4 Steps to Creating a Strong Nonprofit Brand (Case Study)
Dear Nancy,
Over the past year, our organization has developed several
communication channels – website, print newsletter, mailed
funding appeals, print outreach materials, phone system
on-hold messages, an annual report, advertising in local
papers, etc. As our communications grow, our need for a
style guide is increasingly apparent.
We don't have a guide at all now, and are challenged by
the fact that we operate five sites in a total of three
municipalities. In addition, staff members – from health
educators to social workers – occasionally create their
own outreach materials because they need the materials
ASAP. We don't want to hold them up by going through a
huge administrative process but we do need to be
consistent.
Thanks for any tips.
Debbie Grammer, MPH
Development Specialist
WHSI – Wake Health Services, Inc.:
A Community Health Center
Raleigh, NC
Dear Debbie,
Thanks for asking. The challenge you describe – how to
make the most out of your organization's marketing
outputs, from different sites and staff members,
conveyed via a range of media – is a common one.
My advice? Create a strong organizational brand
and make sure it's used consistently across departments,
site and marketing outputs, both print and online.
The challenge of course is how to create that
high-impact brand and make sure that it is applied
according to defined standards in print and online
marketing materials to diverse audiences, by all
marketing material creators without inhibiting the
power of personal voices. The solution goes much
beyond a traditional style guide (which is usually
focused on writing style and grammar) to encompass
these four steps:
- Make sure that there's agreement, within leadership and
key departmental staff, on what WHSI's brand is. The
brand portfolio includes:
- Positioning statement.
- Key messages for WHSI and for each of your programs
or services.
- Design guidelines on use of logo and WHSI colors.
Remember that WHSI may need to implement audience
research to develop a brand that resonates with all of
its key audiences. Brand management (reviewing
materials, ensuring consistency, brand application)
has to be added to an employee's job. That's the only
way to bring it to life.
Many nonprofit staff members perceive the notion
of brand as being far too "commercial" to be put to use
in their organizations. Beware of this attitude! It is
your greatest barrier to marketing success.
Brand is simply the core marketing elements (both graphic
and narrative) that, when used consistently, ensure
that your nonprofit is quickly recognized and understood
by your key audiences. Every nonprofit needs a strong
brand.
- Discuss the communications creation process with your
colleagues and, with input from representative staff
departments, create a process for creation and review
of marketing materials.
You mention that most, but not all, communications come
through one person. What happens before and after that
person?
- Design and implement additional tools to make it easier
for WHSI colleagues to develop or generate
communications that do convey the brand.
- Select a standard style guide (Chicago Manual of
Style, Words Into Type or AP Stylebook) and
dictionary as your standards.
- Create a WHSI style guide on grammar conventions
(whether to use serial commas or periods within
acronyms), as well as specifics on writing about
WHSI (when to use the acronym, if at all) and its
work.
- Create templates (in Word or the word processing
program used by WHSI staff) for the most common
communications materials. These may include a
one-page flyer, tri-panel brochure on services,
and a press release.
Make these available for download so that your
colleagues have a quick-and-dirty way of creating
ASAP communications that are aligned with WHSI's
brand.
- Hold a training session, in which you explain what the
brand is (messages, design standards, style guide,
processes, and templates) and why it's important to
be consistent in using it.
Include scenarios to illustrate how the communications
creations process works, rather than just distributing
the guide.
Most importantly, make sure you convey that individual
insights and voices are prized, but that they have to
complement core messaging that's crafted to enable
WHSI to meet its organizational goals.
Debbie, I think this approach will work for WHSI. Sorry
that I have no five-minute solutions but there are just
no shortcuts with brand. Once you do invest the time in
this process, WHSI will see the payoffs immediately in
terms of response to its marketing initiatives.
Let me know!
Best regards,
Nancy
© 2002-2008 Nancy E. Schwartz. All rights reserved.
About the Author
Nancy E. Schwartz helps nonprofits succeed through effective marketing and communications. As President of Nancy Schwartz & Company (www.nancyschwartz.com), Nancy and her team provide marketing planning and implementation services to organizations as varied as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Center for Asian American Media, and Wake County (NC) Health Services.
Subscribe to her free e-newsletter "Getting Attention", (http://www.nancyschwartz.com/getting_attention.html) and read her blog at http://www.gettingattention.org for more insights, ideas and great tips on attracting the attention your organization deserves.
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Revised April 12, 2008
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