The 2009 Non Profit Tagline Report

Im a couple of days late with this, but the Non Profit Tagline Report is worth it. This report really is an incredible brainstorming tool for your organisation and ther report is designed to help you shape effective taglines.

“A powerful tagline is a must for any nonprofit intent on delivering its message in our overcrowded world of 24/7 content,” says  the fantastic Nancy E. Schwartz, president of Nancy Schwartz & Company and publisher at GettingAttention.org,  the nonprofit marketing and communications resource website that produces the annual report and awards competition (you really should sign up to the site here)

A 2008 survey of nonprofits showed that 7 in 10 nonprofits rated their tagline as poor or didn’t use one at all. Schwartz says the majority of nonprofits not using a tagline indicated that they had not thought about it or couldn’t come up with a good one.

The 2009 Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Report  really does give you everything you need to start a tagline development process. Things like:

• Why a Nonprofit’s Name Isn’t Enough
• How a Strong Tagline Benefits Your Organization – Useful for developing support among colleagues and leadership
• The 10 Have-Tos for Successful Taglines
• Using Words that Work
• The 7 Deadly Sins, 9 Snores and 5 Best Ways to Antagonize Your Audience – What not to do
• Research, Create, Revise, Test, Repeat – The right steps to take to craft a potent tagline
• Over 2,500 Nonprofit Tagline Examples to put to work for marketing brainstorming.

“A nonprofit organization’s tagline is, next to its name, the marketing message most frequently heard, and the easiest and most effective way to convey its brand. A strong tagline complements an organization’s name to convey its unique value or impact with personality, passion and commitment. Nonprofits that fail to make the most of their taglines are basically throwing that opportunity away,” says Nancy.

I agree with Nancy when she says that taglines are a key tool in building strong nonprofit brands, which are more important than ever in these times of increased competition. “Nonprofits can develop a tagline at the organization, program or campaign levels to freshen up their messaging, emphasize their commitment and/or revive tired positioning,” she says.

Doing good Outdoor

Sometimes we are lucky enough to get a budget to do outdoor, or even better we get the space donated.  Sometimes I see non profit outdoor ads and just think…what a wasted opportunity. They are crowded, full of images and text, no clear message, over complicated.

Well if you are given the chance, don’t waste it. Follow this advice from Paul on How to do Good Outdoor (Paul has also previously offered to help out non-profits so if you are thinking of doing outdoor, send it to him and he will critique for you)

Outdoor advertising is difficult. It looks simple but it is not. Why? Because it requires the ultimate in communication focus.

With TV, you have time to build a story. You use visual cues, time, movement, story, character building, dialogue and music – all to help you make a point. Radio has some of these advantages too. As does online. Even press gives you more time to make your case, give more information.

Not outdoor. You have to stop your audience, grab their attention and try and get your message across – all in the space of a few seconds before they move on.

So it is not easy. But here are some guiding principles:

