Two Challenges of Community Foundation and Nonprofit Communications
Brand alignment should be a primary goal of the strategic planning, branding, and communications of every community foundation.
The problem is that many nonprofits, community foundations, and charities think about marketing as a way to engage the community instead of as the method they use to attract attract the curious. Don’t forget about nurturing the relationships to build trust and loyalty.
Because they focus on marketing in lieu of relationship-building, many community foundations and nonprofits confuse donors with too many messages and too many appeals that can help the donor understand how to achieve their philanthropic goals through the initiatives of the foundation.
In order to achieve this type of brand clarity, there are two challenges which each organization must overcome.
The first challenge in aligning marketing and branding is to create alignment between the community foundation’s brand promise (what you believe you are and how you behave) and the stakeholder’s values (what they believe you should be and how they expect you to behave).
The more you work toward brand alignment, the more donors are intrigued — from being simply interested and curious — to fully committed. The more their values and interests align with your brand, it’s more likely they will become believers in and partners with the cause.
Ask yourself:
- Does our community foundation have a focused purpose?
- Is it clear to the community why our cause matters, and why it has meaning?
- Does our organization conduct itself in a manner consistent with our stakeholder’s expectations?
- Does our mission connects with the hearts, minds, and giving motivation of stakeholders?
Never forget: Your brand is the community foundation’s ambassador, and represents the cause in every interaction with the community and donors.
When your stakeholder’s values align with your organization’s promise, there is a much greater likelihood of creating affinity for and fuller commitment to your cause. The difference is that donors give, volunteers serve — but believers in the cause will give and serve sacrificially.
Listen to be Engaged
To communicate your community foundation’s purpose with clarity, you must listen to the story people tell themselves about your community and brand.
– Brian Sooy
The second challenge to create clear and aligned community foundation communications is to create alignment between the brand’s character or personality:
- If your brand was a person, how would you describe it, and would people like it?
- The stakeholder’s perception of the community foundation brand’s character. If you asked someone else to describe the brand, would they use the same adjectives as the organization would?
When you position an organization’s in the role of the solution to the problems your donors want to solve, it helps donors form an accurate perception. A clear message that positions your brand as a solution is critical to building authenticity and credibility.
Ask yourself:
- Is our community foundation perceived as authentic and credible?
- Is it clear to the community how we want to be perceived?
- Can we be trusted?
- Are donors confident that we are good stewards of their donations?
- Does the community understand what our community foundation accomplishes?
- Are we top of mind when a problem that we want to solve is mentioned?
- Are we different from other organizations that have a similar mission, like United Way?
Do these considerations mean that you should change your mission or values or promise to raise more funds or attract more volunteers?
Not at all! What it will affect is how you communicate with your stakeholders and how you position the community foundation to engage the community and potential board members, donors and volunteers.
This is what creates brand continuity.
The Aespire Marketing Report (powered by StoryBrand) is an online assessment that lets any small business or community foundation understand where their marketing plan is falling short and what it should look like instead.
