1. Provide Sufficient Information

Hiring a consultant can provide the expertise that you don’t have in-house, but that doesn’t mean that you can take a backseat role. No one knows your organization as well as you do, and you’ll need to be highly involved in the project. Good consultants will engage you in that process. They will want to understand the essence of your entity, elicit ideas, and bring information together in new ways to generate insights.

To do so, the consultant will want to review information about your organization and talk with many people, from clients to board members. Make sure that you can supply the relevant documents and that stakeholders can set aside time to talk.

2. Have a Clear Process

Whether developing a strategic plan or a brand, it’s important to know what you are aiming for and how you will get there. Your consultant should provide the roadmap that they will use to engage your team through an iterative process that includes key stakeholders.

That plan should include the key activities, milestones, and outcomes for each step in the process. Clarify who will be involved in each phase, who will make the decisions, when they will make them, and when deliverables are due. Your job is to provide the appropriate information, context, and ideas, provide feedback on the work presented, and make decisions so the project can move forward.

3. Understand How Decisions Will Be Made

Decisiveness keeps projects moving forward. Put a plan in place that ensures decisions can be made in a timely manner. To facilitate this, you’ll need to decide in advance who will give feedback and how, who will make the final decision, and how that decision will be made. This includes considerations for how the board will be involved in the process — what discussions and presentations will happen and what decisions they will make.

Also, consider whether key decisions will be made if not everyone can attend a meeting or if a conscious determination will be made to delay the project to include everyone.

4. Presenting to the Board

Even if intermediate decisions have been delegated to a committee or staff, keeping the board involved as the project moves forward increases the board’s buy-in and eases the way for final approval. My clients have found it helpful to have me make a presentation to the board at key points in the project. Getting information from an outside expert can help the board move past insularity. Also, because I’ve done the research and looked at alternative approaches, I can answer questions or provide additional context to facilitate decision-making.

However, there is a flip side to this. For some organizations, the better choice is to have committee members, not the consultant, make presentations to the board, to gain the trust of others. Having a board member who has bought into the concept present to the board can be an effective way to show that there is internal support for the initiative. Assess your organizational culture and determine which route will be most effective in gaining the trust needed to get buy-in for ideas.

5. Build Your Project Team

For very small nonprofits, a project team may be one or two people. For larger organizations, team members should represent a variety of stakeholders, such as executive-level staff, a member of the board, and perhaps, some frontline staff members.

Members of the team should be willing to express their ideas and listen to the ideas of others. They should also understand and support the overall goals of the project. And, remember, team meetings and reviews of materials presented will take time. Make sure that every team member is given the time to do the required work.

6. Designate a Point Person

At the beginning of the project, decide who will be your organization’s liaison to the consultant. The point person may be asked to contact people who are going to be interviewed, provide background information and documents, arrange meetings, and make sure that information is shared with key stakeholders. 

7. Set a Schedule

The consultant needs to know about events that will affect the availability of your team. Organizational events, board meetings, vacations, maternity leave can affect the workflow and ability to provide needed feedback and approvals. Working out a schedule together eliminates delays and reduces stress for both your team and the consultant.

8. Have a Plan for Communicating

To facilitate a smooth process, determine who will be included on the project and how you will communicate with your group — email, phone calls, a project management system, Zoom, Skype, etc. — and how you will exchange documents and comments on the documents: as PDFs, Google docs, or Word documents. It’s also a good idea to schedule a standing call in order to reserve time each week, even for quick status updates. This can reduce the problems in scheduling meetings that can delay the completion of a project.

9. Address Stumbling Blocks That Raise Costs

Delaying feedback or reversing decisions already made can stall or even stop a project. Moreover, revising decisions already made can undermine the viability of the project and incur more costs.

This can happen when the plan is for the executive director to make decisions, but when it comes time to give final approval, board members want to express their opinions and second-guess or reverse decisions already made. Or a decision-maker on the staff or board is replaced and the new person wants to undo prior decisions.

To avoid such costly delays, provide the board or a committee with regular updates and opportunities to provide feedback. Discuss any serious concerns with the consultant and team so a satisfactory resolution is reached and costly backtracking is avoided.

