Making The Job Harder
If you visit The Agitator website, you’ll notice that we regularly update the crawl listing organizations whose staff subscribe to our email feed.
Sometimes I’m a bit incredulous about the names of some of these organizations, thinking … How would anyone know what they do? How would their fundraisers over come that?
But I’ve bit my lip.
Until now, after seeing Jeff Brooks’ recent Future Fundraising Now post, Shocking truth: Nonprofit changes name in a smart way.
Applauding a case where a nonprofit actually went literal — “St Dunstan’s” became “Blind Veterans UK” — Jeff observes: “The whole thing is clear and obvious. It’s as if they actually want donors to support them! Most of the time, a re-brand becomes a disastrous exercise in abstraction, navel-gazing, and leaving donors as far behind as possible.”
And he gives some examples.
Now I’ll give some examples of obscurity from The Agitator’s subscriber list …
- The Mustard Seed
- Lifehouse
- Innocence Project
- Development Exchange
- Working Wonders
- In Trust
- Second Wind Fund
- Forty Carrots
- Little Green Light
- Alive World
- Miracle Street
- Rare
- Safe Horizon
- Path
- The Navigators
What do they do?!
Granted, some of these might be locally-focused and enjoy high local name recognition. Or maybe they have informative taglines.
That said, don’t you agree that these names make the fundraising job so much harder?!
More examples, anyone?
Tom
P.S. If you work at any of the above, don’t unsubscribe … just tell us what you do!
13 responses to “Making The Job Harder”
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I almost agree with what you guys have to say, but today, I think you’re dead wrong. I don’t believe an organization’s name has to be a literal representation of what it does. If that were applied in the business world, virtually every product would need a name change. How am I to know that “Ford” means car or “Tide” means laundry detergent, or “Coke” is a soft drink? We know what these things are because of good branding and because they’ve worked for us. The same is true of nonprofits. Think ARC, March of Dimes, Salvation Army (never fought a war), or Mennonite Central Committee. Maybe I’m riled up because an organization with which I’ve been affiliated for more than 20 years — In Trust — made your list of obscure names, but I think it’s more than that. As Shakespeare said, “A rose by any other name smells as sweet.”
What about some larger charities like Easter Seals or March of Dimes? Both named after fundraising events, but what do they do?
Why did Recordings for the Blind change their name to Learning Ally?
I opened up your newsletter this morning and was surprised to see our organization’s name (The Mustard Seed) at the top of the list! But don’t worry I won’t unsubscribe. You do make an interesting point. However for me I see it less as an obstacle to overcome but instead as a fantastic conversation piece. I am often asked why we are named what we are and it opens up a great opportunity for dialogue.
Our organization’s name comes from a Bible verse – Matthew 13:31-32 – “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. 32 Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.” Because we are a Christian non-profit whose roots are in the church our name holds symbolic meaning to the work we do.
At The Mustard Seed we seek to address the root causes of poverty through the delivery of basic services, housing, employment and the provision of a safe, supportive community for those in need. Our vision is to build community, grow hope and support change.
I can see your point for sure about how it helps to have an organization name that is literal. But then wouldn’t the thousands of organizations helping those suffering in poverty all be named the same thing? Same with every breast cancer awareness non-profit? And it could go on and on. Sometimes being unique has its advantages as well – it sparks curiosity and prompts someone to dig a little deeper.
Just my thoughts.
Cheers, Kelly
I don’t think a group name needs to be completely explicity. Although I do animal welfare work, I know the “Innocence Project” are the lawyers who free wrongly convicted people years or even decades after they were wrongly sent to prison. “Innocence Project” seems to say it all.
As for the other groups you list — some of the names are so striking that once I know them I would be very unlikely to forget them or confuse them with anyone else. And with so many organizations doing similar work, I see that as a plus.
The Development Exchange is the membership organization for the development and marketing professionals in public broadcasting. They represent hundreds of public broadcasting radio and television stations, give one of the best development conferences every year, have a robust website full of useful and usable materials, and a cadre of development consultants that specialize in direct response, online, major and planned giving. The development conference is the Public Broadcasting Development and Marketing Conference (PBDMC) and is being held in Seattle, WA July 11-14, 2012. It will be packed with recognized speakers from the fundraising world, is covered by the major industry papers including the Chronicale of Philanthropy, the President of NPR and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and for the first this year, notables from PBS.
Quite frankly, I’m surprised you haven’t heard of the Development Exchange. Their main office is in Minneapolis, but their board members are from public broadcasting stations, big and small, that are all over the 50 states.
I am familiar with the Mustard Seed – they are a faith based organization, and the reference makes sense if you know the biblical reference they are talking about. That one is a case of a name that has a really high recognition factor for the clients they serve.
So the name debate is not just looking for a name that donors will understand – it’s finding a name the clients will understand.
In response to Rebekah: Having worked for nearly 20 years in NYC advertising agencies and nearly 15 years for non-profit agencies, I can tell you what a mistake it is to compare name recogition of a nonprofit organization with that of a big name for-profit. The amount of money spent on media exposure for a Coke or Pepsi is staggering – and multi-generational. IBM is such an established brand that few people today even know what the initials IBM stand for. (For that matter, I bet only a handful could tell you what CBS, NBC and ABC stand for.)
New products like iPads are household names because of the money Apple threws at establishing the brand. (When it was first released people joked that it was a feminine hygene product – but they’re not laughing any more. But nonprofits don’t have that branding advantage, unless like the March of Dimes, they are generations old – and their name was part of a major campaign that everyone my age still remembers.
Even when a small for-profit company wants to launch a new product they go for names that are descriptive of what they do. Think Thigh-Master from a few years ago.
Tom’s point is a good one.
Right on, Commenters! I agree with Rebekah … if you are part of the likely target demographic, you DO know what “Navigators” is all about–its powerful word picture moniker. Mustard Seed the same. I presume that the others may resonant similarly to THEIR target groups. FWIW !
The Innocence Project is a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.
To date, 289 people in the United States have been exonerated by DNA testing, including 17 who served time on death row. These people served an average of 13 years in prison before exoneration and release.
Hope this clarifies it for you!
Here’s another name change that definitely obscure the organization’s purpose: The Be Group. Former name: Southern California Presbyterian Homes.
How do you feel about organizations that use only letters for their organizational name? For example, my organization has a name that describes exactly who we are, the “American Council of Trustees and Alumni” we are a group of trustees and alumni that work to improve higher education. But, that’s a mouthful to say…so we usually shorten it to ACTA (“act-tuh”) when talking to our donors. You can also see this in our logo I have posted below this email.
And, I’d like to respectfully point out that I had no idea “The Agitator” was a newsletter for development and fundraising professionals until a friend in the field forwarded an email to me that had “fundraising” in the subject line.
All I can say is, thank goodness everyone knows what a “Sanky” is!
Recording for the Blind changed their name because they do more than record, and they do it for more than just blind people. The new name certainly isn’t as clear, but they felt the old name was restrictive. There’s a bit about it on their website: http://www.learningally.org/About-Us/19/
And I would politely point out that Brianna makes a very good point.