There isn’t a better time or reason than a tough economy to brand your organization.  Branding is all about setting you apart from competitors.  A powerful brand helps you attract individuals deeply passionate about what you do.  Your brand reassures them that you do it best.  Branding also strengthens your relationship with existing donors, convince donors to up their current level of giving and encourage greater commitment to your organization.  In this harsh economic climate, a brand will help rejuvenate your work with a fresh sense of purpose and in turn generate new streams of giving.  

But like all rewards, the road to the benefits of branding can be long and confusing. Many organizations confuse a brand with a logo, font and color pallette and as a result miss out on real opportunities that a strong brand would’ve helped them seize.  Others underestimate the amount of preparation required before branding can begin. Make sure your organization lays the appropriate foundation for successful branding by taking these 5 steps:

1. Get Buy-In

Recruit a handful of stakeholders to form a branding team.  Keep the team lean with only staunch supporters.  Your ideal team members are aware of the resistance ahead but know that a new brand is critical to organizational growth.  They’ll fight tooth and nail to make it happen.  

2. Research Perception and Competition

How do your constituents view your organization?  Assess their perceptions by sending out surveys, conducting focus groups and/or engaging a small number of key donors in one-on-one conversations.  Identify similarities and differences between constituent perceptions and how your organization wants to perceive itself.  

Next, get a clear picture of your competition.  Which organizations are you compared to most frequently?  Are the dollars meant for your organization going to a competitor?  Out of all your competitors (direct and indirect), which organization would you like to be?  Which organization would you like to be most different from?

3. Identify Your Position

Amidst the vast and crowded sea of nonprofits, where does yours stand?  Use your findings on perceptions and competition to identify the position that best articulates your unique value propositions and most accurately defines the essence of your cause.  A handy tool to support this exercise is the marketer’s favorite two-by-two grid.  

Select two unrelated sets of descriptors.  For example, one could be size and the other could be party affiliation.  Select the two most extreme opposite adjectives for each set.  For example, for size, the opposite adjectives would be big and small.  For party affiliation, the opposite adjectives would be conservative and liberal.  Plot competitors on the grid, plot your current position and, if different, plot your desired position.  This gives you a visual of where you stand in relation to peers and competitors.

4. Make a Statement

What message does your organization want to send?  What promise do you make?  Don’t worry about wordsmithing at this point.  Focus on pinpointing what your organization represents at any given moment.  For example, does your cause represent freedom, equality, safety, etc.?  Brainstorm a list of words/phrases.  Mix and match them to try them on for size.  Your goal is to boil down your organization’s promise into a single sentence (or less!).

5. Shop for a Branding Agency

Now that you’ve done all the legwork, you’re ready to look for a firm to transform all your research data, analysis, positioning and messaging into a complete brand system.  The most important deliverable is the brand strategy which is the branding blueprint that determines the look, feel and voice of everything from logo to website design to event planning.   All components of a brand system must march to the same beat.  With discipline and consistency being key, find a firm that strikes you as qualified to write and stick to a program.

The best branding firms will listen to your goals and get your needs.  If you’ll be contributing a great deal of your own research, look for firms that have a greater creativity emphasis rather than research and analysis expertise.  Pay extra attention to those that offer solutions rather than describe challenges you’re well aware of (although it’s important they know of your challenges).  

Depending on the size of your organization, branding can take anywhere from one month to two years (sometimes even more).  But hang tight and stick to the program.  The rewards at the end of this arduous journey will be well worth it!  Good luck!