Brandraising While Fundraising
You have heard it said many times: “The three most important things when considering purchasing property are location, location, location.” Investing wisely in the right piece of real estate will almost always ensure financial gain. In marketing, the kind of real estate we need to focus on is called mind share.
Mind share is the amount of “mental real estate” you own in the public’s mind when they think of your “charitable category.”
Charitable category is a classification of a cause, advocacy or philanthropy activity, such as the arts, education, environment, animal rescue, homeless services, human rights, disaster relief, various segments of health, etc.
Differentiating brand and mission
Your organization’s core mission falls into one charitable category. What is it? “Brandraising while Fundraising” is the process of making your charity the one people think of first and feel the best about in your specific charitable category, so they will contribute.
You must thoroughly understand who the other key organizations are in your charitable category, and how your charity can differentiate itself from these other organizations.
Your organization’s brand is the essence of who you are . . . it is the sum total of all attitudes, perceptions and beliefs about your charity. What do people think of or say when they hear the name of your nonprofit?
Brandraising while Fundraising
Those attitudes, perceptions and beliefs primarily come from how well you perform and integrate your charity’s core mission and its messaging throughout all media. If you are effectively conducting Mission-Driven Marketing™, then you will be “Brandraising while Fundraising.”
Nonprofit brands run into trouble when they don’t understand their charitable category. Furthermore, some organizations believe their charity falls into multiple categories so they resist positioning themselves in one specific category. This is a mistake. Any good book on branding will tell you that you can only be based on one thing.
Our minds work hard at compartmentalizing and filing things away into long-term memory. If your message is diluted and/or unfocused, it will end up in the mind’s mental trash compactor, also known as our short-term memory.
Getting your message right
The best nonprofit brands today are built on two things: first, doing excellent and trustworthy work and second, presenting the same single consistent message over many years. Brands that follow these two guidelines have made relevant connections with people; your organization must become relevant because no one wants to be considered the alternative.
Many great people of our cause have their nose to philanthropy’s proverbial grindstone, vigorously crafting the next fundraising idea that will fetch the most money. Unfortunately, some of them never look up enough to ensure what they finally produce supports their organization’s brand and positioning.
Look up!
“Learn to be what you are and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not.”
By Todd Baker
Baker is Vice President and Senior Strategist with Milwaukee Direct Marketing. He is the author of the popular blog book, OrgMarketing.com, which is required reading for UCLA’s Digital Fundraising Course, which Baker teaches as part of the university’s Certification Program in Fundraising. He writes the Fundraiser Confidential series for Fundraising Success Magazine and he is also known for the Baker’s Dozen fundraising series for the Nonprofit Times. Baker is also a contributing author to one of the bestselling nonprofit Internet books of all time, Nonprofit Internet Strategies and is also the author of Champions of Philanthropy. He is a former member of the Association Fundraising Professionals Board of Directors for Washington State. Baker spent more than 13 years with World Vision.
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