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Five Nonprofit Branding Tips


How do you establish a distinct identity in the minds of potential supporters? I’m glad you asked.  The Fundraising Fundamentals blog at http://www.andrewolsen.net/mark-cubans-advice-for-your-nonprofit/blog)  offered branding tips from entrepreneur Mark Cuban. Here are the tips(My comments are in parentheses):
1. Don’t make educating your donors the focus of your communications. Meet them where they are – not where you want them to be. (Don’t tell them what you want or what your mission is or what you need. Concentrate on explaining how donations or volunteering will benefit them in some way. The most obvious way to do that is to show people how their support will reduce domestic violence or clean up the river.)
 2. Forget the witty, brainy, philosophical branding campaigns that are designed to “make donors think.” They don’t want to think. They want to help. Show them in simple terms how they can help. (Take the direct approach. If you are the only nonprofit supporting microfinance programs in Jannu and Kasmir India, say you need money for that.)
 3. Focus your fundraising on the most urgent, tangible and solvable problems faced by those you serve. (Keep your “sales pitch” positive – “The money will help a widow start a business and provide for her three children.”)
 4. Ensure your brand communicates your value proposition – what your impact is on the community – not the programs and services you provide. (Again, keep it simple and concrete – “empowering  Nepalese women entrepreneurs” is a decent start.)
 5. Tell stories that are emotionally engaging and easy to digest. (All of our decisions tend to be based on emotion. Facts and logic do help out. Try to get people to feel  a certain action is right, sensible, or consistent with their values. X)

How is your organization doing in each of those five areas? Pick one thing that needs work and  start improving it this month.
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  1. AnonymousApril 9, 2013 at 10:48 AM

    I think your first point is an excellent point. Something very obvious and straightforward but also something so rare to see in modern advertising campaigns. I was around the office when synergyagency.co.uk were working with a large NFP and they had it spot on. It's so uncommon to see branding executed well in the modern climate, too many corporate cultures creeping in!

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