Every year I crisscross the country speaking at nonprofit conferences. While the conversation about branding has gained momentum, many nonprofit leaders continue to have a narrow perspective on what it means to build and maximize a strong, needle-moving brand. They often define their brand as their logo, a fresh color palette, and a set of guidelines for outreach, with a consistent identity as the primary objective.
The problem with that view of branding is that it’s no longer enough, especially in today’s competitive giving environment. In fact, that approach is obsolete.
Your brand is more than your logo, a clever tagline, or a contemporary color palette. It’s more than a guidelines manual. Your nonprofit’s brand is the promise you make to your many audiences, the essence — heart and soul — of your organization. It’s the experiences you create, the personality you convey, the messages and stories you deliver, and the identity you express. A compelling brand captures and communicates your mission and distinct culture.
Your brand defines and differentiates your nonprofit’s approach to fulfilling its mission. It makes what you are as an organization known, felt, and understood. It builds pride and creates alignment of purpose. It inspires staff, donors, board members, corporate sponsors, community partners, and, perhaps most importantly, those you serve.
Your nonprofit brand has never been more important than it is right now.
Brand clarity, strength, and relevance can mean the difference between success and failure for your nonprofit. These facets of your brand are critical to building donor trust and confidence in your organization, your leadership, and your board.
Building and leveraging your brand in a way that produces significant results is not easy. But putting in the time and energy is well worth the effort.
For nonprofit brands to succeed or excel in the future, organizations need to master the following eight key behaviors:
1. Be clear about your mission.
First and foremost, your nonprofit should have clarity of purpose. Know what you do, why it matters, and how you’re different from similar organizations. A clear-sighted organization knows where it’s headed and how it’s going to get there, and always delivers a clear promise to those it serves.
2. Be nimble.
Your organization needs to be able to adjust its communications and strategies rapidly. Technology is always changing. Communication tools and channels continue to evolve. Your audiences are keeping pace with these changes. If you don’t adapt with them, you risk losing the important relationships you’ve worked so hard to build.
3. Test new approaches.
A nonprofit should not be afraid to explore and push boundaries. It should constantly seek new ways to engage its many audiences, serve up meaningful and relevant content, tell its amazing story, and lift up its donors for the good they’re doing with your organization. For example, we helped one nonprofit, The Children’s Center, create a series of animated stories that show the situations of several children before and after receiving help. The animations told moving stories and inspired donors to give.
4. Use multiple communication methods.
While direct mail is alive and well, it can no longer be your only communications channel. Know which channels your donors and key audiences prefer and take your messages to them where they are. To be successful, your nonprofit must create messages for donors, supporters, and beneficiaries that are consistent yet tailored to the channels in which they’re delivered. And the communication has to go out at the right time, to the right place, and in the right way. For instance, when executing a multichannel year-end campaign, you don’t want your email arriving on Christmas Day. It most likely won’t be read. And because we know Gen Y and X audiences are more active in social media, we send them primarily online messages and email.
5. Stay focused on the mission.
Nonprofits must always strive to be relevant. What do I mean by that? Volunteers gravitate to causes that are near and dear to their hearts. Beneficiaries return to certain nonprofits over and over again because those groups fulfill a unique set of needs. Donors give repeatedly to nonprofits when they can clearly see the impact of their gifts.
The key is to stay laser-focused on your mission and what’s important to each of your many audiences Millennials, in particular, prefer to support organizations that stay true to their mission. If these donors detect mission-creep, they may look for other nonprofits to support. Make it crystal what you do, why it matters, and how millennials (and everyone else) can get involved to help make a difference.
6. Embrace the power of narrative.
Your organization must be a great storyteller. Storytelling is essential to your nonprofit’s ability to advance its purpose. Done well, you can use stories that illustrate how your nonprofit is transforming lives to connect your staff, board, donors, and beneficiaries to your mission. Besides creating a “brand story” for your nonprofit — a story explaining why your nonprofit exists and how it is making a difference in the world — you should continuously collect and share the stories of those affected most by your work: your beneficiaries. When crafted properly, a powerful and compelling brand story improves your fundraising results, emphasizes relevance, and increases your organization’s visibility. An inspiring brand story will intrigue, engage, and connect emotionally with your many audiences. It could even help you attract top talent to your board, staff, and volunteer ranks.
7. Create a distinct culture.
A clearly defined culture is critical to building an engaged and motivated work force. Your employees can be your best brand ambassadors, as they are often the first point of contact with your organization. The key is to educate your employees, board, community partners, volunteers, and stakeholders about your brand and develop messaging they can use to ignite passion about your mission.
8. Invest in the necessary tools.
Don’t underestimate the role of a strong but agile infrastructure. The time and resources to manage and make the most of the power of your brand are limited. The right technology and brand infrastructure — brand strategy, logo, guidelines, messaging plan, and so on — will enable your nonprofit to maintain timely and effective communications with your donors and key stakeholders, implement successful fundraising and awareness campaigns, grow the number of those you serve, and increase year-round media exposure, all with fewer resources.
Taken together, these eight steps will lead to more powerful branding by nonprofits, an effort that can help build financial sustainability for years to come.
R. Trent Thompson is president of Thompson & Company, a brand-strategy firm that works exclusively with nonprofits.