What's wrong with nonprofit branding?

The branding discipline has swept through the nonprofit world in the last few years. This should be a good thing -- after all, clear identity and consistent messaging should make communication better.

Sadly, "branding" has largely been a disaster for fundraising, because it is almost always practiced wrong -- usually by self-styled brand shamans.

All too often, the purpose of nonprofit branding is for the organization to express itself -- not to be relevant to donors. The end product is a messaging platform that leaves donors scratching their heads -- and less engaged. And if that weren't bad enough, the branding exercise also frequently creates graphic standards that reduce readability and require a color palette that's a witches' brew of tasteful but sterile, unreadable, and unmotivating shades. I guess that's what you get when you start out with an anti-donor bias.

Donor-Powered branding is based on donor aspirations, not organizational self-expression. Branding in the commercial world usually understands this: The brand is not about us, it's about our customers. The brand image that speaks to donors may not make your heart sing. That doesn't matter -- not to a donor-powered organization.

Think about it this way: If this is a brand, who's the cow? To what is the brand attached?

The "cow" had better be your donors. Your brand exists in their minds and emotions. If it doesn't -- if it's an abstract concept that you created to please yourself, and it exists only in a guidebook and the mind of your "brand manager" -- it's not a brand. And it will damage your fundraising efforts.

Technorati Tag: fundraising

Comments

[Marnie Webb]

Agreed, Jeff, with the courage it takes for folks to turn any part of their brand over to their donors or any other set of stakeholders.

And, of course, that's easier said than done because, ultimately, it takes work to set up the framework so that that can happen productivity and without losing complete control.

[Jeff Brooks]

Giving donors power over your image means losing that power yourself (but, of course, gaining a lot of other things in return). That takes courage. There's the rub!

[Marnie Webb]

From my perspective, the real issue is that nonprofits (and their shamans) are trying to create the brand. As you say, that doesn't encourage the sort of donor/user-centered messages. In the days where the ripping of a logo is only a right-click away and a Google search will bring more information found off an organization's website than on, branding is more pourous. Orgs have to -- the absolutely have to -- figure out ways to turn whole pieces of identity over to the people who are their core sponsors and, even more, to the people they want to be their core sponsors.