Ultimately, you want to achieve a successful outcome for your organization, and want to have a positive experience with your consultant. A good consultant should understand these issues and guide you through them so that you can achieve both.

---

Previously published in Philanthropy News Digest

Looking for Great Advice?

Whether looking for a full partnership to move your organization forward or project, just reach out — we’re here to help.

[contact-form-7]

Your Imagery Represents Your Brand. Saving Money by Using Poor Quality Photos is Penny Wise and Pound Foolish.

The ability to use images to attract people to your cause, convey your story, and motivate donors is more important than ever before — especially for nonprofits, the sector that needs to get its message out in a powerful way. And yet, in my two decades of working with nonprofits, it’s a rare occasion that I have worked with ones that have hired good, professional photographers.

Many nonprofits want to use photos shot by volunteers with little understanding of what is needed for a quality image, many made with cell phones, and most, at a resolution too low to use in print materials. The images are barely usable. And yet, we are told, that is what we have to work with. What a huge lost opportunity! Poor photos are an instant downgrade in the potential of the brochure, annual report, or website to engage donors or attract clients.

I have seen many examples in which poor quality images, supplied by nonprofits, are used on marketing materials. Many design firms, even the large agencies, either don’t know what a quality image is, or don’t care enough to do anything about poor images. I recently reviewed a brochure produced for a nonprofit by a giant branding agency. The cover prominently featured an image of a person whose face was nearly white from the camera’s flash.

Do not let a photo like this be used without retouching it to restore color and bring the person back to life. In fact, if you take the low road in shooting photos, you will have to take the high road — which is expensive and time consuming — in retouching photos. You’ll need to:

• enhance color
• lighten faces that are in shadow (especially from harsh outdoor light, such as when photographed on a golf course, or bad indoor lighting, such as at galas)
• eliminate confusing or awkward backgrounds
• recolor clothing to match the organization’s brand palette
• create consistency in the overall coloring of images (such as matching blue skies in outdoor shots that appear near each other)
• straighten buildings that appear angled
• sharpen images to be more crisp (especially bringing faces into focus)
• boost saturation on dull images

At Red Rooster Group, we do multiple color tests on the paper stock that the brochure will be printed on to see how the images will actually print, and we even do additional retouching after reviewing digital or press proofs from the printer.

All of this takes a lot of time, but we do it because we care. We know better, we aim higher, and we can’t leave it alone. We are in this business to help nonprofits improve their image, improve their brand, and tell a better story. We believe that having compelling images are integral to that. We encourage nonprofits to hire professional photographers, but when they don’t, we help them be the best we can be. Because we believe that nonprofits are worth it.

By Howard Levy, Principal of Red Rooster Group.

 

A review of your brand or website can give you new and valuable insights that may improve your outreach and effectiveness. 

Nonprofits compete for people’s attention in an increasingly noisy marketplace. Updating your website and your marketing materials can make your organization’s voice heard above the din … and increase the impact it has.

1. Your website may be stale, hard to update, and even harder to navigate.

Like most everything, when using the same website every day, you may miss a few “blind spots” that someone with a fresh perspective can catch. A free website review can tell you if your nonprofit’s website has become text-heavy and outdated, whether it’s reaching key audiences or missing key features. For example, an organization that targets a younger audience may have a greater impact if its website is user-friendly on mobile devices. A free website review can help you determine if content is lively and engaging as well as if features have come along that will make it easier for people to engage with your organization.

2. Your nonprofit’s collateral may be harming your brand.

Unlike a website, printed materials are strategically sent out to people you want to engage with your organization or who are already engaged. If they’re not impressed with the way you present your organization, they will be deterred from taking the next step, whether it is donating or becoming a member or signing up for services. Can your nonprofit afford to lose donors, members, or volunteers? Definitely not. A  free brand review can help you find the weak spots, redundancies, and just plain ineffective elements of your printed outreach materials — brochures, newsletters, and annual reports. Just remember: A meal should look appetizing, an organization should look appealing.

