Celebrating 5 Years of Interconnected Growth at WCA

We can’t quite believe it, but we just celebrated our five-year anniversary. Since 2021, Williamson Creative Agency (WCA) has been strengthening capacity for organizations and initiatives that make the world more connected, beautiful, and just through access to resources. Back then, things did look and feel a little different, and we are proud of how we’ve changed and grown. We’re also proud of the ways we haven’t changed: the values that keep us rooted in work that makes a positive impact, and the character that brings folks back year after year. 

So how did it start? And how’s it going? 

Our Team

In 2021, Monica Williamson sprouted WCA. With the help of a handful of supporting contractors, including Zoe Jackson, they started planning and running virtual events in the early days of the pandemic. Demand for their services spread quickly, and they diversified their offerings into brand development, document layout design, and web design. 

As we head deeper into 2026, our business model remains an LLC with one owner. We’ve recently added full-time employees to the mix, including Zoe. Since day one, we have always depended on trusted, contracted specialists. With a network of dozens of warm-hearted creatives who support our work on an as-needed basis, we’ve built an ecosystem of talent connected by shared values.

Not only do we enjoy working together, but we also enjoy each other as people. In 2025, we had our first “spirit week” to count down to Halloween, and we took a four-day working retreat on the southwest coast of Washington. “In a small business like this, the founder brings the weather,” reflects Monica. “Trust and alignment with shared values and standards make all the weather more enjoyable.” Even amidst rapid growth, this small, fierce team has centered care, creativity, clarity, and honesty, and we feel confident in our dependability and resilience among ourselves and for our clients. 

Our Process

Since the very beginning, we’ve worked with some version of what we currently call our “7 Creative Phases.”  This process grew out of a reaction to the needs of our earliest clients. We scrambled to find the most supportive workflow while staying flexible and responsive to emergent needs. Five years later, we trust our refined 7-phase process to guide our clients (and us) through a structured, collaborative sequence that is thoughtful and broadly applicable. It’s a tool for clear communication, well-defined scope boundaries, and effective alignment between our team and those we serve.

The strength of this process lies in the fact that it was forged in tandem with the needs of our clients. We’ve honed our strategy and baseline processes, finding our own clarity as we’ve guided clients toward theirs. 

Our Visual Brand

In the words of our founder, WCA’s visual brand was “a little hobbled together” at the beginning. The original logo was not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements. Our brand fonts were expressive but not cohesive (one was very formal, one was very playful). We had one hero color (blue, a trust color), but beyond that, the brand didn’t have much in the way of personality. Given the speed with which our agency formed, we’ve made peace with this reality and have enjoyed optimizing our visual brand to where it is today. 

Our current brand grew out of its predecessor but was cultivated with a strategic eye. Not only is it ADA compliant, but it’s a better reflection of our nurturing yet professional, grounded yet inspired ways of working. It is scalable, consistently applied, and, as a result, more recognizable. When we slowed down to invest time and talent into our visuals, it aligned us around our values, built pride in our team, and showcased our capabilities.

Our Designs

As we fine-tuned our visual brand through learning and strategic development, we also strengthened our clients’ designs. One of our longest-standing clients is the American Indian Law Center, Inc. (AILC). We’ve been facilitating the announcement of their annual law school boot camp application opening since 2021, making it a great case study of how our approach and skills have evolved.

“Once we set clear brand guidelines for AILC’s different events, their designs evolved,” says Brenda, our graphic designer. “We had a general idea to begin with, but refined guidelines let us be intentional about text hierarchy, contrast, and white space.” 

We’ve grown right alongside our clients, and our output continues to be more impactful, more strategic, and based more firmly in design principles like balance, contrast, harmony, movement, and space. As a result, these brands and projects are more consistent, recognizable, and effective. 

Our Community Experiences

As we mentioned, our agency’s work began in the era of virtual conferences. We will always be grateful to the organizations that entrust us with gathering their communities. When the world turned virtual, it helped bolster our early reputation of dependable connection builders, and we gained momentum that propels us to this day. 

Community experiences continue to fuel us. In 2025 alone, we coordinated eight in-person or hybrid events totalling 75 hours of gathering. We also delivered six online or asynchronous events, totalling 20.5 hours of learning and continued education. It’s one of our greatest pleasures to attend these gatherings when we can, both online and in-person, or sometimes both. Brenda, Zoe, Monica, and Cassondra had the privilege of attending the Michigan Indian Education Council's annual conference in 2025 in person. This was especially meaningful because this conference was one of the first we coordinated in our early WCA days, when MIEC was required to transform their 50+ year, multi-track, multi-generational conference into a meaningful virtual experience.

“I love that we’re able to meet our clients where they’re at and support them in moving forward and dreaming bigger,” says Zoe, who’s participated in event coordination of all kinds in the last five years. “We’ve found a trusted flow that allows us to be flexible, refine our systems, and coordinate every detail more easily so that we can respond to client needs even when they’re urgent.” 

We believe the power of relationships is at the heart of the success we’ve enjoyed in hosting learning events in the legal and education fields. Clients trust us to plan and run a quality event, and to do so with kindness, enthusiasm, responsiveness, and transparency. It’s our character that keeps people around: 67% of our 2025 clients are returning in 2026, and several of them have been with us since our very first year. 

Our Extended Impact

Our social impact extends beyond the work we do to serve our clients. Since year one, we’ve committed to donating a percentage of our revenue to causes that matter to us. Donations represented 2.4% of our total expenses in 2025, up from 1.5% in 2024. When measured against net income, giving rose from 0.4% to 6.3% year over year, demonstrating a strong commitment to community impact despite a smaller profit margin.

In 2025, we doubled the number of organizations in our giving circle, with donations to Yəhaw̓ Indigenous Creatives Collective, Sault Tribe Business Alliance, and the Squaxin Island Museum’s Language Program. We’ve made annual donations to a local business incubator, Enterprise for Equity, and we’ve offered in-kind event photography services to our longest-standing clients: The American Indian Law Center, Tribal In-House Counsel Association, and Michigan Indian Education Council. We’ve made monthly donations to the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund since 2024 and plan to continue doing so. 

Our Why

When we looked back at the values we articulated for our agency back in 2021, we noticed how similar they are to the values we carry today. In 2021, we named rightful representation, honest education, amplified access, and creative expression as our values. Today, the essence of those carries through: we center clarity, care, creativity, and honesty. 

Our North Star is lifting important work already happening at community levels. We have always been, and will always be, committed to creating positive social impact by increasing access to resources in meaningful, experiential ways. We are honored to be a part of the ecosystem we’ve helped create, and can’t wait to see how we can continue to help it thrive. 

Explore our website to learn more about our impact and the people who make it happen.