1. Clear Brief. Be very, very clear on what the most important message from your brief was. Most brands have more than one thing to say. They desperately want their audience to know the full story. They feel they are not doing their product justice if they don’t try and get a few messages into the ad. They may be right but outdoor media is not good for this. If you have several messages, you may decide to use other media instead. This requires discipline.
2. Comprehension in every execution. I was taught that every piece of communication needs to hold its own. It is not good enough to say that when you see the TV ad, the outdoor will make sense. This is lazy. If your outdoor is a scene from the TV ad, your audience still need to comprehend the message from your outdoor. The golden rule I go by is: Not understanding the creative is not ideal, but is forgivable. Not understanding the message is not.
3. Single image. Make sure your visual stands out. From a distance, can your audience see what you want them to see? (And read what you need them to read?) I personally prefer a single image. So for example, in the billboard above, having this single image of a bottle works better than having 4 or 5 bottles. This allows it to stand out better.
4. Demand colour contrast. The Club Orange bottle does stand out above, although personally I’d have gone for a white background. Think the blue is a bit weak. But at least it is not against an orange or red background.
5. Aim for simplicity. Your visual should ideally amplify your message. And should be simple. Here the Club Orange ad is good. I’m assuming the brief says something like “Exaggerate the idea that Club Orange is made from real oranges, proved by fact that it has real orange bits“. The outdoor ad does this, by showing the bottle cut in half exposing the oranges.
6. Headline. No copy. You really only have room for a headline. No copy. This depends a bit on the ad format but the general rule is – the shorter your headline, the better. Part of this is a font size discussion. The longer the headline, the smaller you need to make the font. The smaller the font, the less chance it will be read. There are exceptions when headlines can be too big. Although this is less about size and more about the fact the words are competing with the image.
7. Careful with caps. Unless your headline is just a word or two, don’t WRITE YOUR HEADLINE IN CAPS. Caps are difficult to read.
8. Branding. Make sure your ad is well branded. Don’t hide your logo away. Some agency folk will hate this but remember your audience need to associate the message with you. You see your brand every day and you may be sick of seeing your brand properties, but most people hardly notice. As long as comprehension is not compromised, make sure your ad is as strongly branded as it can be. Also, I’d avoid any teaser outdoor campaigns. Teasers assume people will look at the ad, wonder what it is for and be interested. Most people just don’t care. Unless you’re loaded with cash, I’d keep away from them.
9. Humour works. I was taught to always be careful with humour. What I think is funny, others might not. But if you know your audience and know what they like, research suggests that an ad that makes them smile will increase recall. Makes sense I guess.
10. People and animals. Research also suggests that using people and animals can increase recall. I’ve see research on the bit on people before.
11. White space is good. Give your headline and your image space to breath. Don’t feel compelled to add a sub head if you can avoid it. This will add clutter and decrease readership and recall. Less is more. Keep contrast in mind when placing headlines. If you have white font, make sure none of the headline is against a light background.

Of course there will always be exceptions. Like this. No problem. Once you know the principles, you can make an educated decision about breaking them.

Paul has said he will post some good examples in the coming weeks, here is one

Brand V’s Logo

As always what Seth Godin writes about can be easily applied to the non-profit world. In fact his new book Tribes inspiredSasha Dichter to write a mantra, In Defense of Raising Money, worth a read.

Anyway here is a great post that Seth wrote, Your Brand is not your Logo:

Smart marketers understand that a new logo can’t possibly increase your market share, and they know that an expensive logo doesn’t defeat a cheap logo. They realize that the logo is like a first name, it’s an identifier.

So, when Pepsi and BestBuy start ‘testing’ logos, and proclaiming that a new logo might change their market share, I get nervous. You can’t test a logo any more than you can test a first name. Sure, you can eliminate Myxlplyx as an outlier, but given the success of the Starbucks mermaid and the Dunkin Donuts typeface (two outliers) you can see that this testing is sort of meaningless.

I guess the punchline is: take the time and money and effort you’d put into an expensive logo and put them into creating a product and experience and story that people remember instead.

How ture is this for non-profits? I joined an organisation that was ending the process of creating a new logo. A long process. It was driven by some board members who had just hired a new PR firm and were advised that this process was essential. Ok the old logo was…just that old. But it worked. The new one was fine, said nothing about the charity, and realistically never helped raise any more money.

Yes there are times that a new logo may be needed, perhaps your mission has changed so the old logo doesnt reflect who you are any more, or perhaps you have developed a new tag line and it makes sense to reflect this in a new logo (by the way have you read Nancy E. Schwartz Non Profit Tag Line Report, check it out here)

But for me Seth’s punchline is one you should read and re-read if you are thinking of developing a new logo:

take the time and money and effort you’d put into an expensive logo and put them into creating a product and experience and story that people remember instead.

If people remember and are moved by your organisations story they will donate.

They wont donate because they like your logo

William Hill and Breast Cancer Care – Good Partnership?

William Hill have clearly put a big budget behind their Breast Cancer Care promotion. The promotion is looking for players to deposit and spend £20 on Bingo tickets within four weeks of joining William Hill Bingo and they will then donate £10 on your behalf to Breast Cancer Care.

There are also Pink Ribbon Games where 10% from every ticket bought is donated to Breast Cancer Care.

I dont know quite what it is about this campaign, but it just doesnt sit well with me, and I think in this instance maybe it would have been one that would have been ok to walk away from.

