Let’s face it…few nonprofits (if any) have the resources that large corporate brands can tap to build their brands. But every single nonprofit organization, no matter the size, can tap into some basic tools and techniques to create a compelling high impact brand. This session is designed to help organizations of all sizes and shapes boost the effectiveness of their brands, regardless of budget.

1. Big Brand Impact on a
Small Brand Budget
Michele Levy
www.brand-strat.com
Use Twitter Hashtag #npweb
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2. Helping ordinary people raise extraordinary amounts for nonprofits is all we do, and we love it.
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3. Meet today’s speakers
• Presenter: Michele Levy, brand strategy consultant
• Hosting: Sam Frank, Synthesis Partnership
• Assisting with chat questions: Chris Dumas,
FirstGiving

4. Let's face it...
You don’t have
as much money as they do!

5. However...
It’s still possible
to create
a compelling
high impact
nonprofit brand.

7. What will you learn?
• Identify existing brand assets and strengths
• Learn how to maximize those existing assets and
strengths
• Learn about cost-effective tools and techniques to
help boost your brand
• Determine how to track the effectiveness of your
efforts

8. Strong brands follow some
simple rules
• Know who you are…where you have been,
and where you are going
Understand • Understand your audiences…who they are,
your core
and what they want
• Be aware of your brand space…the other
options your audiences can choose
• Maintain an unwavering focus on the core of
your brand
Deliver on
your core • Build a consistent brand experience across all
touchpoints
• Create/empower passionate brand champions
• Never stop thinking about your brand

9. What’s at the core of your brand?

10. Getting to the core
• What’s your mission? Why do you exist? What are
your long term strategic goals?
• Who are your audiences? What do they want from
you?
• Who else can provide the same, or similar, things?
• What differentiates you? What do you do better than
anyone else?
• What’s your reputation? What do you stand for? Is
that different from what you want to stand for long
term?

11. Brand strategy methodology
Internal External Brand Communications Creative
Discovery Discovery Strategy Plan Development
PRIMARY Master brand Recommended Visual identity
Visitor interviews messaging communications Collateral
Strategy session
Member interviews strategies: Web site
Individual interviews Donor/funder interviews Product/service brand Advertising
Focus groups Partner interviews hierarchy • Brand maintenance Signage
Communications • Awareness tactics Direct mail, etc.
audit SECONDARY Audience message • Lead gen tactics
Competitive audit matrix • Relationship
Secondary literature management tactics
review
• Communications
calendar
• Budget
• Measurement and
evaluation

12. At the core…
Capitol Hill Day School is a community clearly passionate
about the process of learning.
It’s a thoughtful group of individuals who are extraordinarily
gifted at making the most of all the resources at their disposal.
From a cozy building and nurturing home base, students
venture forth into the vast learning environment of the city (and
beyond), equipped with the ability to ask questions, solve
problems, and interact with a wide range of individuals.
At the end of the day, or the end of the trip, they return to that
home base, secure in the knowledge that they are respected
and loved as individuals, and as valuable members of the
community. And when they exit the building for the last time
as graduating 8th graders, it’s with an unparalleled confidence,
a deep love of learning, and a genuine concern for those
around them.

13. At the core…
First Night is about participating in art, and through art,
community…right in your own backyard, regardless of where
that backyard is located.
The selfless, scrappy team at First Night is uniquely skilled at
making things happen in an extraordinarily inclusive and
collaborative way.
Whether it’s New Year’s Eve, or a community arts event, they
fearlessly dive in, combining tradition, innovation and an
omnipresent sense of fun to create joyful programs and
events that build connections, change lives and forever
impact the community.

14. At the core…
The team at Hull Lifesaving Museum truly epitomizes the
lifesaving spirit, consistently demonstrating skills, courage
and caring. It’s an eclectic yet close-knit team who share a
clarity of purpose and a sense of adventure…with no fear,
no questions, and no turf wars.
The overwhelming impression of the people and their
places is a gracious one. It’s an organization that draws
people in and challenges them to draw the best out of
themselves, while setting high expectations for shared
values, collaboration and mutual respect.

15. The complete brand platform
Vision E.L. Haynes will be a model of educational excellence and make a lasting impact on urban education in
Washington, DC and across the nation.
Mission Every E.L. Haynes student — regardless of race, socioeconomic status, or home language — will
reach high levels of academic achievement and be prepared to succeed at the college of his or her
choice. E.L. Haynes students will be instilled with a deep appreciation for mathematics and science
and will develop the lifelong skills needed to be successful individuals, active community members,
and responsible citizens.
Desired
perception “This is what the quintessential American public school should look like.”
One of the most diverse schools in Washington DC, E.L. Haynes Public Charter School demonstrates
Elevator what the American public school could, and should, be. Our students prove every day that every child
pitch
can succeed.
Brand
From the moment you cross the threshold it’s clear that E.L. Haynes is a place that changes lives…
personality the lives of students, teachers, parents, and anyone else who spends even a moment in its lively
environment. The people of E.L. Haynes are both engaged and engaging. Their passion is
contagious, as is their commitment to high standards. It’s a team that relentlessly sweats the small
stuff…constantly asking…Is this working? Could we do it better? The school is a microcosm of how
society should be…an extraordinarily diverse group of individuals brought together by their
investment in a shared goal…confident in their own abilities, compassionate towards the needs of
each other, and completely driven to deliver on the mission in which they all thoroughly believe.

