I’ve been through rebrands.  I’ve been through prostate exams.  And I know which I’d rather go through again.

That’s why when the question “what does donor identity mean for a rebranding organization?” came up on last week’s webinar, I started to experience all of the side effects you’d see in the average pharmaceutical ad. (“Ask your doctor about Kwyjibo!”)

(Incidentally, the webinar was called “Why your donor segmentation and lack of real donor journeys cost you donations”; you will have to register to get it, but it’s free to view.)

But it’s a truly excellent question: what does a donor-centered rebranding look like?

First, it’s important to ask the question that Kevin asked during the webinar – “What type of rebrand are we talking about?”

If you are monkeying around with your name or your logo, you should:

• think twice
• have a really good reason for doing so (e.g., NAACP no longer wanting to spell out what the CP stood for, not “I hear teal is all the rage for logos this season”). As Roger said in When Branding Rears Its Ugly Head, “Nothing, and I mean nothing, is a more certain pathway to organizational suicide than an ill-thought-out expedition to the Land of Re-branding. You might as well just shoot yourself now and save the time and money.”
• brace yourself for short- (and possibly medium- and long-) term fundraising pain as people learn your new mark or name
• think a third time about if #2 outweighs #3.

But your organization’s brand is more than your logo and your name.  It’s the totality of the psychological associations people have with your organization.  Thus, you and your rebrand can help fundraising by adding positive associations, subtracting negative associations, or working with your donors to make the positive associations they have more relevant.

All of this starts with knowing your donors as they are, not as you might wish them to be.

Available on teamusashop.com!

Adding positive associations.  The U.S. Olympic Committee used to run a premium-based program: front-end, back-end, and probably in-between if such a thing were possible.  If you donated $20, you could get a jacket or a hat or whatever piece of merchandise was available.

Two things made this no longer tenable: 1) the obvious cost factor – more than 80% of their revenues were eaten up by material and fulfillment costs; 2) sports gear is profitable – giving away a low-quality jacket made it more difficult to sell a high-quality, higher profit jacket.

So they did a commitment study of their donors.  They found that (somehow) they had acquired a section of donors who were not in it for the merch.  They had genuine philanthropic intent.  What they wanted was to feel a part of Team USA.

Now, they talk about their donors being the Team Behind the Team.  If you want to donate $100 or more per year, you can join Sixth Ring, a key part of the Olympic moment.  And most of their appeals are now from athletes, telling donors how the donor was a part of their Olympic journey.

What is your donor’s heartfelt desire?  And how can you give it to them?

Subtracting negative associations.  Catholic Relief Services is a successful enough fundraiser so they likely did not need to change.  But in learning about their donors, they didn’t just find something they could add (Catholicism, believe it or not; donors said they were living out their faith with their gifts, but some appeals could have been for any relief organization, only featuring “Catholic” in the name of the organization).  They also found their donors had negative associations about the frequency of solicitation (almost 30 times per year in the mail alone for the best donors).

We’ve beat the frequency drum sufficiently here that you probably know the top-line results: they tested a pilot that cutthe number of appeals. The reduced frequency worked and they’ve rolled out with it.

But that doesn’t capture everything they are doing.  They communicated this roll-out to their donors and asked how they were doing.  Many donors said it was a step in the right direction, but not far enough.  So they are using mail codes to capture  donor preferences, customize their mail streams, and take the opportunity to discuss recurring giving (“you’d said you’d like to hear from us only quarterly – would you like to set up a quarterly gift”).

Many donors are also saying how nice it is to have CRS seek their advice and to take their views into account. .   CRS is taking what was a negative association for some of their donors and eliminating it, leaving the positive associations you would want for a fundraising brand.

What is driving your donors away? And how can you prevent it?

Priming the positive over the negative.  I’ll have more on this later (can’t share some great test results just yet!), but if you know your donors well, you should be able in your communications to reinforce why they are giving to you.  Some of these are simple: adding “As a parent, you know…” to a fundraising statement primes a parent identity.  There are things that you would do at a football game that you would not do at a parent-teacher conference; we all put on different faces to the world, and to ourselves, in different contexts.

So for many child sponsorship organization, the parent identity – specifically, the parent who involves their child in their philanthropy as a way of showing them the world and what kindness can do – is a vital one.  Priming leads to better results and better brand associations.

Who are your donors vis-à-vis you? And how can you use that?

These sound simple.  They are not.  They take a thorough understanding of who the donor is and why she/he gives to you.  Then, it takes weaving them into the warp and weft of everything you do.  This is a journey, not a destination.

These are the ingredients that go into a successful rebrand.  The process doesn’t have the flash of a new logo or a new name.  But it will have the positive impacts you want in your fundraising, because it starts with the donor.

Nick