Ok so William Hill are putting cash behind this and so it is getting the name of Breast Cancer Care out there, during their key month of October. But this campaign is pushing people to an online betting site! That just seems to be a mis-match to me…..is it because it is Bingo that they think its ok?

I know that corporate partnerships need to be a good fit for all, on paper this is. It is talking to the Breast Cancer Care target audience, it is raising money and for William Hill it is driving people to their site to sign up and play (get hooked?) on their online Bingo.

But to me it just seems like gambling is a really dodgy area for a charity to engage in (ok there could be a debate here about the lottery too). But a company like William Hill is great at engaging people and keeping them engaged in online games…and fair play to them, that is their business. But driving people to their site with these hooks….spend 20 quid and we give 10 etc….just leaves me cold.

I dont doubt that William Hill wanted to help the cause but I wonder would there have been another way to do it, that wouldnt have had such a strong call to action to play their games?

Would love to hear peoples opinions on this…Am I way off the mark here? Is it ok to take money from wherever you can get it, especially now? Or are there times that you should say…you know what this just doesnt feel right and walk away from a potential windfall?

P.S. cant see mention of the campaign on the Breast Cancer Care site!

White House Goes Pink

Earlier this week the White House was illuminated pink for the evening in support of Breast Cancer awareness. Part of a worldwide campaign where 200 landmarks will be turned pink.

Its probably fair to say that only the Power of Pink could pull this off right now but talking about the move on the Step by Step Fundraising Blog Jim Berigan says it made him think about how people at a local fundraising level think. And he asks if perhaps they are thinking too small?  He does concede that a local group may not be successful in turning the white house into their organisational colours but perhaps there is a local landmark that can be taken over.

The point he is making is we need to think beyond the normal things we do and look at opportunities that would probably be considered impossible. In many/most organisations such an idea would be knocked back at the start as being too ambitious. But maybe this proves the point…can you ever really be too ambitious.

As Berigan says: I challenge you to take a few minutes and start day dreaming. Let your mind really go. Have fun in how crazy your ideas can get

Great Amnesty Ad

Apparently this isnt new, I came across it on Paul’s Blog, like him its new to me. I think it’s really effective

Great new BHF ad

This is a great new ad from the British Heart Foundation. Came across this on the guardian site, read more here

Do we really need charities?

This is a question the Intelligent Giving Blog asks. I won’t lie I got a fright when I saw it. They make the point that charities were mostly set up at a time when people needed a way to connect with those that required help. Therefore it made perfect senst for people to doante to an organisation in that field that could direct the money to those very people. But of course that means there is a middle man.

Intelligent Giving notes that now that there are more sophistacted means of donating, ie online,  and that there are a wide range of sites which allow people to give directly to those they want to benefit from the donation, cutting out the middle man (ie the charity).

So sites like Kiva, Globalgiving, and the Big Give all list projects or individuals that you can donate directly to. And therefore, with this development, Intelligent Giving asks, is there really a need for charities?

I think it is true that there will be, and should be, a shift. The more that funds can get directly to those in need the better, so if you give directly to a project and can cut out the middle man great. But I suppose the question needs to be asked, can we ever really cut out the middle man? Is there a risk that people will manipulate the system and funds will be directed to projects that arent “real causes”.

I dont think this is the end of charities!! So fret not. But I do agree with Intelligent Giving when they say that ….. they’ll (charities) need to work harder to show what they can do. Charities will need to argue their case strongly and be able to show that its just as important, or in fact maybe more important to give to them rather than directly through the likes of the sites above. Maybe it comes down to streamlining and dare I suggest merging??

Read the full article here

Help Donors Choose

picture from Professional Fundraising site

Professional Fundraising has just released an article which talks about a presentation Joe Saxton, of nfpsynergy made in the opening plenary of the PF Conference on 21 May.

Saxton was made the point that charities dont differentiate themselves enough. He used five bottles of cleaning product to illustrate his point, stating that it was easy for a consumer to tell the difference between these products, if you were to change the names to those of charities it isnt as easy.

Nice way to make the point.

The article ends with this:

Charities should intertwine giving with living, he said. “The best fundraising is where people are not sure whether their motivation is for their benefit or for charities’ benefit,” he said, but added that fundraisers should create products that allowed people to know exactly how they should give and what they would get

Read the full article here

Mergers – Part 2

I wrote earlier about mergers (I think charities should start looking into them more), so I was interested to read, from the AFP Blog, that the Tuscon Citizen agrees with me.

