Resources / Ripples & Wipeouts

Branding has generated a lot of buzz in the nonprofit world over the last few years, and while I can appreciate the desire to stand out from the crowd, I wonder if nonprofits’ wholesale adoption of corporate branding practices is a wise move in terms of mission fulfillment.  We (I say “we” because I identify as an activist) are spending a great deal of money – sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars – for corporate style tag lines, logos, commercial partnerships and strategies that might impress a news reporter or even a foundation executive, but don’t necessarily move us toward our missions.  This is a particular hazard for those organizations dedicated to cultural change and social equity.  Changing the world is a big and costly job.  There’s plenty of work to go around, yet we spend serious resources trying to “one up” each other.

It’s ironic that nonprofits are the only organizations expected to collaborate with their “competitors.” Look behind that irony, though, and you will see that there is some logic to this.  There are very few, if any, nonprofit organizations that have truly unique missions.  Mostly, our differences are matters of strategy and tactics – various ways of reaching similar goals and producing “social goods.”

Social goods such as shelter for the homeless, voting rights and wilderness protection are not generally things from which profits can be made.  That’s why nonprofit organizations exist in the first place.  In business, competition clearly drives innovation and improvement, but we need to ask ourselves if the same is really true in the nonprofit sector.  When multiple organizations share a similar mission – one that is difficult and costs money rather than generates profits – wouldn’t it be smarter to cooperate rather than spend resources to outshine or undermine one another?  Why are we on the branding bandwagon?

I suppose the answer to that question is based on fear.  Fear of missing out on a big donation.  Fear of seeing a rival quoted instead of ourselves.  Fear of not having clout in the advocacy arena.  We think, hope, that branding will position us to win.  But that assumes that we are playing in a zero-sum game.  If I win, you must lose, or vice versa. 

What if we change the game?  What if we resist the fear and instead partner with the best of our peers?  What if foundations rewarded nonprofits that applied for grants as a team?  What if we divided up chunks of work and didn’t duplicate what others were already doing?  What if we insisted on having models of marketing, branding and communicating that were not mere grafts from the corporate world, but were designed and built just for us, for the nonprofit universe?

Last week I had the opportunity to lead a workshop at Fund Raising Day in New York, where I threw out some of these ideas to a group of nonprofit professionals. A good discussion resulted.  One participant from the Orange County (NY) United Way told me that her organization is encouraging its grantees to take a team approach by working in coalitions, a tactic that I suggested in the PowerPoint presentation I used at the session. 

Another woman talked about starting her own nonprofit, a move that others challenged and something that I will be writing about in future blog posts.  I also plan to do a lot more thinking and writing about how we can measure and compare results among nonprofits, with an eye to helping truly excellent organizations find one another.  That will help us create coalitions and partnerships based on performance.  Only those organizations that pull their own weight and deliver results should be included in a high-performing partnership.  And that level of excellence can form the foundation for branded coalitions, a kind of branding that is based on trust, cooperation and mission fulfillment.

You can view the Fundraising Day presentation below.  For best viewing, click the link “view” (a new page will open) and then choose enlarge the presentation to fit on the full screen (that way you can read my notes!).

Please post your comments, thoughts and challenges below.  Maybe before we can change the world, we might have to change ourselves.

-- Bonnie

| View | Upload your own