6 Ways Boards Are Critical to a Nonprofit’s Brand

Nonprofit board members know they must oversee their organization’s finances, governance, and major initiatives. But they often overlook their role in keeping their organization’s brand healthy, vibrant, and free from liability. To fulfill that responsibility, board members must:

1. Prioritize the Brand

Having a strong brand is fundamental for long-term success. The brand must be easy to understand, appealing, and motivating. If people don’t know what you do and how well you do it, they are not going to support you. Boards make it possible for an organization to build and maintain a brand by allocating the resources needed. Whether marketing is done in-house or with the help of a consultant, the board must budget sufficient money to ensure success.

If the brand is important to the board, it will be important to staff, donors, and clients. By ensuring that systems and resources are in place to reinforce the brand, the board ensures its continuity and strength.

2. Be Part of Brand Development

Boards help define the organization’s brand — its mission, vision, values, and brand promise. The board can participate by taking an active part in the branding process. Boards should be involved in developing and approving key deliverables, such as a new name, visual identity, or mission statement, and ensure that appropriate trademark protection is secured.

3. Protect the Brand from Internal Threats

The board must ensure that there is a brand guideline manual and that all communications materials reflect the standards laid out in the manual. By making consistency a priority, your team will not inadvertently erode your brand. 

For organizations that have chapters or affiliates, pay attention to the relationship between the parent entity and others that use the brand. Parent organizations need to clearly articulate how their brand is to be used (and not used), provide guidelines and training to those using the brand, and monitor for misuse.

Affiliate organizations need to be mindful of using the national brand appropriately and setting guidelines for adapting the brand locally within the national standards.

4. Protect the Brand from External Threats

External threats come from people — including your supporters — who may use your logo or other brand identifiers in an inappropriate manner, or other organizations that usurp or infringe on your name or logo. 

The board must also examine any potential mergers, partnership arrangements, or cause-marketing deals to ensure that the arrangements are mutually beneficial and that the organization’s brand won’t be misappropriated or harmed in any way. Make sure that all partnership arrangements are with entities with similar values and interests. Don’t enter into agreements — no matter how financially tempting — that contradict the mission and values of your organization. Spell out all the details of how your name, logo, and other brand elements will be used.

5. Leverage the Brand

Smart organizations know that their brand reflects their entire organization and that branding, marketing, and fundraising support each other. Each of these departments has touchpoints with the public — clients, donors, media, volunteers — and each touchpoint should reinforce the brand. 

Boards can ensure that all departments — particularly development and marketing — support each other. Boards need to understand the many skills, roles, and positions within the organization affect and support their marketing efforts. They need to put systems and teams in place to ensure brand cohesion. 

6. Speak Up for the Brand

Board members must be brand ambassadors. Their job is to enthusiastically spread the word, raise funds, and serve as the chief cheerleaders for the organization. To do so, they must be able to confidently and passionately talk about the value and impact of the organization. A strong brand makes it easier for them to do so by providing clear, concise language and a message that board members are proud to convey.

Previously published online in Candid.

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If you are like many small and medium sized nonprofit organizations, you are focused on your mission, dedicating staff to carrying out programs. Maintaining your website and getting visibility for your organization is often neglected or put on the back burner. And yet, marketing and promoting your agency is essential to attracting donors and ensuring its long-term success. Here are 10 ways your nonprofit can wake up your brand to strengthen your appeal to donors.

1. Have a compelling name for your organization.

This one is pretty fundamental and deep, but worth stating since many organizations have outgrown their name but continue to struggle along with it. If your organizational no longer reflects your mission, population or area served and is hindering your ability to raise money, it might be time to change it. It’s not an easy decision, but given the impression that people form of an organization based on the name, it might be worth considering. An easier option is to examine your tagline and names of your programs, which can capture donors’ imaginations.

2. Make your copy sparkle.

3. Convey your impact.

Most nonprofits are very good at describing what they do on a regular basis — their core programs and services. But what motivates people to give is a meaningful vision that inspires them, and the knowledge that goals are being met. Review your materials to make sure you are connecting the dots for your donors, and showing how your organization is having a real impact on people’s lives, on the community you serve, and laws, systems or practices you have changed in society.

4. Take advantage of your events to spread your message and bond with your donors.

It may seem obvious, but most charity events are geared only toward raising money and miss out on the opportunity to tell people what you do. Consider how many people attend your event as a spouse, friend or business acquaintance and who don’t know anything about programs and then consider the extent to which your event may not convey anything about your organization.

