Effective Brand Strategies for Nonprofits

It’s more important than ever to be able to stand out from the crowd, distinguish your organization, and be meaningful to your audiences. Understanding the relevance of your brand and how your organization meshes with people’s values and world perspective and meets people’s needs is crucial in today’s world.

Howard Levy is a brand strategist, award-winning creative director, marketing, and fundraising expert with a 30-year track record of helping organizations revitalize their brands, engage their audiences, and raise more money.

Notes: Nonprofit branding expert Howard Levy has helped hundreds of organizations overcome their inertia, wake up their brands, and reach a higher level of success. Recognizing the need for nonprofits to tell their stories more effectively to drive awareness, he founded one of the first marketing agencies focused specifically on the needs of the nonprofit sector 30 years ago. As President of Red Rooster Group, he’s partnered with organizations across a range of causes, revitalizing their brands to remain relevant. He has helped nonprofits to update their missions to meet the moment, change their names without losing their history, reframe their stories to expand nationally or internationally and create cohesive visual identities to connect fractured chapters.

More at – https://redroostergroup.com

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The Interview Transcript

Hugh Ballou:
Welcome to the Nonprofit Exchange. This is Hugh Ballou, president and founder of Center Vision Leadership Foundation, where we work with leaders to build synergy with a common vision. My co-host is David Dunworth, the president of the board of Center Vision Leadership Foundation. And our special guest today is Howard Levy. And Howard’s going to talk about effective brand strategies for nonprofits. But Howard, before we do that, tell us a little bit about who you are, your experience, and why you do this work.

Howard Levy:
Sure. Very glad to be here, by the way. Appreciate it. And congratulations on over 400 episodes. Quite an accomplishment. Thank you. Yeah, I started the company, Red Rooster Group, to help nonprofits Because I believe in nonprofits really based on my values in college. I think I always cared about things and in college, I worked with a non-profit organization called New York Public Interest Research Group. It was basically an advocacy organization working on some good things, environmental issues like recycling, starting out, and recycling in New York City a long time ago. And the landfill was being closed. What are we going to do with all the garbage? And government reform to root out corruption. And so it was kind of old-fashioned activism, writing letters, putting a table outside on campus, and getting people to write letters. and showing up at City Hall and things like that, and then running workshops and getting involved that way. And so, you know, I saw the need for small organizations to really have a voice in society. And, you know, it’s important. This sector is really kind of, well, when I started 30 years ago, there were about half as many nonprofits as there are now. I think about 800,000 now, And depending on how you count really, 1.6 million or so, most of them are small. There are large brand names as you’ve heard of, March of Dimes Salvation Army, and Red Cross, those billion-dollar organizations, but most of them are under a million dollars. doing the lifeblood of society. And it’s really important for them to continue to be able to do that, to have the awareness out in society, to get fundraising, to get some traction with leadership with, you know, in politics and advocacy issues, which many are not involved in, but to really to have a voice. And so that’s why I started Red Rooster Group with the idea of Wake Up Your Brand to help small organizations and medium-sized organizations really you know, have a voice. Because if you’re not out there asking, if you’re not at the table, you’re not going to get it. And that’s important to your mission. That’s the whole reason that you exist, is to be able to serve society well in some way.

Hugh Ballou:
And clarity in that, because a confused mind says no, no matter what you’re asking. So we’re talking about effective brand strategy. So I want to ask you why it’s important for a nonprofit to have a strong brand, but as you’re answering that, why don’t you tell us what a brand is?

Howard Levy:
Yeah, I mean ultimately a brand is your reputation and you can only control that so far as you Make a promise, kind of brand promise. What’s your mission? What are you doing? And how well are you doing that? And that’s going to depend on how well you’re actually communicating that in some way. And so when people talk about branding, they’re usually talking about the communication part. How do we look? What’s our logo? And what’s our message? But the important part of that equation is really, what are we actually saying? What are we promising? You know, what’s our reason for being and the mission and the vision there and making sure that’s aligned. Often we find organizations come to us and have been around for a while. Could be 20 years, 40 years, 185 years. Well, times change, so missions evolve. What started as one program now turned into, you know, many, you know. In the case of the 185-year-old organizations, more than 40 different programs. So with smaller organizations, maybe they’ve just drifted. Maybe they were founded on the idea of serving kids, and now they’re working with youth. Maybe the scope changed and expanded. Maybe the geography changed. Maybe they want to get into new areas or new markets or new geographies, introduce new services, new ways of being, even a new model. And so you have to reassess yourself. Who are we as an organization? What’s our reason for being? And make some strategic decisions about that. And that’s really what the brand process is about, is realigning what you’re doing with how you’re coming across in the world. And so there’s, you know, there’s research that’s involved. Let’s understand the organization from the inside. What are we saying? Let’s understand from the outside. What are people hearing? Let’s make sure we’re coordinated, you know, on those things. Let’s formulate a new message and let’s kind of address some of the strategic gaps, you know, that we may have that may be hindering that growth.

