Branding

Author’s note: This blog was originally written in 2014 and was updated in 2020 to reflect current information and practices. In a previous post, I discussed elements to include when developing your brand guidelines, including both visual and messaging elements. Once these guidelines have been established it can be incredibly helpful to further support your colleagues… Read More »

Author’s note: This blog was originally written in 2014 and was updated in 2020 to reflect current information and practices. Creating clarity and consistency in your organization’s communications assists your audiences to better understand your mission, strategies and activities. In previous posts I discussed elements to include when developing your brand guidelines and items to provide… Read More »

Author’s note: This blog was originally written in 2014 and was updated in 2020 to reflect current information and practices. Your nonprofit does important work, serves people with needed programs and services, and enriches your community through the efforts of dedicated volunteers and staff members. Yet you feel your organization’s public profile isn’t as compelling… Read More »

Do you know what messages to share during a crisis? As a nonprofit marketer and communicator, how you communicate in difficult times can make or break your organization’s future success. If your messages are shared quickly yet thoughtfully, you can rally your donors and dissuade your skeptics. Conversely, a response that’s overdue or disjointed may… Read More »

Any nonprofit communicator can tell you how essential your organization’s values are. Similar to your vision and mission, they’re vital characters in the stories you tell about who you are and what matters to you. This is the same for any of your partners—their unique values shape the narrative of who they are and what… Read More »

In an industry that’s no stranger to small marketing budgets, strategic co-branding can be an extremely effective tool for nonprofit organizations. The reality is that, as non-profit marketers and communicators, we’re always looking for ways to get more bang for our buck; co-branding partnerships offer a scalable way to create buzz, build audience reach, and… Read More »

With the blog now in its sixth year, I’m making an effort to ensure that our rich library of content is shared and showcased as much as possible, in the form of roundup “guides” (the media relations 101 roundup I shared a few months ago it was a big hit). Thanks to the generous contributions… Read More »

Pop quiz in 3, 2, 1… What are your organization’s values? Could you name them without looking? At April’s #NPMC Twitter chat (see the chat transcript), we talked about leveraging nonprofit values in our marketing communications. We’re generally good at bringing our vision and mission statements to life. We use them at the start of… Read More »

First impressions make a strong impact. Creating consistent, branded, engaging communication materials to showcase your nonprofit is a must. But it’s not always easy to do. For marcom professionals, any tool that can make this easier is worth its weight in gold. When Canva was in its early days, I shared info about their “amazingly… Read More »

Every nonprofit organization I’ve worked with – in some way, shape or form – has values. They may be called Value Statements, Guiding Principles or Approach. Values may be a handful of characteristics, a paragraph or two or a paragraph for each value. Regardless of the name or format, they all have the same purpose:… Read More »