3. Your nonprofit’s emails may be going straight to a donor’s junk box.

We’re all bombarded with emails every day, most of which we don’t read. How can your nonprofit’s emails stand out from those that go to someone’s junk box? A free brand review can help you determine specific communication efforts that work, and those that need some work, as well as give ideas for improvement.

4. Name, logo, & tagline are the trifecta of your nonprofit’s brand.

Your nonprofit’s name and tagline can either help or hold back your cause. A free brand review can determine if your name and tagline accurately convey what your organization is all about and if they align with your mission and vision. It can also help evaluate whether your logo depicts your brand well.

Adapting your nonprofit’s communications and design to the ever-changing needs of the market you serve will benefit you tremendously in the short and long run. Luckily for the winners, Red Rooster Group’s free reviews come with solid recommendations, so be sure to listen and learn from the experts.

If people don’t know what your organization does and the impact it has, why should they give your money, join, volunteer, or use your services? Well, branding tells them why. It’s an investment in communicating value.

“For a small nonprofit working on a limited budget, every dollar spent on marketing equates to a dollar that isn’t spent on the organization’s core mission.”

Wrong!

Brand Visibility

That unfortunate paragraph was the start of a Pensacola News Journal story about the very generous donation to a nonprofit in Pensacola, FL. of $100,000 worth of branding work by idgroup.

The founder of Chain Reaction, the lucky nonprofit, expects the organization’s membership will triple over the coming years as a result of the branding effort. She also thinks her staff and volunteers will be able to devote more time to their overall goal.

How is that a loss to the organization’s core mission? Well, it’s not. The real lead should have been, “For a small nonprofit working on a limited budget, every dollar spent on targeted marketing can equate to multiple dollars to spend on the organization’s core mission.”

The services donated by idgroup allowed the nonprofit “to be more visible in the community, so that it can ultimately do more good for the community,” Kristin Fairchild, Chain Reaction’s founder, said.

The visibility was achieved through a new brand strategy and website as well as radio and TV ads, and billboards, among other things, all of which are important parts of getting your nonprofit’s message out and bringing in donations.

Brand Identity

But, based on other comments in the article, I’m willing to bet that the biggest value for Chain Reaction was establishing its brand identity, something that nonprofits often take for granted. As Fairchild said, determining your core mission sounds simple but putting it into words is difficult. With the guidance of professionals, it took Chain Reaction three months of talking with stakeholders to home in on its core mission: teen leadership.

Three months for an organization founded 11 years ago to determine its core mission. Not at all uncommon and one reason that nonprofits should take a serious and regular look at their missions, visions, values, and programs. Time, technology, funding, and demographics all change, subtly changing the way organizations operate and what they are achieving.

A brand review allows you to re-focus and, once focused, showcase your organization’s real strengths and value. Building awareness of those strengths and  of the value your organization has can inspire support of all kinds.

Now, how is that “money not spent on your organization’s core mission?”

Affiliates and chapters can reinforce your organization’s brand identity. But they can also make rebranding much more challenging. Be sure to bring them along as you build your brand.

Organizations with chapters or affiliates face extra challenges when rebranding. Some of the issues that may need to be addressed are:

• Will the chapters adopt the new messaging?
• To what extent will they align with the parent’s brand elements?
• In what ways (financial, technical and other) will the parent agency help in the adoption process?
• Do some of the chapters/affiliates want to retain their own identities and culture?

How then does the parent organization persuade its chapters and affiliates that a unified brand will benefit them? These suggestions may help.

