A few weeks ago we wrote a post, “Fundraisers are brand marketers and vice versa”, making the case for how fundraising and branding support each other.  Perhaps what we should have written about is how brand is everything and if organizations were smart they’d view statements like the following (from a well read blog in the non-profit space) with skepticism.

There are basic flaws in the very structure of branding that hurt fundraising. It’s a misapplied discipline from the commercial marketing world that simply doesn’t work in our (read: “nonprofit”) context.

If this sort of view holds in the world of fundraising then it is only because the definition of brand suggested in this statement is so misguided and off-base.

Consider this definition of brand by Al Ries, a branding guru in the commercial sector,

“A brand is a singular idea or concept that you own inside the mind of a prospect.”

What fundraiser responsible for acquisition wouldn’t want this?

Direct marketing fundraisers are correct to point out, as is done in this post by Future Fundraising Now, that branding needs to support fundraising.  The author suggests branding exercises too often “slaughter fundraising results”.   The issue is not what is said in this post but what is not said (ever); namely that the fundraising needs to also support the brand, just as much as brand needs to support fundraising.

We’d wager fundraising has done more to undermine brand than the brand efforts so lambasted by at least some fundraisers have done to undermine fundraising.  In part, our wager is safe because many of the brand efforts rarely go anywhere for the world to see – they sit on a shelf collecting expensive dust.  And if the brand exercise is an internal machination with no connection to donor/constituent perceptions, needs and further triangulated with organization mission and goals then it is a good thing these efforts never see the light of day.

However, branding done wrong (and wrongly criticized) is not really the point.  The larger concern for every non profit is that they do have a brand, whether they spend time and money defining, internalizing and living it or not.  That brand is the singular concept Ries mentions and many times, the biggest failure is actually having too many “singular” concepts floating around in the minds of constituents.  This is where fundraising comes in as a likely contributor and culprit – suggesting a certain idea or concept on one appeal only to have the next communication or appeal be completely or partially disjointed.  This is not only bad branding (and bad marketing) but we know from our work in measuring and building strong donor relationships that step 1 is delivering a reliable, consistent experience.  Fail to do this and fail, period.

The worlds of retail and media are two analogues for what is likely playing out in non-profit too.  The retail direct mail offer, which is mostly about discounting, has created a well documented – see NYT article here – consumer who simply won’t buy unless it is on sale.  This conditioning has happened over time but it is entrenched and it is a massive problem for many retailers whose brand has been subjugated to 2^nd class citizen with price as the only lever that matters. Or more likely, price is brand.  That is works well for Wal-Mart but there can be only one Wal-Mart.

In media – newspaper specifically – the industry successfully conditioned consumers to believe the product, which we used to pay for (in print form), should now be free (online) and further reinforced this by putting direct marketing offers in market that had nothing to do with content, substance or value, just pricing gimmicks.    Both direct marketing efforts have destroyed massive brand equity (which is real, just ask Facebook with still no revenue to speak of but massive brand equity in form of market cap)

We focus on understanding the donor mindset and motivation. From this work and experience we wager that non-profit direct mail has had a similar impact on the complete lack of brand differentiation in, for example, the environmental space.  The brand “bible” that collects dust at each environmental group actually has differentiation articulated inside of it.  The fundraising pieces are however, as a whole, completely interchangeable with no differentiation, going after the same “customer” segment and often selling based on the lowest common denominator of price or a “goodie in the bag”.  This screams commodity in a world where only strong brands prosper.

Fundraising of course isn’t the only thing destroying brands since there are much more fundamental issues going on with many a non-profit.  Consider some of the very large, mile wide, inch deep brands in the non-profit space — you know who they are.  Fundraising could also be a salvation for these groups and others who struggle for a clearly articulated and singular concept in the minds of their prospects since fundraising is the principal way the organization gets defined and “branded” in the market.  Our guess is that no such salvation is occurring at the moment.