Brand Therapy for Your Non-Profit Organization

This video is a departure from my B2B videos because so many of you donate your time and expertise to non-profit organizations. My hope is this brand therapy installment will help you make the world a little better place.

SYMPTOM:  Most corporations use profit margins as their key growth metric. When a non-profit organization launches or refreshes their brand, they must advance both their margin and their mission. In other words, branding a non-profit is a double duty effort and if you’re like most non-profits, you don’t have a lot of marketing dollars to work with.

So, how do you get everything you need to brand your non-profit? See if this sounds familiar. You recruit various “artistic” volunteers, most of whom have their own ideas on how your brand should look. So, when Bob donates a brochure design, and Nina creates a power point, your nephew in ad school contributes a website, and you design an event poster, your brand lacks consistency. With no consistency, you can’t build a strong and effective brand presence. Here’s how to fix this: Work with your key stakeholders to agree on 3 corporate colors, one type font family and a general design template. Create a simple, one-page graphic standards guide and insist all designers and content creators follow it. From this point on, your marketing will be consistent and immediately connected to your brand, which is exactly what you need to gain traction and build momentum.

Another challenge many non-profits experience is something I call, “Family Above Focus.” It goes like this. “Everyone at our non-profit is like family. Every member is important and we all feel a sense of belonging.” Those are very cool and important aspects of a non-profit community. But there’s a downside to that “family” thing. No one, even leaders, feel they can say “no” to a family member and some “family” members are perfectly capable of derailing an entire organization’s focus. Every family that has a three-year-old knows this.

“Focus” quickly erodes when stakeholders advance their own agendas rather than feed and champion the common goals and objectives. A Lutheran church’s congregational growth committee realized if they added another service they could better serve their growing congregation, which was their key goal. But to add another service, the start time of the 10:00 service would have to move to 10:15. The committee agreed this solution would benefit a lot of members until a single stakeholder (AKA “family” member) complained. “If we start the service at 10:15 it means it won't we won’t get out of church until 11:15, and the Catholics will get to the pancake house before we can…which means we’ll have to wait forever to get a table. Someone in the committee says, “Gosh we love Carl. He’s has been a member of our church family since 1982. He seems pretty upset about the time change so let’s scrap the idea of adding a service. The family member wins. The focus is lost and the mission suffers. The way to fix this is to gather your stakeholders and do a re-boot. Agree to put the common good ahead of individual needs. And establish protocol that allows ideas to be discussed, understood and assessed by the group, and then approved or rejected relative to their value in advancing the mission or goals. This may take the form of a simple, or super-majority consensus or the judgment of the leader. The key is to establish protocol before your next initiative is launched so you can prevent a single “family” member from clouding your focus and undermining your outcome.

Lastly, non-profit members have a tendency to be so passionate about their cause, they assume every prospective donor, volunteer or member who hears their story will immediately jump on board. Let’s step back and look at an interesting phenomenon discovered by the Winninger Institute. (VISUAL) Here are your prospects. The research shows you can assume about 17% of them will never care about your cause. (BTW, this holds true with any brand.) These are the “takers”. The Debbie downers that don't like what you have to say, they don’t share your worldview and they probably complained there was too much pulp in their orange juice this morning, too. From a “Mission” perspective you may feel the need to persist with this group until you convert them. My advice in a word: Don’t. Just let them go. The effort and cost is too great.

Conversely, about 17% of your prospects are altruistic “givers” who see the value or your cause, sign up and happily get involved. In fact, once onboard they will be the ones who somehow find time to volunteer or donate more money when you need it most. You don’t have to invest much marketing money to retain this group because they are zealots for your brand and your cause.

The 66% group in the middle are the people to market to. They can be reached and engaged. They are open to new ideas and new solutions. This is the group that can change the trajectory of your growth. Let’s talk about how to engage the 66 percenters.

Like it or not, most of your prospects are constantly on the lookout for “what’s in it for them” even in the non-profit space. They’re hardwired to take care of their own needs and their family’s needs first, then the needs of their co-workers, friends and community and lastly, the needs of strangers. It’s easiest to attract a prospect if your message has a direct effect on their lives. It is a little harder if it your cause affects the next ring out, the lives of their friends or their community. And harder yet to get them involved in a cause that affects people they don't know and don’t relate to. But in all these scenarios, try to weave “what’s in it for them” into your brand story.

Let me give you a few examples:

Almost everyone, if not themselves, has a loved one who’s been diagnosed with cancer. The request to “Make a donation and help find a cure” resonates with nearly everyone. That’s part of the reason The Susan G. Komen Race for The Cure is so successful. You don't need to work too hard to plant the idea that a cure for cancer is personal, it would greatly impact your prospects’ life.

So, let’s go to the next ring out - leaky toilets are the biggest single cause of wasted water in our country. A non-profit could say, “Fix your plumbing and help save California’s precious resources” but you’ll get more response if your message ties closer to your prospect with a message like: If every leaky toilet in San Francisco was repaired, we could stop annoying you with our watering ban and you’d save $102 per year, and oh, yeah, saving our resources would be good for our city, too. That last ring out sometimes takes more thought and creativity to make a direct “what’s in it for me” connection. Especially if your non-profit benefits people across the globe. But it can be done. Let’s say your organization builds schools in Guatemala. The desired outcome is an education for kids who otherwise wouldn’t get one. But rather than say something like, “For just $3 a day this little kid can get a quality education.” Consider something more along the line of, “You have the power to change the world by giving this little kid access to a new school and good teachers and books. When you join us you won’t just be a donor. You’ll be a hero.”

The deal is, we all want our own needs met and just below the surface, most of us want to make the world a little better place. It’s okay to remind your prospects that membership in your non-profit is good for the cause and it’s good for their soul, and their health and their financial well-being.

TREATMENT:  Energize your non-profit branding with simple graphic standards that bring consistency and traction to your marketing. Reboot key stakeholder expectations and establish protocol that’s focused on advancing your mission.

Appeal to the “66 percenters” in your marketing and connect what’s great about your cause, with “what’s in it for them.” Your non-profit exists to make the world a better place. A few changes can help you create a better brand. A brand that gets the traction and results your organization deserves.

Contact a brand therapist to learn how you can avoid three of the most common branding mistakes non-profits make and start getting the outcome your organization deserves. To receive notification when we add a new video that will help you gain more traction from your marketing efforts subscribe to my YouTube channel.