativity: Our 4-Day Workweek Experiment

As an agency that was established to provide a better working environment and positive, caring cultural experience surrounding the creative process (even before we settled into our impact mission in 2012), we’ve decided we can’t let this ride. That's why Black Sheep has embarked on a 4-day workweek experiment to see how it affects the way we feel and the energy we can put into our work.

How our team is embracing a new way to work together

Hopescrolling: Is Gen Z actually optimistic?

Cynical. Overstressed. Irony poisoned. The generational outlook for Gen Z is feeling bleak these days, and the marketers and strategists of the world are buried under piles of data about it all. But what if there’s a different way to think about hope? 

Gen Z never lost faith. They just express it a little… differently.

What could generative AI mean for creatives?

AI and the Future of Creativity

Fostering allyship and community in the midst of chaos

Knowing Thy Neighbor

While AI’s latest uses may seem futuristic, artificial intelligence has already been influencing our lives for decades. Two things have changed recently, though: its expanding applications for a variety of industries, and our ability to be calm about it. 

But before we panic about imminent societal collapse led by robot overlords, here’s a crash course on how we got here.

WTF is AI?

What is generative AI and what can it do for us?

Houston Landing is a local nonprofit newsroom with no paywalls to provide essential journalism that empowers our communities.

Meet Houston Landing: designing the next frontier of local news

A new, nonprofit and nonpartisan news outlet for local voices.

Sometimes, social media feels like a horror show. Can we defeat the monster and save the day?

Escaping our Social Media Spirals

7 Native American Designers You Should Know About

Support Indigenous designers in the creative industry.

Picking up the pieces and finding our voice.

We are all we've got.

Sometimes sharing our deepest thoughts is enough to give someone else the courage to move ahead.

AAPI thought leaders that can help us look ahead

Supporting AAPI Heritage and Future

Thoughts and tips for landing your first advertising job with intention

The Breakout Role

How Did We Become a B Corp: the B Corp Series

Our lessons and reflections on becoming a better business.

How Did We Become a B Corp?

We stand with trans Texans. Find ways to engage with local organizations in the fight to protect trans kids and their families.

Texas: The State of Our State

Making a list, checking it twice and shopping sustainably, which feels very nice.

Black Sheep 2021 Gift Guide

For flocking around the Christmas tree and other season's festivities. 

Giving Tuesday: A Day of Global & Digital Giving

A guide and history of Giving Tuesday, the world's largest generosity day.

A roast worthy of a turkey, but instead focused on what makes us truly grateful this season.

Here's to the American Tradition

Let's give it up for turkeys, football and violent misunderstandings

We're a B Corp. You're a B Corp. So why aren't we working together? (Hint: we could be.)

We're the Agency for B Corps

Are You a B Corp? Then We Should Be Your Agency

Here at Black Sheep, we believe you need time to step away from your desk and give your brain a reset. And so we're making mandatory time off a reality.

Mandatory Time Off Is Our New Normal

We need time to rest and come back ready. 

The Black Sheep Agency Stands in Opposition to SB7

We as a Texas business would like to affirm—loud and clear—for all our State elected officials that we do not support the passage of SB7.

Speaking up and speaking out about the preservation of expanded, accessible voting rights 

This year marks our 5th as a B Corporation, joining over 3,800 companies that push back on business and economic models that put profits over people.

Better Business is a B Corp

We deserve a world (and workplace) that gives a damn about something bigger than profits

The Hidden Political Life of Postage Stamps

The postage stamp is a lot more than a sticky tag attached to our envelopes. They are a reflection in culture, and a political tool used to persuade the masses.

Celebrating tiny sheets of beauty, patriotism + philatelic propaganda 

5.4 Million Women Lost Their Jobs Last Year 

We're looking at a sesmic shift in our workforce—and not for the better.

5.4 Million Women Lost Their Jobs Last Year

We're looking at a major shift in our workforce—and not for the better. 

Here's a roundup of podcasts created by Black creators, covering topics from culture, money, work, and history. There's something in this list for everyone.

A Collection of Podcasts for Black History and Black Culture

February is winding down, but we're continuing our celebration of Black creators.

We Are Hiring Chief of Staff (Now Closed)

New role for a visionary Chief of Staff at The Black Sheep Agency

Now hiring at Black Sheep in Houston for Chief of Staff

There’s a particular kind of project that doesn’t feel like a project.

It feels like something else entirely. Over Black Sheep’s 16 years, we’ve learned to recognize these engagements — the ones where the stakes are real, where the mission is load-bearing, where getting the story right genuinely changes what’s possible for the people an organization serves. We’ve also learned that these are the projects we want to fill our days with.

Right now, our roster is full of them. I want to talk about that — not as a highlight reel, but as a reflection of what we believe this work is for. And if you’re leading one of these organizations right now and it feels heavy or uncertain or like your story isn’t keeping pace with your mission, this is for you too.