Hugh Ballou:
Before David asks, he’s got a good question to lead off of this, but can we test people’s understanding? You know, we think we’re clear on it. How do we test that?

Howard Levy:
How do we test what people perceive of an organization? Yes. Well, I mean, there are direct and indirect ways. The direct way is you could ask them for surveys or one one-on-one interviews, you know, for example. And the indirect way is the actual, you know, how much are people donating? You know, has that been going up or down over the last five years? You know, for example, are they engaging in your programs, you know, or any other metric of actual outcome? If you’re looking to do something, bring your program into more schools, are you able to do that? Is that because your message is not clear? Are you not able to attract more people to your cause, to help them as beneficiaries, to bring them in as volunteers, to influence policy? All those things are markers of whether you have a strong brand or not.

Hugh Ballou:
Love it. That’s a modern strategy, David, talking to people.

Howard Levy:
Well, you could listen as well. I mean people tell you stuff on social media and indirectly, you know, and events and all kinds of things. So, you know, asking, you got to ask. Yeah. Profits are often not, you know, as good as asking. It’s very funny because for an or for a sector that’s very consensus oriented, you know, and you can go through the brand process, it’s like, let’s get everyone’s input in the organization about what our brand is. you know, during the daily role of the organization, there are so many opportunities just to get input. You know, you could ask one question on an intake form, you know, on a registration form, on a volunteer form, on a donation form, you know, you could ask a little poll on social media. There are so many ways just to get feedback. And, you know, when I say, have you run a program, you know, do you do even surveys, you know, once in a while, even once a year should be more frequent? you know, often the answer is no. Maybe because they’re really not aware. Maybe they think that it costs a lot of time and effort. Maybe they don’t have the wherewithal or understanding of how to do it. But, you know, just think my advice to the listeners is to think about how you can find information out on an ongoing basis in small ways. Just like I said, ask one question at every touch point you may have, you know, any opportunity to where you’re communicating or someone is communicating with you, there’s an opportunity to gain some information and then capture it in some meaningful way. That’s the other part of it. It has to go into some database of some sort so it could be useful to you.

David Dunworth:
Good point. You mentioned a couple of things. One, is that there are a lot of non-profits out there, 1.6 million non-average every year, and a lot of them are small. The vast majority of them are small. That’s one point you made. And then the other point you made is with all of the things that people in organizations have to do with the brand, how you’re communicating, and all that kind of stuff. How can small nonprofits get their message out so that their brand awareness is there, and that people know who they are, and what they’re doing? How do they go about doing that? Well, I mean, it’s small.

Howard Levy:
Yeah, I mean, in some way they have, I wouldn’t say an advantage, but they, you know, they do have the ability to act quickly, you know, that we see many medium or large organizations is quagmired into layers of decision making. So, you know, just think about that. You have the advantage of being able to kind of hear something and adapt to it. I’ll kind of I was going to circle back, I guess, to your answer, but this idea of I was going to touch on is like relevance and cultural relevance and timeliness with, you know, what’s going on in the world. I think nonprofits also many oftentimes are kind of in their silo. You know, they have their head down, they’re doing good work providing the programs, but there are often opportunities to get the word out just by commenting on what’s going on in society and in culture and in politics. I know a lot of organizations are kind of afraid of this idea of advocacy and losing their 501c3 status, but You certainly could make a comment about something. I mean, if you’re dealing with kids, there are things in the news that are happening with children that you could, you know, be making a statement on somehow. And whether it’s on, you know, social media or at your events or whatever, that can start to get the word out, you know, in a way that’s outside of your, you know, of your area. You know, there was a group we’re working with on education and you know when Biden’s loan forgiveness program you know was up and then it was you know they had the legal issues you know there’s opportunity to be a thought leader on that if you’re working with youth in college and college access, that seems to be something that you might be interested in commenting on. You know, if people are reading that and then they can read what you’re saying about it, you put out an article, a blog post, a position paper, an op-ed in a, you know, in your local newspaper or in a national newspaper. You’re bringing people, you’re going to where the people who care about that issue, and you’re inviting them into your organization, to your worldview, to your perspective. And so to answer your question, I think those are ways that small organizations can think about how to, you know, engage people.

