For-profit companies have embraced and continue to embrace branding for myriad reasons. Branding is, afterall, a story about your company that you are wanting your customers to experience, connect with, and understand. Companies don’t always have that “personal” connection, so branding fills that gap. An amazing thing about nonprofits is, so many personal stories already exist. Yet more times than not, nonprofit clients (particularly smaller ones) are reluctant to invest money into their brands.
What Will the Board Say?
Let’s face it, budget is usually always a concern for nonprofits and if not for lack thereof, then the concern is that you won’t appear fiscally responsible. Branding might seem to be a frivolous use of donor dollars… but, is it?
No Mascots, Please.
The amazing thing about nonprofits is, that- yes, the stories are there. They are there in the form of the people, places, or things that you help. So the role of branding in your case, is simply to frame those stories. As a branding consultant, I don’t see my job to make up a story for my clients (I don’t work for those kind of clients). My job is just to bring certain aspects of an organization to the forefront. In fact, for nonprofits, what we are doing is educating and communicating rather than “advertising”. Branding helps people understand who nonprofits are and what they do. While its true, my nonprofit clients are the least likely to harness the power of branding, they the most likely to benefit from it. What can I say? I guess I love a good challenge.
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