1. Chart a clear course. A change in branding requires a clear plan and purpose, with a timeline and end goal.
2. Make sure people know what is going on and why. Explain the importance of the change using all types of organizational communications — newsletters, emails, in-house blogs or social media posts — to make sure stakeholders have the opportunity to learn about the benefits of the change through whatever channel of communication they use most often.
3. Provide examples of the benefits. Chapters or affiliates should benefit from the change. Let them know how. For example, the new brand may reach new demographic groups or regions, which will create opportunities to increase membership. Include chapters and affiliates in the brand architecture so they don’t feel as if their identity is lost.
4. Solicit opinions: This is essential to generate buy-in. To start the discussion, the parent organization may ask its affiliates about current perceptions of the overall organization. For example, is the nonprofit perceived as traditional or forward thinking? Is it authoritative or lacking in authority? By determining how different stakeholders rate the organization based on contrasting features, you may more easily gauge the level of acceptance you are likely to get for either a big or small change in branding.
5. Create opportunities for participation. Resistance can be mitigated if people are part of the process. For example, beyond the traditional focus groups, the parent organization could consider a “National Community Planning Week” during which chapter members can voice their opinions about rebranding.
6. Reach out to WOMs – “Word of Mouth” stakeholders. These are key influencers whose opinion is valued and deferred to. Knowing the correct channels for communicating with these key influencers — and convincing them to support rebranding — is an important bridge between old and new.
7. Help them overcome obstacles. Your chapters and affiliates may not know how to implement new color schemes and logos. Provide brand guidelines and templates to make it easy. Training webinars can be a venue for answering questions and showcasing ways in which the rebranding will make the chapters more successful.

Recognizing the concerns of chapters and affiliates is important. So is listening to and incorporating good ideas. But nothing makes everybody happy. Don’t let a few reluctant people derail your rebranding project. It is better to pursue a clear, well-thought-out strategy than to look for a muddy middle ground that smooths things over with stakeholders. Decisions can be made with less than 100% support. In time,  it is likely that even recalcitrant stakeholders will become comfortable with — and even advocates for — the new brand.

By Gil Gilead, Marketing Associate at Red Rooster Group.

Take a minute to browse your nonprofit’s website and ask yourself these questions: Is the ‘Donate’ button visible? Does it stand out? Is it on every page of your website? Does your website make it easy to donate? If your answers aren’t a definitive yes, you may be missing out on a lot of money.

We all know that 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on your car insurance, but one minute could earn your nonprofit a lot more!

Where’s the ‘Donate’ Button? Should Never be a FAQ

Whether your organization focuses more on programs, services, or research, it’s still crucial to get donations. Your website is the first place people will go to learn more about your organization and contribute to your cause. If it’s hard to figure out where the donate button is on your website, potential donors will quickly give up trying. And that’s more of a loss for you than it is for them.

Donation Buttons Should be Quickly Noticed

A great way to solicit contributions is to specify a call to action. A call to action may be to sign a petition, volunteer, or join a club. For nonprofits, one of the most important calls to action is to make a donation. And what better way to facilitate this than by having a donation button on every page of your website? (If you want to take it a step further, you can have multiple donation buttons on each page). Be sure to make it easy for your viewers by distinguishing the “Donate” button from other engagement options on your website.

Simplicity is Key

The donation process can be the tipping point between a donor’s decision to continuously contribute to your cause or not contribute at all. Try donating on your nonprofit’s website from a third-party perspective. Do you get so frustrated that you want to “X” out of the window or do you see your confirmation quickly pop up? Just remember, your answers say a lot about how others view your site, too.

By Natalie Glaser, a marketing intern at Red Rooster Group.

To stay in business and make the world a better place, nonprofits need to raise funds. Not an easy task these days!

Recent research indicates that charitable impulses are just barely keeping up with inflation but not really adding much in the way of new resources to the overall funding pool for which all nonprofits compete.

About one-third of nonprofits don’t expect their fundraising results to improve in 2014 and almost half only held steady during 2013, according to 2014 Fundraising Technology Trends Study by Find Accounting Software. These fundraisers also noted that finding contributors, deepening relationships with them, and standing out from other nonprofits were their greatest challenges.

So how do you make sure that your organization has what it takes to pay higher rent, increased utility bills, and upgrade to needed new software? One way, according to the Trends study, is to leverage your website. These days, your nonprofit’s website is likely to be the first point of contact with clients, donors, members, and volunteers — whether on a desktop computer as in the old days — or on mobile device as is more likely.

Maximize the impact of your website and you can take on those three fundraising challenges: find contributors, deepen relationships, and stand out.