5. Use a QR code to provide a quick link to your website or event.

6. Incorporate technology into your events.

There are many creative ways to use technology to accept donations, promote your mission and engage your donors. For example, Eventjournal.com is an online journal, which gives you a web presence before, during, and after your event. Also, you could consider accepting donations immediately at an event, either via traditional credit card processing terminal, or by using a service such as Square Up to swipe credit cards via smart phone. Organizations are also exploring the text-to-pledge option, allowing attendees to use their phones to make donations via text message. Something to keep in mind while evaluating any technology is the profile of your target donor, their age range and familiarity with using new technology.

7. Use your event invitations to promote your organization.

Event mailings are a big opportunity to reach your donors. The key point is to think of the event invitation as a marketing piece or advertisement to promote your organization. The invitation is an opportunity to inform your potential donor base about your organization. Let’s say you mail invitations to 1,500 people for your event and 300 people attend. This means that 1,200 potential donors will see your invitation and your marketing message, but won’t be attending or interacting directly with your organization. Also, it may make sense to provide a way for these recipients to donate without attending the event. The bottom line is that event invitations are advertising.

8. Take advantage of new Facebook Page features.

Facebook has recently started Pages, official Facebook presence for organizations. Unlike Groups, which anyone can start on your behalf, Pages are administered by organizations themselves. Pages can also be customized with more information and features than Groups. In fact, the more people who “like” your Page, the more you can do with it. Some organizations are creating sophisticated interfaces on their Page to engage donors. For the younger set, Facebook is a primary way of communicating, and Pages are becoming the de facto web presence.

9. Get your board involved in your social media efforts.

Sure, Facebook is great for reaching the general public, but it’s more likely that your board members are on LinkedIn. Creating an organizational page and asking your board members to link to it can foster an online connection among the board and foster links with the business community (read: potential donors). Often, LinkedIn is a medium overlooked for deepening connections with board members and developing online “brand ambassadors.”

10. Stay current with technology.

There’s a lot going on and you can’t be expected to keep up with it all, but it’s a good idea to stay find ways to stay current. Conferences and seminars are great but not always possible. Webinars are easier to attend since you don’t have to leave your office. You can also invite technology companies to come in to present a demonstration. Having a standing day of the week or month for this gives you a scheduled way to stay current.

There are many ways to build your brand and visibility and smart nonprofits know that everyone in the organization plays a role in doing so, not just the person assigned to send out the email newsletter. Adopt a “marketing mindset,” so that you are consistently thinking about ways to build the value of the organization on an ongoing basis. That way, you can be around to help more people in the future.

Howard Adam Levy, is Principal of Red Rooster Group, a New York based graphic design firm that creates effective brands, websites and marketing campaigns for nonprofits to increase their visibility, fundraising and communications effectiveness. Contact us at info@redroostergroup.com.

This article first appeared on Wild Apricot.

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Using the Safari theme, we created materials that attracted attention and increased attendance for this organization’s annual fundraising auction. The campaign consisted of a postcard, invitation, poster and auction program guide.

Each item in the campaign featured a different animal with a different pattern. The type was designed to look like it was stenciled on crates, and the items were printed on a recycled craft stock. The award-winning campaign resulted in the JCC’s most successful fundraising event to date.

American Graphic Design Award

• Published in the book Direct Response
• Published in the book Postcard Graphics

Links

• See more Fundraising & Events.
• See we promote other Jewish organizations.
• Contact Red Rooster Group about promoting your organization.

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Visit our YouTube Channel to watch these videos:

• The Board’s Role in the Nonprofit Branding Process
• Nonprofit Brand Components for Success
• Nonprofit Branding: Establishing Credibility
• Nonprofit Branding & Fundraising

Red Rooster Group is a New York based graphic design firm that creates effective brands, websites, and marketing campaigns to increase your visibility, fundraising, and communications effectiveness. Contact us at info@redroostergroup.com.

• See nonprofit brand case studies.
• See our services.
• Contract Red Rooster Group for help with your nonprofit branding and marketing.

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1. It provides something of value to get your attention (the free pack of gum is nice and costs them little).
2. It focuses on the customer’s needs rather than the church’s (the compelling headline is very different for a church).
3. It respects the reader’s intelligence (it doesn’t patronize, insult or use fear or insecurity as a motivating factor).
4. It provides clues as to what to expect (the photos show a diversity of young smiling people in the church).
5. It provide specific instructions as to what to do (lists services to attend, how to enter and gives other benefits, such as “Childcare available.”
6. It provide a link to the website for more information.
7. It was inexpensive to produce (the gum was taped on with a loop of masking tape).
8. It was distributed to people in their demographic (by someone who could answer questions and be an advocate for the church).

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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.

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