 

In the article it states that:

Tucson is an exceptionally caring and giving community when it comes to supporting nonprofits. But the sheer number of nonprofits is staggering: 3,732 are registered in Pima County…………..That’s why it is good to hear that even more are taking the step toward merger and eliminating duplication.

 

They make a good point, if you have 20 organisations working in the same space, how does a donor decide who to support? They state that:

clearly there is overlap and duplication, with layers of administration siphoning money that should go to providing services.

 

Now I dont like the way that last part is phrased, siphoning money….hmmm, I think that could have been phrased differently.

 

Three months ago, Tucson’s only two nonprofit providers of shelter beds for domestic-violence victims announced they will merge. Brewster Center Domestic Violence Services and Tucson Centers for Women and Children expect to be one agency by July 1. It will be named Emerge!

 

Like I stated in my original post (read it here) this isnt easy, it isnt always going to work, it wont be popular, but I truly believe we need to consider it. Read the full Tuscon Citizen article here

 

 

Seth Godin talks to The Chronicle of Philanthropy

Seth Godin is a bit of a genius and every blog post of his I read I can easily think how what he is saying relates to our sector. He is also the founder of squidoo which is a user generated website that is designed to raise money for non profits and is now in the top 300 websites in the USA.

On Tuesday The Chronicle of Philanthropy had a live discussion with Seth Godin.  Here are some of the things Seth Godin had to say in response to questions, what I find fascinating even taken on their own as satements they make sense, take a look at these highlights but then read the full transcript at some point: 

1. The biggest mistake non profits make is that they’re so busy not making mistakes they end up being boring. Boring and selfish and self-absorbed, all while they’re working so hard to make the world better. It’s ironic, but true.
2. lead a tribe, and to do that you need to engage people and also to connect them with each other. I guess the short version is: talk to people the way you’d like to be talked to
3. Once non profits realize that they are marketers, not bureaucrats or truck drivers or procurement agencies, everything changes.
4. Tell stories people want to hear.
5. If you’re not changing and testing your landing pages daily, you’re wasting valuable time and money
6.  If someone opens your email, they are precious. Don’t waste them! Cherish them.
7. I think making a road sexy isn’t so hard. Or a library. The key is to focus on the BENEFIT, not the tool.
8. kiva.org (he mentions it a few times, so check it out!)
9. If you can’t turn five people into raving fans, into fanatics, into sneezers, why will you be able to impact 5,000? You won’t. One person at a time. The old fashioned way, just online.
10. Marketing is not advertising! Marketing is what you do and how you talk about it. If you do work worth talking about, word will spread. If word spreads, you get donations.
11. be the best in the world at what you do
12. go do stuff, small stuff, cheap stuff, storytelling stuff and testing stuff, you not only won’t get in trouble, you’ll get rewarded. hurry!

These points are taken directly from the Chronicle of Philanthropy site click here for the entire transcript, it is well worth the read:

 

Merging can make sense…think about it

I get concerned when I hear read things like this:

During March 2008, 364 charities were registered. Of these 357 were “main” charities and 7 were subsidiaries. This brings the total of charities registered for 2008 to 1289. (Source Charity Commission)

Currently in the UK alone there are 190, 387 charities on the Register. Ok so 83% of these are raising below 100,000 and of course they are needed but I wonder on the level of the larger charities who are operating in the same space is there not a case for more of these charities to merge, achieve more together.

Look at your Mission
Surely the mission of all our organisations is really to cease to exist. If we are charged with ending poverty in the third world or finding a cure to a certain disease well then should we not look at how we can best achieve that goal. If there is an organisation in the same space as us, would we be more effective if we were to work together? Could we cease to exist if we did this. Ok again being realistic this may not be possible, but wont it show our donors that we truly want to try.

Try and remove the Politicis
Of course each organisation has its own politics and there will be resistance, thats not what we do, or my old favourite…we have never done that before! They arent good enough reasons not to take a more strategic look at your mission and what you are supposed to be doing. We need to step away from our own personal objectives and if we are truly passionate about solving the issue our organisation faces then mergers should always be on the table. Look at your organisation and why it was set up when it was set up? Then ask yourself, if you were to set it up today what would you do?

