Why Branding Matters To Your Nonprofit’s Bottom Line
If your nonprofit wants to do more and go further this year, consider making a concerted effort to strengthen your brand. Successfully branding your organization goes beyond color palettes and logos. A solid brand impacts the entire organization and can help your nonprofit stand out among a sea of other organizations in search of funding and attention. Keep reading if you are still saying to yourself, “What is nonprofit branding?” Or read on for tips that will help you learn how to brand a nonprofit organization – or at least how to get started.
Read Also: 6 Strategies Under $6 To Exponentially Improve Organizational Performance
What Is Branding (And Why You Should Care)
Branding uses language, visuals, ideas, associations, and other devices to strategically differentiate an entity from its competitors and mold public perceptions of it. Your organization’s size, mission, constituency, and support base will affect which branding activities make sense. But there are some basic strategies for all branding campaigns.
Before you do anything else, make sure your nonprofit communicates:
- What it cares about (your mission)
- What it does (your programming)
- How it’s effective (your results and impacts
- Why donors should support it rather than another organization
Your task becomes a lot easier if your charity is the only one representing a particular cause, such as being the sole animal welfare advocate in your geographic region. However, most nonprofits have competitors and need to emphasize smaller differences. For example, does your food pantry welcome corporate volunteer groups while similar nonprofits don’t? Does your school operate under a distinctive educational philosophy? Differences in geography, programming, and ideas can all provide a launching pad for a strong brand.
What Does Your Audience Care About?
Next, make those special qualities the focus of your nonprofit’s outreach. For instance, if your homeless facility has embraced renewable energy, that’s your hook. You might use a logo that features a house with solar panels or a wind turbine. You might post success stories on social media accounts or in newsletters about the cost savings you’ve achieved by involving residents in recycling certain resources.
Tell stories that resonate with your audience. For example, a cancer charity’s annual report might profile a senior fighting lung cancer and how your staffers support her or how volunteers distributed skin cancer-prevention fact sheets at outdoor summer events. Most people will know or have known cancer patients and will understand the emotions involved.
It’s also critical for your audience to see possible opportunities to participate in your mission and brand. You might provide potential brand ambassadors with the tools to create their own “fan” webpages to tell the part your nonprofit played in their stories. Or you could enable large donors to “design” the timing of their gifts and the specific programs they’ll support.
Read Also: Nonprofits: Harness The Power Of Cause Marketing
Manage The Relationship Between Your Nonprofit’s Message And Mission
In all of your nonprofit’s communications — print, social, website, text, and email — your message should tie directly to your mission. In addition, you need to be flexible and prepared to pivot when good branding opportunities come along. Innovation is important because it’s common for nonprofit missions — and audience interest — to drift. To that end, review and upgrade your branding tools regularly.
GBQ’s nonprofit services team is committed and experienced in helping organizations like yours find strategic balance and maximum ROI in various areas. If you and your board are on a quest to achieve greater success this year, contact our team of nonprofit service professionals today to begin your journey of empowering growth.
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