How To Create Positive Brand Association For Your Charity
When people share about your charity, you want it to be positive. To earn the kind of reputation people talk about with admiration, you need to invest in positive brand association.
A respected reputation is built on being transparent, ethical, respectful, accountable, and responsible. This is the pathway to positive brand association, and here's how to get there.
What is brand association?
Brand association is simply what pops into people's minds when they think about your charity and what you stand for. People can, and do, associate good and bad things with charities.
Making sure people associate good things with your nonprofit organisation is key to attracting donors, volunteers, and partners.
Building (and maintaining) positive brand association
Philanthropist Warren Buffet famously said: "It takes 20 years to build a positive reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it."
Building a reputation takes hard work. Maintaining it takes even more. But there are ways to make sure your charity organisation continues to hold a special place in the hearts of your audience.
#1 - Invest in creativity
Brand association is closely linked with how you're perceived in the Third Sector. If there's nothing unique about your charity, positive association with your brand is highly unlikely.
For people to attach positive thoughts to your organisation, you need to make sure it stands out.
To stand out, you need to get creative. Potential donors, volunteers, and partners are more likely to remember unique and creative branding campaigns. OK, being creative is hard. But here are some tips.
1st, brainstorm the type of things you want your charity to be known for. It could be compassion, legacy, or aid. If you don't know what you want to be known for, how can your audience?
This is an opportunity to get your whole organisation together and put down on paper the words you want your charity to be associated with.
2nd, find ways to showcase what your charity stands for in a way that sticks in people's minds. For example, some charities use mascots or characters to make themselves more memorable.
#2 - Make it memorable
Creativity is a great building block for positive association, and it will help to make your charity more memorable, but you must make sure creativity takes you in the right direction.
Remember, you're not trying to create a Banksy masterpiece, you're trying to attract donors, volunteers, and partners to support your cause.
Grand branding ideas might be creative and memorable, but people end up remembering the campaign, not your charity. This doesn't help to build long-term loyalty.
As you develop your brand image, don't use creativity for the sake of creativity, use it to build positive brand association that makes your charity memorable.
#3 - Do what works for your donors, volunteers, and partners
Injecting your personal likes and preferences into your charity organisation's brand is dangerous and runs the risk of alienating the people you're targeting.
To build a positive brand association, you must create something that wins the support of donors, volunteers, and partners.
The hope is that your charity organisation will continue on its mission long after your time on the journey is complete.
That's why you have to keep your personal preferences out of the branding process. It's about your organisation as a whole and presenting it in a way that gets donors, volunteers, and partners through your doors.
#4 - Review every touchpoint
As you figure out what you want your charity organisation's brand image to be, keep in mind how you're going to present that image to the world.
The best way to approach this is to review every touchpoint across your organisation. How are you interacting with your donors, volunteers, and partners?
Are you more focused on raising your profile on social media while neglecting, let's say, telephone calls and emails? Is the experience of interacting with your charity the same across the board? Or is there more positive association with your charity on social media than on the phone?
However you're interacting with your audience, every touchpoint needs to leave the best impression with donors, volunteers, and partners because this will keep them loyal.
#5 - Have a crisis management plan at the ready
Despite your best efforts to build and maintain a positive brand association with your charity, there's always a risk that a crisis could bring your entire reputation crashing down.
That's why having a crisis management plan in place is a must, because it serves to protect your reputation and helps you to weather the storm of a crisis if one should ever come along.
Positive brand association = lasting impact
The more you invest in building positive brand associations with your charity, the greater your impact will be, not only on the Third Sector but on attitudes towards charity itself.
If you think about some of the oldest charities in the world like Save the Children, The Salvation Army, Family Action - organisations that have been around for hundreds of years - they've not only had a lasting impact on people's lives, they've had a huge impact on culture. That's the power of positive brand association.
Just add Sodium to become a positive brand association powerhouse
We're not your typical branding agency, we're a charity sector specific agency that gives you virtual support at your fingertips.
We understand the Third Sector space more than most branding agencies, which is why we're the ideal collaborators to give you the long-term brand management support you need.
Everything you need from a branding company for your charity can be found under our roof.
We are a collective of hybrid branding and marketing specialists that build brands with staying power. We serve as an extension of your charity organisation to be the creative force that champions your cause.
Let's talk brand consultancy. Book your FREE, 30-minute call with Navi Aulkh, for a detailed discussion about your organisation, branding requirements, our prices and packaging - and how to get the most out of working together.