Is Your Branding Helping or Hurting You?

Direct mail, DRTV, radio and digital fundraising use stories effectively to raise money, but many of us underutilize storytelling power to build the brand — along with acquiring new donors and generating net revenue.

Here are some things you can do to enhance your brand while fundraising:

• Know your target audiences. How do they experience you now? What do they want from you? What do you want from each of them? What do you want them to experience from your brand?
• What does your data tell you are the most important messages for your target audiences? What messages do they like so much that they actually send money? (You don’t want to accidentally create a brand platform that negates these messages.)
• Test the branding carefully before adopting it. Does it accurately reflect and support your program? Does it successfully support your fundraising (do people give?)? Hint: If you believe your brand promise is “hope,” you haven’t applied enough discipline to differentiate yourself from every other nonprofit. Plus, you’re undermining your fundraising.
• Keep your logo front and center. Some have tested hiding the organization in the hopes that more people will open the blank envelope than if they know who it is from. It’s not good for your brand to trick people. They’ll resent it.
• Integrate your messaging across all channels so when a donor sees your PSA or DRTV spot and receives an email and goes to your website, your messages and images are consistent — so wherever that donor goes, it “feels” like you.
• People pay attention to thank-yous because they’re about them. So use thank-yous to communicate your brand distinctiveness. We need to be better at showing donors, volunteers and participants how we value them. No better place than in a thank-you.
  • Thank your donors properly for each gift by citing the power and the impact of that donation.
  • Thank your donors for their longevity and describe what their support over time has accomplished.
  • Thank your donors for volunteering or participating in events. And again, stress the impact of their contributions.
• Choose stories that convey compelling need and urgency. Let your donors know how their gifts can make a life-changing or even life-saving difference.

Remember: People can’t give to you if they don’t know you’re there, and people won’t give to you until they’re persuaded of the importance of your work (and the urgency of the need). Use your branding efforts to strengthen your organization programmatically and financially.