Hugh Ballou:
So engagement, like what you said earlier, ask and listen, but there’s also this thing of interaction. We get too sucked into texting and emailing and forget that there’s people there. So we did our planning, we’ve established our brand, so we don’t need to do it anymore, right? Or should we revisit it?

Howard Levy:
That’s what the whole, you know, the listening, the continuous listening, the continuous feedback loops, you know, the continuous gathering, you know, the information, you know, and adapting. Times are always changing, people’s feelings are always changing, you know, and you have to adapt, you know, you have to adapt your, you know, your model, people’s, the world. So, think about the world from your donor’s perspective, you know, what are they thinking? Are they worried now the market just, you know, just went down? Are interest rates, you know, going to be changed? So, they’re looking at their finances, you know, and making decisions about it independent of your organization, but that’s going to may affect, you know, how you appeal to them. So you have to understand what’s happening in the world and reflect what’s happening in the minds of your donors. And the best way to do this is to ask. You can have a phone call and not ask for money. You can just call someone to say, how are you doing? You know, what are you thinking about things now? What are you worried about? What do you think about, you know, this issue, you know, this, you know, our organization or your faith-based, you know, how’s your faith doing these days? You know, whatever, you know, it might be. People welcome, you know, those kind of conversations.

David Dunworth:
Yeah. Or you could just Thank them once in a while.

Howard Levy:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

David Dunworth:
Unexpected extras. Hey, I was just thinking about you today. And, you know, a little handwritten note or whatever. But let’s let’s talk about some more tips. What tips can you offer that’ll, you know, help them get their message out a little bit better?

Howard Levy:
having a clear strategy overall I think often it’s just like kind of let’s you know what are we doing you know that you know this week or when we say like what’s our what are we putting out on social media or responding to you know we got to recognize this holiday or this month or something we got to we got to put our organizational stuff out there every organization is doing stuff and they want to tell the world about it and they’re very organization centric in the way they think about things right here’s all the stuff here’s all great stuff we’re doing we just got to tell the world i don’t know how many times i’ve heard this line we’re the best kept secret well that’s true you know you’re you’re doing great work and you’re not paying any money you’re doing it very much to advertise or to get out there you know in the world in a robust way so so you know so people don’t know but What are the you know, I’d ask like what are the opportunities to intersect with you know with people’s lives and things? You know that are that are happening. So Not just like in the months that might be important, you know, for example, you know to your issue, but into the lives of the people who are your supporters or your congregants, you know. They have kids, they’re starting school. September is probably, you know, a big deal for them. Maybe they have a first time, you know, a kid going into school for the first time or transitioning into middle school or graduating high school or going away to college, whatever. You know, how does that intersect, you know, with what you’re doing and how can you find the opportunities, you know, to talk to people, you know, about the opportunity to help your cause or to, you know, to, you know, our other, I keep using these kind of example of youth, you know, organizations, but, you know, as your, as your kids are starting, you know, school, many other kids aren’t, you know, without, they are without a home or without, you know, clothes or a backpack or school supplies or without the extra help they need or, you know, whatever it is. And so you can try to, you know, align your vision and your message, you know, with what’s going on out there.

Hugh Ballou:
Good work, good work. Furthering that, we don’t like this, but we have to have conversations about fundraising. You know, that’s not a favorite topic of most leaders, they just want to do the work. relates the importance of your brand message to your fundraising, and how are the effective ways of connecting those, and maybe give us some good examples. Maybe you can give us some bad examples too, what not to do.

Howard Levy:
Yeah, sure. Look, I think a lot of people do have reservations about fundraising. There are psychological barriers. They feel embarrassed to ask. They don’t want to put people in a position, they feel, to imply some type of obligation. There’s a lot of psychological things behind that. But I think reframing it as A method for people to do good in the world. That’s really what philanthropy is. People want to do something good. They want to help other people. They may not know how. They may not know the best ways, you know, to do it. It may not be always available to them, and may not always be easy. But if you think of your organization as a means for other people to do good, that makes it a lot easier. So when you’re talking with someone, you’re not necessarily asking them to support your organization. What you’re asking them is what’s important to them. I’ll just use this role of kids again, this example. So, you know, if their interest is in disadvantaged youth, for example, you know, and this idea of, you know, fairness and people should have, you know, a fair, you know, at least the fair opportunities, you know, in life. then you’re talking about their values. David, I know you care about equity and fairness and how these kids shouldn’t suffer. This is one way that you can help to make sure that your value is manifest. So it’s uncovering what people care about and then giving them a chance to do something about what they care about through your organization. And so I think the brand strategy can often help with that, because it reframes the organization as a vehicle for donors’ manifestation of their good in the world, in addition to what you’re doing as an organization directly. And so that’s where the brand strategy meets the fundraising. But, you know, it requires some people to, it requires a little reframing or requires a little, you know, rewiring or under, you know, and training. And certainly, tools could help, you know, having a strong case for support document, a nice brochure, a presentation, a video, some tool that helps to capture the story, helps people and gives them that needed the vehicle for helping to go out there in the world and, you know, and meet with people with a little more confidence or at least open the door or have something else to, you know, an excuse to reach out to someone.

