Nonprofit Performance 360 Magazine Vol 4 No 4

not represent what we do currently; it might represent what we did 20 years ago. Talk about that. Is this even relevant currently? Understand that you have to make sure you are speaking the right message to the right audience, that you’re differentiating yourself from the crowd, that you’re making an impact with your message, and that you’re being consistent.These are all things that are important to any organization. You need to get your board to understand why this is important, that everything you do is influenced through your brand. If people don’t trust your brand, they are not going to donate, and they are not going to attend your events. It’s the same with a business. If you go to a website and see a product you might be interested in, but the website doesn’t look good and the logo looks like it was made in MS Paint, you are going to think twice about clicking the Buy Now button. This is just regular business. You’re afraid you don’t know who they are. The same thing is true with nonprofits. If I go to your website and it doesn’t look great, then I am afraid to make that donation. It’s just the way the world works. We are trained that if it’s trustworthy, it’s consistent. That’s why it’s important to have that brand cohesiveness. It doesn’t have to be the most amazing, wondrous design on the planet, but it does need to make sense. It needs to convey the right message. It needs to be consistent. Speak to the right audience. And choose your design, style, colors, and everything else based on what your audience wants, not necessarily your stakeholders’ favorite color. Sometimes it can be a challenge to work through this with a board and define a course. There is a general education level needed before people can make decisions. The more people you have, the harder it is to make finite decisions. It can be challenging to make sure you really break down what you stand for. You’ll need to pull this out of them. Let’s talk more about this. Let’s build this promise. Once you have a unified promise and everybody can agree on what you’re promising, it’s so much easier to deliver on that brand. Work on things like brand personality, how it should sound, how it should look, how it should act when it’s out there. Core values and value statements are the essence of your brand. But getting everyone to agree can be challenging. You have to rally around core goals and a core vision.What are you trying to accomplish today? Typically, that is unity, a strong message, focusing your

scattered message because nobody knows who you are. The first step is that vision. If you can get the group to agree on a vision, the rest of it is much easier. You can build out from there. Once you have defined all of this, then you can build a website to manifest that brand image, matching color, logo, and style, but now you are matching personality, belief, and message. Design is so much more than just some pretty pictures and colors. It’s a message. True design has a purpose. Why are you doing what you’re doing? Ask why you’re doing everything you do. Do not rush this part of it. Don’t just do something to have a website up next month. That may do you more harm than good. There is such a thing as negative brand recognition. Create a web experience, versus just a website, so that visitors get the whole experience. There needs to be an engagement involved. Build your website on purpose. What does your brand say? Are you controlling that? Are you purposely driving that message? Does the brand say that we know what we’re doing, we’re fun, we’re exciting, we do all this stuff, or does it say, maybe we don’t know, maybe we’re not put together, maybe we’re not organized? Your brand will have a message. People are going to take that in subconsciously without even knowing it. I’m not saying that there is somehow a correlation to how good an organization you are. But it does impact perception. Regardless of the facts, perception is the truth to most people. How often are we misjudged as people? Until it’s corrected, that perception is what they are going to believe. The perception of your brand, unfortunately, is the truth to your audience until you change that. Take control of your brand so that it says what you want, and everything else will follow. Is your brand going to just accidentally communicate to people that you have integrity, that you are team players, that you are fun? No. You have to decide that’s what you want your brand to say, and then push it out there. Joshua Adams is Head Honcho of Rock Paper Simple, a marketing company that has received multiple business and advertising awards by putting results first, looking for the simplest but most effective options to move forward. For more information and special offers, go to rockpapersimple.com/hugh.

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