| How do I strengthen my organization's brand? | Present your organization in a unique way, be consistent, and tell a good story. |
Branding in nonprofits is more important than you may think: Imagine walking into a speech and finding the audience sitting at rapt attention, eager to hear what you have to say. Or think about how it would for a donor to invite you to a meeting, already convinced that your mission is an urgent priority. Picture what it would be like to discover that members and volunteers feel a sense of connection and purpose whenever they think of your organization.
What could you do with that kind of connection, that kind of openness? A lot! You could protect wilderness, champion equity, serve folks in need, try anything to make your corner of the world a better place.
There is a way to build this connection. It’s not magic. It’s your brand.
Brands had their socio-political moment in the early 2000s. We knew that “brand” meant something iconic and an emotional story, like a logo and a heart-tugging TV ad.
We knew that they could mean one thing in one community and something completely different in another. A brand could represent both elite athletics and appalling working conditions. A brand could represent wealth and financial savvy and corruption and exclusion all at the same time.
We loved brands. We hated them. By 2010, we were gawking at toddlers’ knowledge of brands, wondering what their familiarity with Toyota and Big Macs meant for the future of society.
Then social media came along. Influencer marketing and reputation management showed that branding was bigger than logos and trademarks. “Personal branding” became a college course.
We still fret about it, grudgingly admit its importance, covet a strong brand, and roll our eyes at bland corporate branding “experts.” We may have moved from love/hate to like/meh when it comes to the topic, but it’s a topic worthy of your time.
A “brand” is an identity that is unique to your organization.
The line between a name and a trademark is fuzzy. When you start an organization, you give it a name. You get a logo designed. But you don’t have a true brand until people know you.
Before you have a brand, you are an unfamiliar face in a very big crowd. It’s only when people start to recognize the qualities that are unique to you — when that strange face starts to look familiar — that your brand emerges.
Your nonprofit’s brand precedes you in every space you enter.
It’s a combination of recognition, understanding of who and what you are, reputation (what others say about you), and emotional connection (how others feel about you).
When you have no brand, you are a stranger in every room you enter.
If you have a strong brand, people believe they know who you are and why you are there.
When your brand is compelling, people feel connected to you and want to be part of your world.
Your brand has power. It sets the stage for your talks, primes your audience to listen, and brings credibility to your message. With a strong, compelling brand, each of your individual communications efforts has a greater effect.
You can build a brand by accident. Some people and organizations are consistent and focused without thinking about it, especially when they are just starting out. But as your team grows and your community expands, brand-building needs some intentional effort.
Your accidental brand may not be the one that you were hoping to cultivate. Your brand could be too nerdy, too academic, too chaotic, too angry, or too passive to generate the impact you are trying to achieve.
A brand reflects your strategy and helps to shape it, so it needs some planning. Like any element of your strategy, it needs to be clearly articulated and reinforced in day-to-day activities.
Branding for nonprofits starts with your organization’s core values. What do you stand for? How do you want to be known?
From there, you develop ways to depict your organization consistently – your logo, your “About Us”, the font, colour, and types of images that represent your work. As your organization grows, different people will be writing copy, sharing images, producing videos, and making graphics. The communications guidelines help all these different creators speak with a shared voice.
When people say you have a strong brand, it usually means that you are memorable. You stand out from other people or organizations; people remember you specifically.
Name recognition means people say “I know you!” on hearing your name. Mindshare means they will volunteer your name when asked about organizations or causes. Recognition is great. Mindshare is the goal.
For many of the best social impact leaders, being “known” is an uncomfortable goal. Those who seek fame and attention are often the least-suited to lead. They’re there for the wrong reasons.
You need to decide what memorable means for you and your organization’s values. But you owe it to your cause to be memorable in some way or form.
Think of the problem that you are trying to solve — whether it’s the climate crisis, violence, economic inequality, or something else, it deserves attention. It deserves to be seen by the community. It deserves to be remembered.
Figure out what it is that you want people to know: What names or words or images do you want them to recognize? What topics or information do you want on their minds?
Think about the ways that delivering this message works best for your organization: Do you want to make an emotional connection through storytelling? Do you have shocking statistics to release? Do you want to be at every single policy meeting in your field?
There are many ways to be memorable – you can pick which feel right to you.
When people think of your organization’s brand, you want them to generally think the same things – the same issues, the same activities, and the same perspective. Consistency is the foundation of integrity.
Consistency and repetition help to make your brand memorable. Things only become familiar when we see them repeatedly, so you need to show the same version of your organization over and over again.
You also want to avoid being contradictory. You can’t be organized and disorganized, or naive and cynical. People will either be confused, forget you entirely, pick just one, or lose trust in you.
There are simple ways to do this, such as your logo and visual identity using the same boilerplate language to describe your organization and its work, emphasizing the same values and principles in every speech, and focusing on the key topics and programs that are at the core of your strategy.
Consistency, memorability, and strategy are all connected.
Stories are one of the most powerful places where your brand comes to life. When you tell a story, you reveal a lot about your mission and your values. You praise or blame certain behaviours; you celebrate or despair at specific outcomes. You define heroes and villains.
When you tell a story, you create a world and invite people into it. So, of all the communications tools, your story collection is one of the most important.
Stories spread, and they spread through the words of many, many people. A donor is more likely to remember a story than a financial statement. A board member is more likely to share a story than a mission statement. A volunteer can more easily repeat a story than your key messages.
Stories, like a brand, precede you in a room. They linger after you leave. They are they heart of your brand.
After all your planning and effort, your organization never truly owns “your” brand. Your actions and messages influence your brand, but it exists in the hearts and minds of your community.
We are afraid (with good reason) that the emotional power of a strong and compelling brand will override common sense; we’ll support harmful environmental and labour practices or pay too much for the things we buy.
To be clear: it’s not branding you dislike. It’s hypocrisy and lack of integrity.
If you approach branding ethically, it’s just another part of your strategy to do important work. You can choose to be wise and to act with integrity. To inform and inspire people without tricking them or distracting them. You get to be whatever you decide to be.
This includes humility. Branding your nonprofit isn’t about being famous. It’s not about having celebrity spokespeople or glorifying one individual above a movement. Your cause needs to be known and understood. It needs to inspire people to action. People need to know what you are doing and why you are doing it. That’s the point of communicating. The stronger and more compelling your brand, the more powerful your communications will be.
The Organizer is a newsletter for people working to create equitable and sustainable communities. Whether you are part of a nonprofit, a charity, or a social enterprise, this newsletter is for you.
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