Howard Adam Levy to Speak on Nonprofit Branding

Learn how to effectively brand your business and gain a competitive advantage with this hour and half workshop.

  • Wednesday, October 21, 2009
  • 9:30 to 11 am
  • Brooklyn Creative League
    540 President Street (Btw. 3rd & 4th Aves.) Park Slope, Brooklyn, NYC
  • Free with RSVP to howard@redroostergroup.com

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Are you hiding your message from your donors?

Are you hiding your message from your donors?
In today’s environment, it is more critical than ever to have your communications be as crisp and targeted as possible. In his article, The Dance of the Four Veils, Tom Ahern describes the hinderances to communications. I would add a fourth veil: that of poor design, a factor which is often overlooked by nonprofits.
Poor design hinders your communication in many ways. When your reader doesn’t know what to look at first on your website or newsletter, or can’t focus on your message because of the distracting formatting, you are doing a dis-service your communications.
A strong design will lead lead your reader through your message in the sequence you want, including getting the full emotional impact from well-selected images, to understanding the impact, through your writing, to connecting with your brand, through your colors and overall attitude conveyed.
Don’t let design be the overlooked element that hinders readers from connecting with your cause
Veil Number One: Avoiding Conflict at All Costs
Veil Number Two: A Tendency toward Weak, Bland Language Rather Than Bold, Vivid Words
Veil Number Three: Faint Appreciation for the Emotional Basis of Human Response
Veil Number Four: Relying on Jargon
The Dance of the Four Veils
http://www.nonprofitquarterly.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1410:the-dance-of-the-four-veils&catid=150:from-the-archives

In today’s environment, it is more critical than ever to have your communications be as crisp and targeted as possible. In his article, The Dance of the Four Veils, Tom Ahern describes four hinderances to communications. I would add a fifth veil: that of poor design, a factor which is often overlooked by nonprofits.Continue reading

Creating Awareness for the Third Sector

After the three-day Nonprofit Congress in May, the National Council of Nonprofit Associations (NCNA), which produced the Nonprofit Congress, organized a lobbying day to create awareness about the nonprofit sector. The New York delegation was one of many that went to Capitol Hill to lobby our Representatives and Senators about the National Capacity Building Initiative (put forth by NCNA). The bill provides $25 million for training and infrastructure for charities to help them become more effective and sustainable (half the funds from the federal government, half from private sources). That’s me (Howard Adam Levy, Principal of Red Rooster Group) in the yellow jacket, with Fred Fields, from the United Way of New York City, behind me, and Doug Sauer, Executive Director of Council of Community Services of New York State, bottom left.

The lobbying effort was important on three fronts:

1. To generate awareness about the need for funds specifically for non-program activities to allow nonprofits to pay for leadership training and operational costs.

2. To demonstrate to government the impact and importance of the nonprofit sector, which accounts for $1 trillion of the economy and 10% of the workforce.

3. To promote advocating for the nonprofit sector as an essential activity for nonprofits and to show that we can be effective when organized (with the NCNA the organizing body for the social services sector).

WAKE UP CALL: What are you doing to advocate for the nonprofit sector?