Can branding benefit smaller charities?

For my dissertation from Cass Business School in 2013 I investigated whether branding could benefit smaller charities. Astonishingly, no other academic study had looked into this area and, while there is a tonne of research on charity branding, it is all with the larger non-profits. 

So it's great that this topic is getting further coverage today as Civil Society has published a guest blog from me on the findings with a link to the full research. 

Here's the intro and the links to both the article and the research. 

“Branding should be a critical issue for charities because it has been shown to impact dramatically on income.” (Hudson, 2008)

vs

Brand is perceived as a cost not a strategic investment. (Merrilees, 2007)

Sound familiar? 

Reading the trade press, you might question what’s not to like about branding, as these headlines in Civil Society News taken from 2012 – during the midst of the recession – illustrate:

• Shelter’s repositioning helped land new corporate partnerships
• Macmillan’s rebrand helped increase donors by 27 per cent and raised additional ￡5m
• Save the Children’s brand refresh helped integrated fundraising appeals raise over 50 per cent more than target of ￡500,000.

So Hudson’s right then.

However, look closer and there’s a pattern. The charities making branding headlines are the bigger ones.

What I was seeing when working on the ground with smaller charities were a lot of examples on the side of Merrilees.

Hudson… we have a problem.

Read the rest of my guest blog for Civil Society magazine. 

Download the research.