How to build a charity brand
One fondly imagines that any charity wouldn’t want to dirty its “pure white hands” with anything as grubby as a brand; would you? And yet, in one's mind’s eye, the charity sector has some of the strongest, most memorable brands – and some powerful advertising and PR to match. Think Oxfam, Macmillan Nurses, RSPCA, RNLI and Help for Heroes. Each has its own brand character that reflects its purpose and target audiences.
Each possesses a strong corporate identity. And they all impinge on our consciousness via the TV, the doormat containing our morning post, their individual charity days and other PR.
So, a charity brand is a good thing, is it not? On the face of it, all a charity requires is a little brand input in the shape of a natty logo and strapline - and an explanation of the wonderful cause it supports. So why consider how you might grow the brand? After all, shouldn’t the charity speak for itself.
In most cases, a charity starts small with a core of dedicated founders and trustees. It can grow organically as a result of very hard work and long hours, and be nourished by the stories the cause creates, and the good news of a deserving recipient. Without doubt, many charities have been hugely successful and supportive of the huge range and scale of their beneficiaries. And they achieve this without the conscious input of professional branding and focused PR.
However, the absence of these can, and do, lead to problems. You need a professional to service the many different parts of your charity: accountant, lawyer, H&S, and compliance in so many areas. Why not communications? A professional will do your website, although there are many off-the-shelf design templates online which do a job – of sorts.
Why a brand
Before we look at how to build a charity brand, we should consider why you need a brand in the first place. If a charity speaks for itself, then there is an argument that questions why you should spend donors’ funds to build one. That is a hollow argument.
Your brand is the basis of everything you are and everything you want to become. It is not a fancy logo, clever name or special typeface or colour. It is a culmination of everything you should be exuding. Metaphorically speaking, it’s the clothes you put on, the way you walk, and how you introduce yourself. In fact, most importantly, it’s about what others say about you when you’re not in the room.
Brand building, most communication consultants will argue, is all about trust. Its aim is to get your audience to trust in that brand, to believe in what you are pitching to them. The character your charity portrays should reflect the charity’s ambitions.
But charities have an obligation or rather an advantage in that the brand needs to speak from the heart of the founders, trustees and of course the beneficiaries. If a company attempts to show a human side, you may often struggle to empathise with that brand. But we can more readily sympathise with a worthwhile charitable cause.
Some charities employ “guilt” as a tool to build the brand. It may bring in initial recognition, and in some cases raise funds (and we’ve all given a donation to something under this influence) but benefactors soon tire of feeling they are obligated to contribute and they move on. This is about sustaining a growing brand.
Telling a story
Furthermore, and this can be turned into another advantage, a brand is less about showboating creative wit or style and more about telling the story because, by and large, when it comes to charities there is usually a good story to tell. The secret is to dig deep and find those hidden gems within the organisation, the successes and sometimes failures.
Charities are unfortunately guilty of spending too much of their efforts explaining how bad the situation is now, and how their specific cause is greater and more in need of help than the next. In abundance this leads to charity exhaustion and dissociation, in the same way that too many donation requests on social media can lead to saturation of charity brands as a whole.
However, by concentrating on success stories, and on how the charity is making positive changes, this creates a far stronger bond. There is an encouraging difference between camaraderie and guilt. Like-minded souls with a good plan can potentially really help the cause.
Without question, the fastest route for the charity to help raise awareness (and often the most effective concept to short-cut public donation) is by text and social media channels. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, combined with experiential design, are proving very effective currently. But only in the immediate term. You see on Facebook that a friend is running a marathon on behalf of a great cause, so you click on the link and donate. But having done so, you soon forget the cause until the next sponsored event appears.
The key is to build a sustained recognition of the brand and while fundraising trends and technologies regularly morph and change to meet social habits, a good repository of content and good news stories is invaluable. One good idea was to have a blind swimming race for the partially sighted – on the Thames. The disability is foremost; the geography is amidst the biggest and wealthiest population; the challenge is near impossible – but deliverable.
Then there was Thames Doggy. This is a perfect example of great intentions executed with passion for a great cause but where the brand did not develop as it should at this stage. Between 22 and 27 August 2015, ten brave (and very fit) swimmers swam down the Thames, starting at Letchlade and finishing at Tower Bridge in London. To make the challenge even more difficult, these ten swimmers were doggy paddling all the way, in aid of the UK Stem Cell Foundation.
The event was in many respects a success, each doggy paddler making it to the finish line, in August’s unexpected downpour.
Planning is required
However, the financial result and UK Stem Cell Foundation brand success was limited because of one simple factor: it was reactive and not planned. Due to a number of reasons, including, understandably, the amount of health and safety regulations to be completed before a swim could take place, the timeframe to plan, direct and implement the brand was halved.
Given greater time to plan the outcome could have been exponentially greater. That said, all things considered the concept is original and fun and the donations extremely generous. The 2015 Thames Doggy challenge could be just the start of something truly brilliant.
Planning any campaign or building a brand will help sustain and grow that charity. Background research on your target audiences is vital. Now, one is not advocating researching where each person within your target audience lives and how to accost them. But even before you go up to a random stranger at a drinks party or networking event, you will have considered who this person is, what they need and what you can contribute in order to engage them successfully.
So, you need to look at your audiences in detail before ever revealing or announcing the brand. It’s no good shouting “Oranges for sale”, from your market stall, when in fact what they want is apples. Some believe that in order to make yourself heard in the ever-growing marketplace, you need to shout louder and to be more colourful. If you have a bigger megaphone, you’ll be seen and customers (donors) will flock to your stall.
In reality this is not the case as was demonstrated at a recent market in Dusseldorf, Germany. Two of the many stalls along the bank of the River Rhine used speaker systems to attract customers. One sold cheese, the other sold wines. Neither stall attracted the same number of customers as stalls selling similar items. In fact it was clear to see a number of potential customers turning away from the noise.
Instead it was the person who had researched where best to erect their stand, examined what those ambling past would be looking for, and provided the right solution to their audience issues. Classic marketing first steps, executed with cunning teutonic logic.
For brand success
To summarise, to grow your charity brand, you should consider following these steps:
- Planning – before embarking on any charity brand, plan your route.
- Research – know your audiences inside and out.
- Timing – allow for the brand to develop before launching a campaign.
If these guidelines are followed, the results will speak for themselves, financially and create a greater understanding and awareness of the charity.
As for the future: Once you have the foundations of a singular charity brand position, you can develop new and fresh campaigns which all hark back to that singular foundation stone. Build on that stone and do not ever be afraid to try new things. If doggy paddling down the Thames can be achieved, then anything is possible.
