[Examples] Most beautiful Nonprofit Brand Books/Style Guides
Branding is key to nonprofits, but how do you ensure brand consistency throughout your nonprofit organization? A Brand Book / Style Guide can help.
No one will donate to a charity without trusting that their money will be put to good use. A strong brand and transparency are the foundation of a strong nonprofit. NGOs that share monthly or annual reports, use content to showcase how they’re making an impact and stay top of mind with beautiful emails and a strong social media presence win over those that hardly ever share anything about their cause.
In this article, we’ll go into:
- What a Brand Book / Style Guide is
- Examples of breathtaking Nonprofit Brand Books / Style Guides
- Link to free e-book to create your own Nonprofit Brand Book / Style Guide.
What is a Brand Book / Style Guide?
- A Brand Book inspires and helps keep people in your Nonprofit aligned with the Purpose or core idea of your organization. A Brand Book helps to communicate the story and purpose of your charity.
- A Brand Style Guide helps the people inside and outside of your NGO to use your brand assets the way they are meant to be used.
As you can see, a Brand Book helps tell the meaning of your organization and it inspires employees. A Style Guide helps to maintain visual Brand Consistency.
In short:
- Determine your brand’s identity and create your Brand Style Guide;
- Make your brand guidelines accessible to your partners and colleagues;
- Allow your colleagues access to all imagery (photos, illustrations, videos) that are property to the brand;
- Provide templates for your posts on Social Media, (fundraising) presentations;
- Become recognizable and build an authentic brand.
Most Beautiful Nonprofit Brand Books / Style Guides
Are you looking for inspiration for your Nonprofit brand book? There are plenty of charities that have published their brand books online.
Here is a selection of our favorite Nonprofit brand books and style guides:
1. Boy Scouts of America
Boy Scouts of America has created a beautiful brand book / style guide to help stakeholders understand their brand guidelines so they can stay consistent with their branding. In the example, you can see how well they illustrate how their logo may and may not be used. Imagine that they would not have these style guidelines. Thousands of people would use their brand assets differently throughout the years. Their branding would be a mess.
Check out Boy Scouts of America’s full online brand book / style guide here
2. Unicef USA Brand Guidelines
Unicef USA has been around for quite some time. Over the years, the brand has evolved and they have mature brand guidelines. Unicef’s Brand Book / Style Guide is a perfect place for inspiration when creating your own Nonprofit Brand Book.
In the example image, you see how they showcase the details of their brand’s colors. Blue is not just blue. It has a specific hex / RGB code. Being super specific is how you uphold brand consistency throughout the years.
Check out Unicef USA’s full online brand book / style guide here
3. Charity: Water’s Brand Book
Charity: Water Is one of those Nonprofit brand that we constantly use when going into best practices of Nonprofit Branding and Marketing.
Another element of a Nonprofit Brand Book / Style Guide should be the usage of images. As you can see in Charity: Water’s Brand Guideline, they want to focus their imagery on hope, not guilt. The entire story they tell with images is based on people and communities being happy that they have water. Not on people being sick because they don’t have water or because they drank dirty water.
Check out Charity: Water’s full online brand book / style guide here
Related:
- Find thousands of free stock photos for your nonprofit
- Scott Harrison, CEO of Charity: Water on running a Nonprofit
4. WWF Brand Book example
Check out the image below: ‘One Network, One Vision, One Voice’.
BAM!
Nailed it. WWF truly understands the importance of a Brand Book / Style Guide for its Nonprofit Organization. This resource is really meant to inspire its readers. They go into their work, what they do, how they do it, and provide guidelines.
Check out WWF’s full online brand book / style guide here
Create your own Nonprofit Brand Book / Style Guide
You now know what a Brand Book and Style Guide is, what the difference is between them, how large nonprofits are using them to keep their branding consistent.
It’s time to create your very own Nonprofit Brand Book and Style Guide.
Other related articles
Originally published at https://globalowls.com on August 19, 2020.
