Nonprofit Branding and Marketing Strategy
If you personally approve every word about your organization…
You’re wasting time and resources.
Get clarity on your nonprofit’s brand message for efficient marketing and effective growth.
As your organization grows, you can’t speak everywhere at once.
As the leader of a thriving nonprofit, you have every reason to feel accomplished:
→ You’ve proven that you can make a difference in your community.
→ You’re building a team you’re proud of.
→ You’ve secured some key grants to help you grow.
And yet…
The satisfaction of steering a successful nonprofit is often mixed with panic and dread. You need to work at 100 decisions a minute just to keep up. For every accomplishment, every hire, your to-do list grows.
The organization needs a broader reach, better community awareness, a stronger website and more social media.
And you’re in charge of all of it.
Up till now, you’ve been doing a decent job at telling the nonprofit’s story. You can’t necessarily point to any specific results your marketing efforts have accomplished. But until the organization can afford a marketing director, something is better than nothing.
… Right?
When you present to a group or speak one-on-one, you’re good at conveying the urgency and importance of your mission. But ensuring the vision is properly conveyed in every public material the organization publishes is starting to feel like a full-time job.
You’ve tried passing off social media to a well-meaning intern, and the case worker has attempted the newsletter… with mixed success. If you’re honest, every attempt to delegate the organization’s image and message has resulted in you redoing most of the project from scratch.
Besides, you’re NOT confident you’re saying the right thing, posting enough or targeting the right people.
And unfortunately, you don’t have the luxury of caring less.
A confusing (or weak) message hurts your mission
There’s a reason corporations pay good money for the right catchphrase and hire lawyers to protect their brand. Business leaders understand how hard it is to gain the attention of the right customer. They know how difficult it is to keep their interest and loyalty.
While it would be nice if nonprofits were exempt from such demands, unfortunately, you’re also vying for the attention and loyalty of future supporters, volunteers and donors.
And there are a LOT of distractions these days.
As a nonprofit entity that manages public funds and donations, you don’t have the luxury of taking risks on your marketing. You don’t have extra money for failed campaigns and guesses at what might work best.
You can’t afford to experiment with messaging that doesn’t resonate or marketing that doesn’t reach the right ears.
Every dollar you spend needs to have a predetermined purpose and a measurable result.
Just like a good strategic plan keeps your organization focused on the mission, your nonprofit needs branding and strategy to ensure every marketing dollar spent is worthwhile.
This marketing strategy can’t be a general list of best practices that vaguely point you in the direction of success. It must be customized to the character, nuances and goals of the organization. It must provide all the elements for achieving success.
What we’re talking about isn’t a quick guide. It’s a stack of valuable maps that allows a fresh employee to step off the street and quickly align to your plan for explaining the story of the nonprofit and its mission.
We call our guide the Nonprofit Brand Atlas
“Atlas” might sound a bit excessive. Who needs an atlas when you have Google Maps?
But we’re not offering one-time directions to a single goal. We’re giving you the tools to navigate your brand for decades to come.
Every Nonprofit Brand Atlas is a customized and actionable guide for how the organization speaks and looks. More importantly, it provides clarity on how to:
- Attract your best supporters, donors, clients and volunteers
- Articulate what makes your organization unique and valuable to the community
- Maintain confident message consistency across all communication channels
- Direct marketing resources efficiently and effectively, saving time and money!
How detailed is a Brand Atlas?
Obsessively detailed. Ridiculously specific. Exhaustively helpful.
With the exception of your founder, no one has thought more deeply about your organization as we’re about to. Our goal is to uncover the insights your nonprofit needs for its next chapter of growth.
To create your customized Nonprofit Brand Atlas, we start with the big picture of the organization — the mission and vision, the people who make it successful and its impact on the community. We examine the landscape of nonprofit peers doing similar work in other communities, looking for what makes your organization unique.
Then we get detailed on what the organization’s Target Persona looks like, thinks like and does every day — down to where they drink their favorite coffee.
We define your Unique Community Value — that key differentiating quality that makes your organization vital to the people it supports — in the strongest words possible. We clarify your organization’s Point of View so the organization can cut through the chaos to connect with the community it needs.
These elements come together to create Message Pillars — the marketing thesis statements that clearly explain your purpose to the community and your distinction from other organizations.
Most branding guides add a style guide and stop there.
Not us. We’re far from finished.
With the key elements of your brand messaging in place, we then apply them to key pages on the organization’s website.
We use them to create a social media strategy that is targeted and measurable. We scope out keywords to help your SEO and create a blog content calendar. We help you segment your mailing list into key audiences and create a newsletter content plan.
By the time we’re done, you’ll wonder how you ever functioned without a Brand Alas to guide your every step.
Why the Nonprofit Brand Atlas works
It isn’t a magic potion (or rocket science) that makes Nonprofit Brand Atlas so useful for your organization.
What we leverage is tons of research, the best damn marketing practices the industry has to offer and our experience digging in the trenches of nonprofit work.
The Brand Atlas is an exhaustive compilation of everything we know works when it comes to creating a clear, consistent and effective message. We show you how to tell your story across multiple digital stages with the swagger of a TED Talk presenter.
