Nonprofit Performance 360 Magazine Vol 4 No 4

Design Corner

JOSHUA ADAMS

Branding for the Nonprofit Board

Is marketing important for cause-based nonprofits? Sometimes marketing is considered to be a bad word, just like profit. I was a youth pastor for three years. I get it. But you must run any organization like a business. There is a balance sheet. There are margins. There is overhead. You have customers, kind of. You have to cater to those people. If you are a nonprofit or a ministry, you have to get out to your audience, and you are trying to attract them. It doesn’t matter whether you are trying to make a profit or make an impact.Regardless of what it is you are trying to do, you have to reach people with your message. Sometimes that marketing is to get donors, to drive revenue, to be able to do bigger things. Sometimes it is for outreach, to be able to reach people who are in need. How you get that message out there is important. What is that message? If you don’t have a clear, concise, consistent message, people don’t know what you stand for. That’s very important, even more so for nonprofits. What is this organization, what do they stand for, what is their message, why should we be involved, why should we give? There has to be a clear message. Most people think that a brand is a logo and some colors. While that is part of your brand, you have to understand that your logo is a representation of your brand. Your true brand is the character and essence of your company, the personality of it, what it stands for. Your brand is not necessarily that pretty logo sitting there. When you have a truly

great logo, a truly great image representation of your brand, it comes from a good understanding of who you are. Stop and know yourself.Who are you?What are you trying to convey? What makes you different? Know yourself. Know the true part. A lot of organizations don’t. Why do you do what you do? What kind of an impact are you making on the world that is different from the other groups doing it? Why are you more trustworthy? Tell me more about you.Tug at my heartstrings. What is the vision of your brand? In ten words or fewer, what is the highest calling of the company? What is that headline in a future newspaper that you’ll be so proud of ? What is your battle cry? When you can define that, you can go from there and define your mission statement, which is the how. How do I accomplish that vision? What is my brand promise? Who am I making that promise to, and what is that promise, that unique thing I am promising to every customer, stakeholder, donor, whomever? What is that unique promise I am making? It’s important to define this stuff so that it can float up in the mind of the organization’s leaders, its members, employees, staff or team members, or clergy. The executive director is normally the person who has to go to the board and say, “This is important to me because…” People don’t know who we are. People don’t know what we are. Our name may

26 I Nonprofit Performance Magazine