Some projects aren’t a single scope — they’re a relationship, built over time, through the kind of trust that only comes from doing hard things together.

Houston Arts Alliance is in one of the most pivotal moments in its history. A new CEO — the first woman and person of color to lead the organization — has stepped into a role that carries both enormous expectation and extraordinary possibility. We are building alongside them from the ground up: immediate messaging and leadership transition tools, a mission and vision refresh, a public education campaign, a community engagement process and a full brand foundation. Long, layered, listening-first work. Some of our favorite kind.

Houston Parks Board is marking its 50th anniversary at the start of an exciting new chapter — bold new leadership, a visionary strategic plan and a future that has been a century in the making. We’re evolving their brand to match the scale of that moment. Being trusted when the foundation is strong and the future is wide open is its own kind of honor.

Good Reason Houston is an organization we know well — we built their original brand in 2018, and they’ve called on us at several points of strategic inflection since. This is one of those moments. The world these leaders are navigating looks almost nothing like it did seven years ago, and our work together right now is about finding language that tells their story with clarity and confidence for where things are today.

Civic Builders designs, finances and builds educational facilities in underserved communities across the country. We completed a full messaging and positioning strategy with them, and we’re now deep into their visual identity system — in genuine collaboration with their extraordinary internal team. This partnership is the kind we aspire to: the work belongs to all of us.

The Greater Houston Partnership is building an AI-powered tool to connect educators, employers and community partners in ways that expand workforce opportunity. We’re building the brand that makes it accessible and credible from day one.

Fervo Energy is redefining what clean energy looks like. We are their strategic design partner — giving visual and creative form to the complexity of what they’re building, because a breakthrough technology deserves a story told with equal craft.

The University of Nevada, Reno trusted us to direct a digital campaign for their Black Youth Mental Health Initiative — designed to reach young people at the right moment, in the right channels and keep them connected to support that can change the trajectory of their lives. This follows our branding and strategy work for their CDC-sponsored Safer Nights opioid overdose prevention campaign last year.

The Center for Civic and Tech Life is now publishing a magazine for local election officials — the people who make democracy function at the ground level. We named and developed the publication’s visual identity, because this community deserves tools that reflect the seriousness of their work.

In collaboration with January Advisors, we’re working with the League of Women Voters Houston on a set of core values and a strategic plan built for what comes next. The League has been doing this work longer than most organizations have existed. Helping them articulate where they’re headed is not something we take lightly.

Much of this work is happening in Houston — the city where Black Sheep was founded, where many of us live and where we feel the stakes of these institutions personally. When you’re a Houstonian working on Houston, it stops being a client list and starts being something else.

It takes something to make this call. The leaders we work with aren’t doing it because things are easy — they’re doing it because they’ve decided that a story that can’t carry the mission is a liability they can’t afford. That takes clarity about what’s actually at stake. It takes a willingness to look honestly at the gap between where you are and how you’re being perceived. And it takes the kind of courage that doesn’t always get named as courage — the quiet decision to invest in something foundational when there are a hundred urgent things competing for the same resources.

But the thread running through all of it — local and national — is the same: find the organizations doing the most necessary work, and make sure their story is strong enough to carry their mission forward.

If your organization is in a moment that demands more clarity, more confidence or a story that finally matches where you’re headed — we’d love to be in that room with you.

A reflection on 16 years of learning which projects are worth our days — and the mission-driven organizations we're building alongside right now.

The Work That Doesn't Feel Like Work | Black Sheep Agency

What it takes to build a story strong enough to carry a mission forward.

A reflection on the partnerships filling our roster right now — and what it takes for mission-driven organizations to build a story strong enough to carry their work forward.

The Black Sheep blog is turning up the volume on community engagement, social media strategy, Houston happenings and what it means to lead a purpose-driven life.

The Black Sheep Agency | Social impact and nonprofit blog

We like to type as much as we like to listen.

We're not shy.

The Work That Doesn’t Feel Like Work

Designing Retreats That Strengthen Mission and Momentum

Digital Predictions for 2024: 7 Trends to Watch

Elevating Creativity: Our 4-Day Workweek Experiment

Hopescrolling: Is Gen Z actually optimistic?

AI and the Future of Creative Work

Knowing Thy Neighbor

WTF is AI?

Meet Houston Landing: designing the next frontier of local news

Escaping our Social Media Spirals

7 Native American Designers You Should Know About

We are all we've got.

Supporting AAPI Heritage and Future

The Breakout Role

How Did We Become a B Corp?

Texas: The State of Our State

2021 Holiday Gift Guide

Giving Tuesday: A Day of Global & Digital Giving

Here's to the American Tradition

We’re the Agency for B Corps

Mandatory Time Off Is Our New Normal

The Black Sheep Agency Stands in Opposition to SB7

Better Business is a B Corp

The Hidden Political Life of Postage Stamps

5.4 Million Women Lost Their Jobs Last Year

A Collection of Podcasts for Black History and Black Culture

We are hiring: Chief of Staff