David Dunworth:
Your specialty is branding in a big global sense. A lot of people just think their logo is the brand. Well, we already know that that’s not the case. That’s just a visual that should remind them of what you do. But how would you go about a little bit deeper, bringing that brand into integrating it into their fundraising efforts. Is that psychological? Is that behavioral? Is that pure advertising? What do you mean by what people are looking for for that?

Howard Levy:
Yeah, well, you need to know, we like to say you have to have a brand promise. That’s your mission in some way. But what do you, for the donors, if you think about it from the donor perspective, what does that look like? Here’s a way to create more equity for kids to have a good education or to go to college or whatever it is. There And then having a full messaging deck that, you know, we like to use this brand framework, you know, what we do, why we do it. So what we do is usually very simple, people know that. The way we do, sometimes that’s clear, sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes there’s some origin story, the founder started it because of a real clear mission that they had. Other times it may be evident with an organization, other times it may not be. And there’s an opportunity to kind of connect that to the larger issues in the world. Like, why is education so important, and why are certain populations disadvantaged or needing access more than others, for example? the why that’s important, so that larger significance, you know, that you can draw from that, why donors should support you, what is the evidence of the impact, you know, that you’re having, that’s a crucial part of the brand. Because you could say you’re doing lots, but maybe it’s not so successful. So, you know, how are you documenting what you’re doing and how are you clearly communicating, you know, the impact that you’re having? And that’s what’s going to lead directly into fundraising. Because if you can tell those, you know, five ingredients, then you’re going to have a much stronger story for fundraising. If you don’t have those, then you’re going to be floundering a little bit, you know, and then there you wrap up the, you know, what are the stories that you could use as evidence for that? What is the, you know, the statistics or the way that you measure impact, you know, and that’s all going to roll into your fundraising message.

Hugh Ballou:
He mentioned impact, David. That’s a key component. People want to know that he actually used the money for something. And so having there, someone didn’t want to let that just slip by. So you’ve seen people go through a branding process. I’m sure that’s the core of what you do, but some people don’t use you. What are some of the pitfalls that people have when they’re going through the branding process?

Howard Levy:
I think one is not approaching it from a strategic perspective, just thinking, you know, we know what we want. We just want to do a logo. We want, you know, having a refresh of our, our visual, maybe there’s tinkering around with a message, but not really looking at. Is our mission really still relevant and how are all the pieces going to connect together? Cause even with a new logo, if your organization’s off in different directions, um, that’s not going to be very good. You know, we work with a large organization, and, um, one part when we were doing focus groups with the different divisions and they were using language like they do this i’m like who are you talking about they the other division so if you’re not using the word we then there’s a missed opportunity to be talking about your organization in a cohesive way. In fact, it cost them business because they were actually referring their clients out to another agency for services that they provided in another division that they weren’t fully aware of. So there was a lack of cohesion within the organization. So that kind of language tells of, you know, saying they, you know, is a sign. Even like board members, you know, if boards say, you know, oh, they do that. Well, if you’re a board member, this is your organization. You should feel an ownership stake in that. So if you hear those things, you really wanna make sure that you can align your organization. I forgot what your question was now, actually. So, no, it was the pitfalls. Oh, yeah, I was getting away from that. Well, that’s one of the pitfalls I’ve noticed is not talking like, I’m sorry.

David Dunworth:
It’s a big one too.