Test it, form an Alliance
So it’s risky business, of course it is. It wont happen over night and it wont always make sense. So why not test it, form an alliance. Begin working with organisations with similar missions and goals as you have. Form a joint fundraising campaign, try it. Fundraising is fiercely competitive, we dont really like telling each other what we are doing. I recently was told by someone that they were offended when another fundraiser asked them what they had raised so far this year! Why is that a bad thing?

I was encouraged today when I read on Fundraising UK that Help the Aged and Age Concern are starting an extensive consultation process to look at a merger.

Is this the future?

LPGA & PGA players to wear Pink Spikes

I read this on the AFP Blog. Apparently 100 players across the two tours are going to be wearing Pink Spikes on their golf shoes to help promote Pink on the Links a programme intended to raise money for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

I think the way Breast Cancer Charities have embraced Pink and in so many ways they have made the colour Pink a brand (I honestly can’t help seeing Pink things and thinking about Breast Cancer) is fantastic. What I admire too is that, whilst there are 100’s of charities in the field, they are all working together to make the Pink brand as strong as it can be. Lessons to be learned there I think.

Read the full story here in USA Today

Fr. Doms Duck’s Doo Compost

This is great. First of all I know Fr. Dom and the man is amazing. And his idea is amazing. Here is a company that started ethically if ever there was one. 

 

Fr. Dominic Roscioli, a retired archdiocesan priest, developed Father Dom’s Duck’s Doo Compost, “food for the soil, in 1987. After Fr. Dom had returned to his Columbus Park area neighborhood in Kenosha, recuperating from chemotherapy he received while fighting non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, he noticed his neighborhood had deteriorated, and crime had set in.

 

So Fr. Dom set up a grassroots community improvement group that worked with police to shut down drug houses and a centre of prostitution. It also helped obtain playground equipment, flowers, trees and other items for the  neighbourhood.Funding it all is Father Dom’s Duck’s Doo Compost, the compost is cooked at the Pheasant Run Landfill and Recycling facility in Paris for four months and when its ready it heads to the Kenosha Achievement Center for bagging.

 

Not only does Fr. Dom do this amazing work he also volunteers at The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp. There Fr. Dom met Paul Newman (founder) and the two became friends (Fr. Dom is just that kind of person, you just want to hang out with him and be his friend, he oozes goodness!). As you know Paul Newman has his own range of good stuff Newmans Own and so he offered Fr. Dom help with the marketing.

 

Originally Fr. Dom wanted to see if they could bring it under the Newmans Own brand, but the marketing people said…we dont want to mix food and compost. Fr. Dom thought that was the end of that until he got a call from the Manager of Newman’s Own who had received a fax from Paul Newman.  He warned Fr. Dom that it was bit rude…..Fr. Dom told him that he had probably heard it all before and to go ahead – it said, ‘Dear Tom, Help Fr. Dom with his shit, Paul’. Classic.

 

So the similarity between Fr. Dom’s packaging and Newmans Own…no coincidence.

 

Today Fr. Dom’s Duck’s Doo Compost profits benefit God’s Good Earth Foundation which distributes funds to charities throughout the country that meet basic human needs. The product can be purchased commercially and also is available for organisations to sell as a fundraiser. I am having a little trouble getting onto the website at the moment, but keep trying if you are too.

 

 

Tag Lines

Just read this on Nancy E. Schwartz Blog. Its so startling I just had to share it:

• 28% of organizations surveyed (in the Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Survey) don’t have a tagline at all.
• 58% of nonprofits with a tagline in use gauge that tagline to be “not effective” or only “somewhat effective.”

As Nancy says:

A bad tagline, or none at all, is a huge missed opportunity. I urge you to close that gap. Now.

One Charity that I know of that knew the value of this was Barretstown. About 5 years ago (I could have the date wrong) they did a full brand review and one of the key things they focussed on was a strong tag line. Here is what they came up with, and trust me it has worked for them.

I would love to hear from anyone who has developed a new tag line and has found how well it is working for them?