Importantly, the Nonprofit Brand Atlas gives purpose to every piece of marketing material you put out in the world.
Posting pictures of volunteers painting walls? Great! Those should prove one of your Message Pillars.
Announcing a big grant award? That’s a perfect way to emphasize your Unique Community Value.
Sharing a client impact story? Time to showcase how your organization approaches a community problem with a fresh Point of View!
It’s a lot to keep track of. That’s why you need a guide that maps out exactly what to do.
The best part?
The results are measurable. We don’t just leave you with a bag of wishes and promises. We show you what metrics to track in order to prove that each strategy is working. As you build momentum, your customized Brand Atlas allows you to pivot around roadblocks and respond to a changing world.
Who am I trusting with my brand?
Hi! I’m Juliana, your Nonprofit Storyteller.
I’ve spent my career telling stories: as a community journalist uncovering hidden tales of intrigue and as a ministry leader uncovering truths through relatable metaphors and personal antedoctes.
My super power is how deeply I analyze words: the way they affect people and how they build identity and trust.
After I forayed into marketing (during the pandemic, of course), I discovered I couldn’t quit telling stories from the nonprofit world. It bothered me that hardworking nonprofit leaders didn’t feel they deserved the marketing resources and acumen that their for-profit counterparts demanded.
So I learned from the best marketing geniuses the industry has to offer and set out on a quest to change how nonprofits are perceived with just the right words.
My message:
Effective nonprofit organizations deserve to be seen, heard and supported!
"She is able to create a brand story from scratch."
“She is really able to capture the essence of brands and literally create a brand story from scratch.
“And she can craft the copy in a format that is structured for the sales and marketing goals of the clients’ websites.
“I highly recommend hiring Juliana.”
– Lindy Nowak
Founder of Up in a Day Websites
"Juliana has given me back so much precious time."
“She is adept at choosing the perfect words that communicate precisely what I am trying to say.
“I quickly learned that the value she brings to our organization is worth every penny, between the time saved and the quality, professional work she produces.”
– Juan Gallo
CEO of Heart2Heart Outreach of South Florida
“She helped make my thoughts clearer."
“Juliana can pair my words with my writing style, so my website truly sounds like me. That’s a huge value that I got from working with her.”
– Aaron Smalls
Performer, speaker of Charismatic Advantage
What’s included in the Nonprofit Brand Atlas
This comprehensive package includes six essential elements to clarify your brand and jumpstart your marketing strategies.
Elements to build Nonprofit Branding
Market Research Report
The foundation and background of your brand, outlining:
- History, Mission and Vision
- Key Stakeholder Interviews and Testimonials
- Peer Landscape Mapping
Brand Messaging Guide
A comprehensive guide to consistency and cohesion containing:
- Target Persona
- Unique Community Value
- Point of View
- Message Pillars
- Brand Values
- Brand Voice Guide
- Style Guide
- Content Playbook
Key Website Messaging
Customized copy for five key pages:
- Home Page
- About Us
- Services (or two pages of your choice)
- Donation Page
Elements to define your Nonprofit Marketing Strategy
Social Media Strategy
The step-by-step guide that aligns your nonprofit goals to measurable growth, containing:
- Content Pillars
- Channel Guidelines
- Performance Framework
- Measurement Model
Blog Strategy and Setup
How your message applies to regularly updated website content, including:
- SEO Keyword Rankings
- Blog Content Calendar
- Formatting for Landing
- Page and Blog Template
Newsletter Strategy and Setup
The setup and implementation to keep your audience engaged, including:
- Audience Segmentation
- Newsletter Content Plan
- Newsletter Graphics
So… what’s the first step?
Because these brand and strategy guides are so (obsessively) comprehensive, our agency has a limited number of Brand Atlases we can build each year. This forces us to be selective with the nonprofit organizations we choose to work with.
A good fit for us is a nonprofit that is trusted by its community. We vibe with leaders who take on too much because we love organizing chaotic good into a crystalized message that rings with truth.
We even like organizations who are absolutely certain they have too much to say to too many people. We funnel “too much” into the right-sized packages of words.
To work with us, you also should be obsessed with efficiency because you don’t have time for anything else.
If that sounds like your organization, let’s schedule a consultation call to discuss the details and how soon we can get started.
Frequently Asked Questions
Our organization already has a brand guide. Do we need a Nonprofit Brand Atlas?
That depends. Does the brand guide include details about how your message should be written? Does it provide a detailed sketch of your target persona, to the point where you can picture the person in your mind? Does it identify your Unique Community Value? Does it explain how to apply those elements directly to your website, your newsletters and social media?
In our experience, most brand guides focus on color, fonts and logos. While we love a good color scheme, the Nonprofit Brand Atlas is a deep dive into the marketing strategy and the words that your brand needs to make an impact.
Once the elements of your brand messaging are well defined, we highly encourage you to apply the all right fonts!
I don’t think we need EVERYTHING that’s included in this package. Can we cut out things we already have?
If you’re worried we might give you too much, we offer a Brand Audit that analyzes the assets your organization is working with. This is a good step if your organization has been guided by leaders with a strong marketing background or you’ve piecemealed marketing strategy over time.
Let’s talk through your options!