• 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

SUMMARY

This hands-on session is designed specifically for small and mid-sized business and social entrepreneurs who are launching ventures or are looking to create a more effective brand presence. Your logo is just the starting point for engaging your audience. We will explore how you can create you brand promise, develop an effective logo, and create a consistent brand presence across all forms of communications.

This seminar will help you to:

• Understand what branding is all about
• Learn how to differentiate your business from your competitors
• Use emotion, authenticity and credibility to build your brand
• Express your value to your customers
• Apply your brand to your brochures, publications, and online presence.

You will also learn:

• The role of logos, icons and avatars
• The elements of an effective business name
• How effective taglines can help your organization

You will see examples of branding campaigns, participate in a hands-on activities to clarify your brand, and get to “Ask the Expert” your branding questions.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

Business Owners, Marketing and Communications Staff

PRESENTER

Howard Adam Levy
Principal, Red Rooster Group

Howard brings 17 years of branding, design and marketing expertise to help businesses, social ventures and nonprofits create more effective brands. He has helped countless organizations launch gain visibility, increase sales, attract members, promote fundraising events and increase donations. His firm specializes in integrated campaigns that leverage the best of strategy, message and design through print and online media. He is an award-winning designer whose work is featured in many publications and he is a called on to speak to business and nonprofit organizations on branding and marketing topics. His blog, Nonprofit Wake Up Call, explores issues at the intersection of the business and nonprofit sectors.

RSVP for the session to howard@redroostergroup.com

The post Howard Adam Levy to Speak on Nonprofit Branding appeared first on Red Rooster Group.

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.

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 disservice to you reader and 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, as well as understanding the impact of your organization. Design also helps people connect with your brand, through your colors and overall attitude conveyed which brings long term value.

WAKE UP CALL: Don’t let design be the overlooked element that hinders readers from connecting with your cause.

For the full article, read The Dance of the Four Veils

The post Are you hiding your message from your donors? appeared first on Red Rooster Group.

Thanks for supporting me on the Hazon’s NY Ride. With your help, I raised $4,877 and was named Hazon’s Person of the Year.

I appreciate everyone’s support for this great cause over the past three years. This year, I raised $4,877 to support environmental initiatives including Community Supported Agriculture for locally-grown food around the United States as model of sustainable food production, making New York City streets safer for people as a model for safe streets everywhere, and bringing together Jews and Arabs to study environmental issues in Israel which fosters joint projects as a step toward peace.

As you may know, I am very active in Hazon. I believe in its mission of using local projects as a platform for creating greater change in the world. The NY Bike Ride is their main fundraising event I have been on the Steering Committee to help plan the ride for the past two years.

2009 Ride Steering Committee at the closing ceremony.

This year, I started Team Brooklyn, which recruited 25 members, the largest team at the ride. We raised $28,000 for Hazon and had 4 team events throughout the year to foster community among the participants.

I also produced a fundraising guide that was instrumental in helping the collective 152 riders raise $222,197, with a per-rider average that exceeded last year. In an economy when all fundraising is down, what was quite an accomplishment, and I was acknowledged as Hazon’s Person of the Year.

Hazon now has the unprecedented opportunity of being selected to represent the Jewish population of the United States at the Alliance for Religions and Conservation conference in Windsor Palace on November 2 in which the world’s religions will convene to give voice to the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December. Hazon is launching a petition to support efforts to halt global warming and I will be involved in creating a video to galvanize the Jews of the United States to sign the petition. So watch for more information on that in October.

With Sarah Litvin and Dana Raviv, members of Team Brooklyn.

Thanks again for your support of me on the ride and in supporting the environment and models for change.

To see a list of all my supporters for the past three years, click here. If your name or year is not on the list, please let me know and I will update it.

If you have not yet donated to the NY Ride this year and would like to support me, you still can by clicking on this link.

Thanks again for your support and please let me know how I can help you in your efforts to create a better world.

Howard Levy
Red Rooster Group

With Jenny Eisenberg, Ride Co-Chair and Michael Reingold.

The post Thanks for supporting me on Hazon's NY Ride appeared first on Red Rooster Group.

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?

The post Creating Awareness for the Third Sector appeared first on Red Rooster Group.