Branding

Wildlife Trust, a non-profit international conservation organization dedicated to protecting wildlife and safeguarding human and animal health, announced that the organization will be re-branded with a new name and tagline: EcoHealth Alliance, "Local Conservation, Global Health." The organization also launched its new website at http://www.ecohealthalliance.org today, and re-branding efforts will extend to hiring new scientists, developing additional programs, and forming new alliance partners.

Voting is now open for the 2010 Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Awards.

Vote now for the winners of the 2010 Taggies — the 3rd Annual Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Awards.

Seventy tagline finalists have been carefully culled from the more than 2,700 taglines entries from 1,700 nonprofit organizations in 13 vertical sectors from health to civic benefit.

Everyone wants a breakthrough. Every nonprofit wants to leapfrog into the dominating position it knows it deserves. Everyone wants to travel the fast and sexy path. But breakthroughs are rare. Fortunately, there's another path to success, and it usually works — the slow and boring path.

Fundraisers from all walks of life are encountering many challenges these days, but what do the C-level executives see as the most important issues facing the sector? At the Direct Marketing Association Nonprofit Federation’s 2010 New York Nonprofit Conference, three top nonprofit executives joined moderator Tom Harrison, president and CEO of Russ Reid, to discuss these issues in a two-part session, “Cracking the Shell: Open Dialogue & Discussion With America’s Top Nonprofit C-Level Executives on the Sector’s Most Pressing Issues."

It's 2010, and it's getting easier to tell the story about the people you serve. All you need is a cheap Flip Video camera, a social-media platform and a few solid questions to ask. The story is just waiting to be told. Unfortunately, it's much harder to tell a story your donors will identify with.

In their presentation held on July 28 at the 2010 Bridge Conference in National Harbor, Md., "Marketing and Fundraising for Campaigns, Special Initiatives and Anniversary Celebrations," Jeanne G. Jacob, executive director of Goodwin House Foundation, and Barbara Ciconte, senior vice president of Donor Strategies, offered some great tips for successful fundraising. Here are some highlights.

The organization, long an icon of wholesomeness in a simpler America, has seen its membership plunge by 42 percent since its peak year of 1973, when there were 4.8 million scouts. In the last decade alone, membership has dropped by more than 16 percent, to 2.8 million.

The declines reflect the difficulties of keeping up with changing times and shifting demographics, as well as of battling a perception that the organization is exclusionary because it bars gay people and atheists, not to mention girls under 13.

According to some, communication rules that hurt fundraising effectiveness but make people in the organization feel good are perfectly OK. Call me old-fashioned, but I'd say anything you do with your communication that de-motivates donors from giving should be considered a failure. Silly me.

A line of snack bars is trying to live up to its brand name with an initiative that offers a twist to the typical cause marketing effort.

The brand is Kind Healthy Snacks.

Kind’s approach to doing well by doing good is a campaign carrying the theme “Do the Kind Thing,” which plans to donate, in stages, $100,000 to organizations deemed worthy of assistance. The first round, totaling $40,000, is to be announced this week and will be divided among three causes.

Note to the Village People: The lyrics in your biggest hit need an update. The organization previously known as the Y.M.C.A. is henceforth to be called “the Y.”