Howard Levy:
Yeah. It’s not having kind of that cohesion. And so having like, you know, a unified way of talking about what you do and making sure that is adopted throughout the organization. And, you know, that could be, you know, it could be the workshops and activities, the videos, you know, other things, but, you know, people kind of need to feel ownership. It’s not something that you’re just saying and doing, you know, out there, but, but, you know, it was feeling ownership. We did, We work with a group in Virginia, actually. I don’t know if you know it. UMFS, it was formerly United Methodist Family Service. They have offices around the state. They help youth. And, you know, they were having a little, they were doing, you know, terrific work. Again, you know, one of these best-kept secrets. But, you know, we wanted to codify the way they talked about themselves in a way that was simple, easy to remember, you know, and memorable for people. So, after hearing their stories of how they would stay, you know, at lunch and give, the teachers would give up their lunch and stay with the students. They’d get called, you know, over the weekend about a kid in foster care who was going off the reservation and needed to be placed somewhere else. And, you know, they would go all out. We captured their essence in this theme of unwavering champions for children. And we did these illustrations with, you know, champions like in superheroes with capes, we had the brand launch, we had these giant cardboard cutouts, the face cut out with, you know, of a cartoon character, male and female, and they could take their faces in, you know, in it. And we started off with four of the key leaders, like the directors, you know, having, you know, introducing, we pulled off the black, you know, carpet off of it, the fabric and, you know, we’re unwavering champions. And so, and then they love, and they love that. They’re like, that’s us, we feel really good about that. And they kept those cardboard cutouts for visitors, you know, to come in, the staff use it for their testimonials and so forth. So they were, they really felt like that captured them and was able to embody them. And, you know, they said, now we’re really getting known, you know, as this idea of the champions for children.

David Dunworth:
So many more questions that I could ask you. Well, this time has flown by. Hugh, what do you think? Should we have him back another time?

Hugh Ballou:
I don’t know. We should do part B of this. So, Howard, you’ve covered a lot of material in this short period of time. I want to show you a website and then have you a chance to give it a final thought. But before that, give us a quick view of, your mentioned communications and all of this, so you can do all this work in the absence of any communication, internal, or external. Why is a strong communication strategy so important for all of this?

Howard Levy:
Well, I mean, you’ll just be spending a lot of time and effort saying lots of things that will, some might resonate and some might not. But you want to maximize your return on your investment, your budget, and all the time your staff is spending putting things out there. If you want to really be able to galvanize people around your mission, then you really have to have a clear plan that aligns everything. So it’s saying what you want to say and getting the results that you want to say. I’ll tell you a real quick tip. Here’s a tip for your readers on communications, your listeners, I should say. You call it the think, feel, do method. So when you’re sitting down to write something, whether it’s a social media post, an article, a blog post, or a fundraising letter, what do you want your audience to think? And first of all, you should picture someone in mind. There’s Mary Johnson. She’s 53 years old. She lives in Reading, Pennsylvania, and she has two kids. And so you’re writing for her. What do you want her to think? about your organization or as a result of writing this piece? What do you want her to feel? Are you trying to agitate her? Are you trying to calm versus trying to inspire? What’s the overriding emotion? Ultimately, what do you want her to do? Is it to volunteer, to donate, to like the post, whatever that action is? So think, feel, do is a simple strategy that nonprofits could use to create much more effective communications every time they write.

Hugh Ballou:
You heard it right here, folks. That’ll be in the show notes. I’m going to display the website, redroostergroup.com. When people go there, what will they find?

Howard Levy:
Well, we have a little overview of the kind of impact you can make there, engage your audiences, raise money and drive social change. And as you scroll down, you’ll see some examples. There’s some of what we can do for you. Wake up your marketing with those. Tools is a little video here wake up Your Brand shows different ways we can help you here are some results we do fundraising as well we work as an integrated agency with small organizations that need strategic help on their marketing communications their fundraising you know we can come in and augment your small team. so you can get done what you need to and have a real impact. And so this is a free download here, this Actionology Action Pack that applies behavioral science and psychology techniques to fundraising. And so there are 16 principles in here with tips about how to actually use them in your fundraising letters emails and events. So you can claim that. And there’s another piece here, this free download. This one’s called Protecting Democracy, but it’s a good white paper that has communication tools, regardless of what issue you’re working on, on effective writing strategies. If you happen to be working in the outreach space, we’re doing work in AI, and we have this offer for supporting organizations with a 10-step methodology for using prompts to create a fundraising letter. These are tools for bringing America together across the divide. We should really have a unified country and be able to speak to each other. So here’s some tips and resources for having constructive conversations.

Hugh Ballou:
You’re preaching, singing our song. Thank you, Howard. That’s good stuff. So if you can’t find it there, folks, you can’t find it. So, Howard, there’s also a communication button. If they push that, I’m sure you’ll respond to them. What do you want to leave people with today, Howard?

Howard Levy:
Regardless of what you do with your brand, try to be relevant. Just stay in tune with what’s happening, talk to your audience, and roll with the times and evolve. Don’t use the mantra of, we’ve always done it that way. Be open to new ideas, be flexible, and be moving forward.

Hugh Ballou:
David, I think even old guys can do that, huh?

David Dunworth:
I think so, if we work at it.

Hugh Ballou:
Yeah, Howard, thank you for some great facts, some great inspiration today. Thanks for having me.