Focus on your audience

The key to successful website design is user experience. The members of each target audience must easily find the content they seek, in language they understand, and in a design that is visually enticing. The key word in that formula: audience. The website should focus on the audiences you want to reach, and the messages and images that will resonate with them.

Make your case

If you want to reach donors, think like a donor. They want to know what you do, how well you do it, and why you are a better recipient of their generosity than the nonprofit at the next URL. And they don’t have all day to get the answers to those questions.

The design of your nonprofit’s website should give donors those answers quickly while evoking a visceral response that “these are really good guys.”

Keep it simple

Don’t get carried away by your enthusiasm! While it’s good to be passionate about your cause, it’s unlikely that you can share every aspect, and every experience that you and your staff have had that fuels your excitement. Scrolling through lengthy text will not engage people.

Be real

People need people, even when surfing the web. Your website will be more powerful if it has a human face, literally in the graphics, and figuratively in the personality, content, and language it uses to describe its reason for being. Let donors know who they are dealing with. Don’t always ask for something. Give something as well — information, kudos, etc. That’s how relationships are built: person to person.

Make it easy

Have a very conspicuous donate button as well as easy to find links to social media sites so donors can let their friends know they donated and why.

As an added incentive for a website makeover, consider this: Online donations increased 12.7% for three months, ending August 2014, compared to the same period in 2013. But overall charitable giving increased only 4% in the same time period.

A nonprofit executive director once said that everyone wants to pay for the social worker, but nobody wants to pay for her desk and telephone.

Donors tend to have an unrealistic expectation that 100% of the money they give to a nonprofit will go directly towards programs. However, it’s important to look at the bigger picture when donating: Like all well-managed businesses, nonprofits have to deal with overhead costs. That doesn’t mean they are being wasteful; it means they are being good business managers.

No System, No Service

Businesses typically provide products or services that cater to a consumer’s need or desire. Nonprofits provide programs and services to solve societal problems, such as poverty or cancer. In this regard, businesses and nonprofits function very similarly: Whether it’s selling coats or giving coats away to homeless people, both need an infrastructure in place to help them reach their goals. That means electricity, rent, computers, telephones, etc. Those aren’t extras; they’re basics.

Paying for a Product Provides Jobs

Corporations are thought of as job-generators. Likewise, while a nonprofit offers helpful services, it also provides jobs. About 10% of the US workforce is employed by the nonprofit sector. Whether you’re for-profit or nonprofit, you are an employer and have to provide for your employees. That means fair wages and benefits.

Money Goes Where It’s Needed

If you buy a pint of ice cream from Ben & Jerry’s, your money may go towards an employee’s health benefits instead of the production of the ice cream. Similarly, if you donate to a nonprofit, your money may fund marketing for a fundraising campaign, and not go directly to programs. In both scenarios, you have to accept the fact that your money is helping the business or organization thrive, no matter how it’s being spent.

Visibility and the Bottom Line

Developing a brand that is recognizable will increase sales or donations. Companies spend millions on commercials, magazine, and social media ads to achieve visibility and improve their sales. Comparably, a nonprofit should also spend money to increase awareness of its cause and boost donor contributions.

Nonprofits need employees, office space, supplies, and recognition. Like any business, there’s a cost to all that. And like any customer, you can’t choose where your money goes once you pay. With businesses, you probably don’t care as much, unless you are concerned about living wages and the environment. For nonprofits, you can and should do a little research, such as checking the organization out on GuideStar or Charity Navigator.

But don’t be adamant about the ratio of “administration” to “program” costs, because it’s ultimately about their impact. After all, that is the bottom line for nonprofits.

By Natalie Glaser, a marketing intern at Red Rooster Group, working with clients on marketing strategies.

Don’t be afraid of the numbers. They can show how well your organization stacks up against the competition.

No matter the scope or size of your organization, get people to talk about it! If you have data to verify your organization’s accomplishments, publicizing it will get them talking.