16. The complete brand platform
• A level of diversity not seen in other public charter schools
Brand • An outstanding teacher for every student, every year
proof • A longer school year, and school day, that gives every child access to consistent, comprehensive,
points high-quality educational experiences throughout the year
• A commitment to measurement and continuous improvement
• A comprehensive yet individualized approach that instructs all students well
• A strong community with high levels of family involvement, and highly effective parent
communications
• An incubator for excellence in teaching, identifying and sharing best practices within the District,
and nationwide
Be kind.
Core Work hard.
values
Get smart.

17. Really understand your key audiences
Audience Description Audience key concerns Desired perceptions/behaviors Our messages to them
• Highly driven, well- • Developing their • To understand the role • ALL
rounded individuals ability to think more and value of DMCC • We are a valuable resource.
• The ideal student broadly within the context of the • We offer the unique opportunity to
Students
see real works of art in your own
“customer” is a • Having an impact on College
backyard.
visitor, and is not their community • To see DMCC as a • We can help bring new
necessarily an art • Developing “real valued resource across perspectives to your studies, and
major…but they are world” experiences a variety of dimensions to your hectic life.
willing to explore • Getting it all done (and to utilize it • We are accessible across a variety
new things and new • Occasionally taking a regularly) of channels (don’t be
ways of thinking break from getting it • To act as ambassadors intimidated!)
all done! for DMCC within their • We are “safe haven”, extremely
own spheres of supportive of experimentation.
influence • We support experimentation and
risk-taking.
Faculty and • Passionate, • Finding opportunities • To understand the role • FACULTY AND LEADERSHIP
staff dedicated to expose their and value of DMCC • Our collections, programs and staff
individuals engaged students to real within the context of can help enrich the academic
in the broader works of art and new the College experience, and help create
college community ways of thinking • To have greater better students.
• The ideal faculty/ • Keeping their work investment in, and • We share your high intellectual
staff “customer” is and teaching ownership of, DMCC standards and can be a valuable
not limited to the art relevant/fresh and what it offers partner in helping to differentiate
department • Occasionally taking • To see DMCC as a the Wellesley College
experience.
a break themselves valued resource and
collaborator

18. Now that you have identified the core
Communicate…
concisely and consistently

19. Build a consistent brand
experience across all touchpoints
HistoricNewEngland.org Publications
Public education
Historic properties programs
BRAND PROMISE
Bringing to life the heritage and Outbound
Library &
stories of New England through marketing
archives the homes and possessions of
those who lived here.
Traveling exhibitions Development
communications
Speaking
engagements

20. What assets can you leverage
across those touchpoints?
• People…staff, board, volunteers, donors,
served population
• Places…brick & mortar, virtual, print
• Stories…across a variety of formats

21. Use your people
• Uniforms, name tags, swag
• Ambassador training
• Networking calendar (create it, commit to it)
• Business cards
• Social media
• Content creation

22. "I reckon about 20 percent of a brand is
its physical attributes,
like a logo, color, letterheads.
The rest is all about behavior.
Employees bring a brand to life;
they are its ultimate custodians.”
-Ian Buckingham, Interbrand

23. For example…

24. Networking: put it in writing

25. Use your places
• Signage…wayfinding and promotional
• A consistent experience
• Get ‘em in the door (physically or virtually)

26. PAPER SIGNS

27. How can you “get ‘em in the door”?
• Virtual tours (or…actual tours!)
• YouTube
• Testimonials
• Video/audio experience

28. Check it out
• http://www.nycballet.com/dancers/
• http://www.cowc.org/worcester-region/worcester-
rocks-video
• http://www.concordacademy.org/
about_concord_academy/meanstome/index.aspx
• http://www.historicnewengland.org/historic-
properties/homes
• http://www.moma.org/

29. Stories make the brand real
• Framingham: A welcoming community (“where you
start the American dream”)
• Framingham: The classic American middle-class
town/the power of diversity
• Framingham: A vital crossroads
• Framingham: A tradition of volunteerism
• Framingham: An economic engine for the region
• Framingham’s place in the history of the nation

30. Inventory, organize and use them!
Campinelli
• Framingham: A welcoming First Catholic church
community (“where you start the Immigrants then and now
American dream”) Refugees
• Framingham: The classic Academy
American middle class town/the Clinton visit
power of diversity
• Framingham: A vital crossroads Railways, water, highways
• Framingham: A tradition of Heart Study, militia, veterans
volunteerism
• Framingham: An economic Mills; corporations then and now
engine for the region “Creative economy” effort
Bonnets
• Framingham’s place in the
history of the nation

31. For example…

32. The basic marketing tool kit
• Web site
• Business cards
• Note cards
• Leave behind brochure (#10 brochure)
• Limited stationery + electronic templates
• Constant Contact template
• Postcards
• Posters

33. Your web site: a key place
• Keep it current with an editorial calendar
• Make sure it’s professional
• Know the norms and best practices for your peer
group
• Layers of information (not all on the home page)
• Know who’s going there, and what they want
• Invest the time/money to establish a basic SEO
program

34. Sample: Editorial calendar

35. How do I know it’s working?

36. Well….what were your goals?
• Clarify your success metrics (tangible and intangible)
• Tie the metrics to strategic goals
• Think broadly and creatively (e.g. visitor traffic, referral
volume, inbound inquiries, hits to Web site)
• Set reasonable timeframes, based on communications
volume and timing
• Measure against your own baseline, as well as industry
benchmarks
• Keep the dialogue going internally and externally
– Understanding and acceptance of brand, messaging,
communications tactics, etc.
• Track what works and what doesn’t, then refine as
appropriate

37. Find the listings for our current season of webinars
and register at
NonprofitWebinars.com
Chris Dumas
Chris@NonprofitWebinars.com
707-812-1234
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