In addition to raising money, your event is an opportunity to forge strong bonds with your donors and turn them into advocates for your organization. Here’s how.
Continue readingNONPROFIT ADVERTISING: Taxi Ads
In our media-saturated world, nonprofits are stepping up their advertising to remain competitive.
Have you noticed the increase in nonprofit advertising in New York City recently? It seems that everywhere you look – on bus shelters, in the subways, in magazines – you see ads promoting various causes. The latest – ads in cabs.
One organization, NY Cares, known for advertising its winter coat drive in the subways, takes advantage of a captive audience with their spot on a taxi cab network promoting volunteerism. Not only does it get their message out, but it builds their brand by increasing their visibility. This helps them reach more people, enhances their reputation, and shows donors that they mean business. Despite how you feel about advertising, it’s one more way for nonprofits to build their brand.
WAKE UP CALL: How serious is your nonprofit about building its brand, and what steps are you taking to build it?
Nonprofit Branding in the News
It’s not often that nonprofit organizations are afforded a mention in the popular press for a name change. But one organization in California did. The Auburn Journal, covering northern California, wrote about the rationale for an adoption agency changing its name from Sierra Adoption Services to Sierra Forever Families. Removing the word “adoption” in favor of “forever families” was part of their brand strategy to change public perception about the adoption. At Red Rooster Group, we’re glad that there is more widespread interest in nonprofit branding issues. We counsel our clients that a name change or new brand launch is a perfect opportunity for them to garner some media coverage, particularly around anniversaries or other major milestones or initiatives.
SOURCE: Adoption group changes name to Sierra Forever Families
70-Year-Old Relief Charity Adopts a New Name
Christian Children’s Fund recently changed its name to ChildFund International. This is a good example of how a nonprofit is adapting to changing conditions by rebranding. The new name will help to position the organization for success. It is interesting to note that they are responding to both internal and external factors:
- Changing services to reflect new constituent needs
- Adapting to the local markets to be more effective in executing their mission
- Recognizing their relationship with their funding organization (ChildFund Alliance)
I would also suspect that they realized that removing the word Christian from their name will help them appeal to a wider donor base.
And note, how they engaged employees and donors as part of the process – it’s critical to earn internal support for the brand.
WEBSITE: Friends of Karen
Friends of Karen | http://friendsofkaren.org
We have updated the branding for this nonprofit organization and developed a new website that helps drive their online donations. The site features the new logo and tagline that we developed and is oriented around the needs of potential donors to drive online fundraising as well as toward families that may need the service. The homepage features a rotating series of images and quotes to convey the invaluable help that Friends of Karen brings to families in need, and the site features a media section with newsletters, news coverage, photo gallery and videos. The site also features an events section and online donation system that works through Acceptiva to accept online donations and handle online registration for events. This nonprofit website is designed in Drupal with a full content management system that allows the organization to update content on their own.
Read the full Nonprofit Branding Case Study.
Free Videos for Nonprofits
YouTube
In partnership with All for Good, YouTube is launching “Video Volunteers,” a platform designed to make connections between non-profit organizations with video needs and skilled video makers who can help broadcast their causes through video. Video Volunteers will pool nonprofit, video-related volunteer postings from All for Good and then match them up with YouTubers who want to volunteer their video-creating skills to make a difference. Because many YouTubers have amassed a large online audience, the influence of their work on behalf of nonprofits can have a big effect in raising the profile of the causes nonprofits are working on and can drive others online to take action. Here’s how it works: Starting today, nonprofits can post video assignments (with the words “Video Volunteers” in the description) on idealist.org, serve.gov or volunteermatch.org; these posts will be cycled through the Video Volunteers feed of the All for Good widget on youtube.com/videovolunteers. YouTube Video Volunteers can visit youtube.com/videovolunteers to pick up assignments directly from nonprofits. Select videos will be showcased on the Video Volunteers YouTube channel and in other high-traffic areas of YouTub
From Business Wire
In partnership with All for Good, YouTube is launching “Video Volunteers,” a platform designed to make connections between non-profit organizations with video needs and skilled video makers who can help broadcast their causes through video. Video Volunteers will pool nonprofit, video-related volunteer postings from All for Good and then match them up with YouTubers who want to volunteer their video-creating skills to make a difference.