Statistics Increase Sponsorships

Many corporations today are seeking partnerships with nonprofits. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship: The corporation is perceived as socially responsible and the nonprofit can use the money to provide programs and services. If your organization helped increase a school’s literacy rate by 90%, brag about it! If your healthcare organization gave 1,000 free vaccinations, brag about it!

Flaunting your organization’s success will make it stand out when corporations look for partners. This will ultimately have a greater impact on your clients, grantees, and members. It’s a win-win situation for everyone.

Let Your Nonprofit’s Numbers Do the Talking

From a nonprofit’s perspective, posting evidence of success on your website — such as graphs, testimonials or statistics — bolsters your brand’s image and encourages donors to contribute. If donors are unsure about which competing nonprofit to support, favorable statistics on your website may sway their decision.

For example, the Jericho Project, which provides services to the homeless, has a visible “Facts and Figures” section showing its success in keeping its beneficiaries off the streets. Pratham USA also does a wonderful job of creating an effective mix of powerful images and strong statistical data to show its wide impact in India. Everyone understands numbers, so if you have the data, use it.

Prove You Don’t Waste Your Donor’s Dollars

As a new or existing donor, you want to see your money being spent wisely. Knowing an organization is utilizing its contributions efficiently makes donating to it even more attractive. Also, knowing your money isn’t being mismanaged may motivate you to increase your donation.

Reassure Your Recipients

From a recipient’s perspective, it’s reassuring to know that the nonprofit helping you is doing the best it can. After all, you are the reason it exists.

Numbers don’t lie. Proving your nonprofit’s positive impact will maximize your reach and potentially increase donations.

By Natalie Glaser, a marketing intern at Red Rooster Group, who works with clients on marketing strategies.

Does your nonprofit have an original name and tagline? Do you provide unique services? Is your website nicely formatted and user-friendly? Are you effectively interacting with your audience? To be a leading nonprofit, you must confidently check off all of these questions to ensure you are the go-to organization for your cause.

As a new marketing intern for Red Rooster Group, one of my tasks was to conduct a competitive analysis for a prospective client. For each organization, I put myself in the shoes of someone who would heavily rely on the site for information, services, and programs.  With this third-party perspective, I saw “blind spots” in marketing that the organization, donors, and partners missed. Below are the key points I observed.

Memorable Taglines Are a Must

Many of the organization’s names were similar and their taglines didn’t help to differentiate them. In our blog post, “How a Competitive Review Can Give Your Nonprofit an Edge,” we emphasize the importance of a catchy tagline. One, “Transforming Lives Today!” can relate to almost anything, so it’s imperative to include your organization’s cause and/or mission (along with an eye-catching logo).

Choose Quality Over Quantity

An organization that offers many services and programs may waste time and money by implementing them poorly. If donors feel that the nonprofit isn’t utilizing its resources well, they won’t donate to the organization again. In this case, no one benefits. I noticed that when an organization had one or two very helpful programs, it was more “successful” in my eyes than an organization that had many, less useful programs. Providing unique services in an efficient manner will help you stay ahead of your competition.

Websites Shouldn’t Be Mazes

Your website can make or break a person’s decision about using your organization as a resource or donating to it.  Every organization should be mindful of their viewer’s time, and make searching as easy as 1, 2, 3. It is extremely frustrating to feel like you’re trapped in a maze trying to navigate through a website. I felt as if I couldn’t rely on the organization, which is extremely detrimental to an organization that actually has the capacity to provide resources, time and information to people in need. Nonprofits whose websites are easy to navigate and up to date have a competitive advantage over others.

Bigger Doesn’t Always Mean Better

When researching our client’s competitors, one large organization stood out. However, the more research I did, I noticed that it was less engaged with its audience. In fact, almost everyone who had questions or comments for it were left unanswered. One smaller organization resonated with me because it responded to any questions or comments on its website and social media platforms in less than 24 hours, with helpful information and links to resources.

No matter the cause, all nonprofit organizations want to make the world a better place. Following these tips and knowing where your nonprofit fits is a huge short- and long-term advantage to the growth and sustainability of your organization.

By Natalie Glaser, a marketing intern at Red Rooster Group, working with clients on marketing strategies.