empathy-ledger-brand

name	empathy-ledger-brand
description	The brand constitution for Empathy Ledger — what it is, why it exists, who it serves, and how it sounds. Load BEFORE writing any Empathy Ledger public-facing copy (storyteller, organisation, or funder-facing), before naming or positioning anything, and before designing any storyteller-facing surface. Also load when reviewing whether existing copy or a feature is on-brand.
metadata	{"version":"1.0","status":"aligned 2026-06-03"}

Empathy Ledger Brand

The single source of truth for who Empathy Ledger is to the world. Outward-facing (storytellers, organisations, funders), distinct from the repo's SOUL.md, which governs the coding agent. They share DNA, anti-fabrication and sovereignty, because the agent serves the product.

When to use

Load this skill before you:

• Write any storyteller-facing, organisation-facing, or funder-facing copy
• Name, position, or describe Empathy Ledger or one of its features
• Design any storyteller-facing surface (read the brand alignment map too)
• Review whether existing copy or a feature is on-brand
• Draft a newsletter, tour dispatch, funder report narrative, or origin-story piece

The brand in one breath

Empathy Ledger is the infrastructure for community-owned storytelling: people capture their own voice, hold it on their own terms, and turn it into impact the world has to trust. Asset-based, not deficit-based. The solutions already exist in the communities that built them. We make them legible and impossible to ignore, without taking them away.

The moat: anti-fabrication. A claim you can trace to a named person who consented and can pull it down tomorrow is the one thing extractive impact-reporting can never copy. Sovereignty is the proof of impact, not the tax on it.

References — load the one you need

• references/brand-core.md — what it does and why, the category, audiences, the moat, visual family
• references/soul.md — the six non-negotiables, what good vs bad output looks like
• references/writing-voice.md — register by audience, AI-tells blocklist, do/don't with examples

Fastest on-brand checks (the red flags)

• Deficit framing ("a community in need", "the problem of...") → reframe asset-first
• A number with no traceable source → cut it or cite the consented voice
• "Aboriginal" as a monolith → name the nation
• An em-dash in EL-facing copy → comma, period, parentheses, or line break
• The platform as protagonist ("we tell their stories") → they tell their own
• Inspiration porn / poverty tourism → dignity and specificity instead