Because many YouTubers have amassed a large online audience, the influence of their work on behalf of nonprofits can have a big effect in raising the profile of the causes nonprofits are working on and can drive others online to take action. Here’s how it works: Starting today, nonprofits can post video assignments (with the words “Video Volunteers” in the description) on idealist.org, serve.gov or volunteermatch.org; these posts will be cycled through the Video Volunteers feed of the All for Good widget on youtube.com/videovolunteers. YouTube Video Volunteers can visit youtube.com/videovolunteers to pick up assignments directly from nonprofits. Select videos will be showcased on the Video Volunteers YouTube channel and in other high-traffic areas of YouTube.
Nonprofit Naming Considerations
The name of your organization can say a lot about who you are, what you do, your values and your audience. While a great name won’t guarantee a steady of stream of funds, it can help distinguish your organization in this increasingly competitive world.
Continue readingBRANDING: The Allure of Logos
The logo is caught in a strange land, somewhere between the mark of a proud craftsman, and our post-modern notion of the brand as the fulfillment of a promise. Like a poem, that can encapsulate an amalgam of image, emotion and metaphor, the logo embodies a dream-like notion between what is and what can be.
Acknowledging Sponsors Names in Programs
How do nonprofit organizations address long sponsor names in their programs?
As more nonprofits turn toward individual and corporate donors, they face the issue of how to acknowledge these contributors often in contexts that do not easily accommodate long naming formats.
Red Rooster Group recently worked with a nonprofit organization that had multiple tiers of sponsorship naming — the entire building as well as specific wings of the building, its departments and individual programs, as well as a book series — all named after people.
Their series of brochures, are typically named for their respective programs. Given that these sponsors names, some of which were quite long, had to appear in the nameplates of the various publications, a plan was needed in order to handle them appropriately.
We identified the following three considerations for addressing sponsorship names:
1. Political – how the name is treated based on the donor’s request balanced with the needs of the organization. The size of the donation, the clout and influence of the donor, and the need and fortitude of the organization will come into play.
2. Relative – the size, nature and payout of the donation relative to other contributions for that organization. It is easiest to set up this hierarchy before soliciting contributions in order to set the standards for the appropriate recognition and treatment of sponsors’ names.
3. Logistical – the practical considerations that will determine how a sponsor’s name is treated. Each media will tend to have its own limitations. Building names, for example, may require a significant capital investment and have a fairly long lifespan, while links from an online recognition can provide quick means additional information.
BRANDING: Naming Nonprofits for Impact
I recently received an email that reinforced the importance of having a strong name for your nonprofit organization. Envirolution, a website leading the revolution for environmental jobs, was launching their latest project: The Win-Win Campaign — a youth-led small business energy and carbon efficiency campaign.The name Win-Win Campaign name made me grin — how can you go wrong with a name like that? It underscores the importance of the emotional impact that a name makes when people hear it. And face it, who would you rather support, The Association of Small Businesses for Carbon Efficiency (ASMCA) or The Win-Win Campaign? (I made up ASMCA to demonstrate how most nonprofits name themselves, that is, purely descriptive and not result-oriented.)
Envirolution’s e-mail also contained the names of other groups that they work with including Always Build Green, Make Me Sustainable, Global Kinect, and Urban Go Green — all names that have an immediate appeal. Always Build Green is powerful because it is an exhortation that is easy to understand. The name Make Me Sustainable is an invitation that is hard to resist. The names Global Kinect, and Urban Go Green are short, direct and sound progressive, but it is not entirely clear what they do, making them a little less powerful.
WAKE UP CALL: Make your organization’s name compelling and it will make it that much easier to achieve your mission. Align your programs, campaigns and events around the same theme for even more impact.
Tips for Naming Nonprofits
- If possible, describe the benefit that your audience will receive.
- Use your audiences,’ not your organization’s, frame of reference when naming.
- Keep it short. If it’s refer to it by an acronym, it’s too long.
- Avoid industry jargon.
- Make it memorable by combining words in new ways to create interesting juxtapositions.
- Make sure it distinguishes your organization from others doing similar work.
- Reinforce your organizational name through the naming of your programs and sub-brands and event as well as through your logo and tagline.
Redefining the Nonprofit Sector's Brand
As an expert in branding for nonprofits, I found it refreshing to hear a fellow nonprofit expert discuss the concept of the nonprofit sector’s brand as a whole. Without using the word “brand” specifically, NYU Professor Paul Light pointed out that no one refers to “nonprofit-ness,” although the term “businesslike”Continue reading