Delegates at the latest CharityComms conference, which took place on 23rd April, received lots of tips from top charity branding experts. Here, Trina Wallace, a journalist from charity copywriting agency ngo.media, co-organisers of the conference, shares five things we learnt at the event.
1. Branding communications should be all about “NAP (Need, Awareness, People) and zap”. Betty McBride, Director of Policy and Communications at the British Heart Foundation (BHF), told delegates that following the charity’s rebrand, all communications have to be NAPPed and zapped. “We have to show the Need for the BHF,” she explained. “In a leaflet, this might mean explaining how many people in a specific area have heart disease. All our communications need to feature our Achievements: how we have succeeded in that area. And we have to feature People in everything we do.”
The zap, Betty said, is about making sure all communications show that BHF is a charity and exists because of donors’ money. This doesn’t necessarily mean asking people for donations. It’s about telling people who you are and what you do so they know you couldn’t carry out your work without their donations.
2. It’s a good idea to have a brand guidelines book to give to new staff. It’s even better to have a website that does the same job – as Macmillan Cancer Support does. This was the advice of Dan Dufour, Brand Communications Consultant at The Team, who talked about how to manage your brand internally. “A brand guidelines book should include who you are, what you believe, your vision and your values, as well as how to use your logo and details about typography,” said Dan. “This will empower staff and encourage them to appreciate the power of consistent branding.”
3. To stay “on brand” you have to make sure different departments in your organisation are all “facing in the same direction”. That was the view of Betty McBride, Director of Policy and Communications at the British Heart Foundation, who argued that branding “isn’t rocket science”. In order to all be facing in the same direction, you need to first be able to talk to each other within your organisation. “Departments can’t work in isolation,” said Betty. Sometimes that means saying: “I accept that in order to do my job, I need to help you do yours”.
4. Research awareness levels of your charity and make changes based on the results. Polly Neate, Executive Director of External Relations and Communications at Action for Children, talked about why her charity changed its name from NCH. Research showed only 1% of people spontaneously recognised who NCH were. Changing the name to Action for Children so it more explicitly stated what the charity does was therefore a good idea. Polly helped secure a budget for advertising for the first time. TV adverts used children telling their own stories that were also on their website.
“The adverts were about telling people what we do and raising awareness so people were better able to recognise our brand,” said Polly.
5. Brevity is good branding. In a really practical workshop, Joe Saxton, Driver of Ideas at nfpSynergy, ran through five exercises to try at staff or volunteer meetings/conferences. Summarising what you do in one sentence was one. “If you run lots of separate services, work out what joins them together and include this in your one sentence description,” said Joe. Using a “pub fact” to prove the impact their charity makes, whether it’s a statistic or a personal story, was another exercise practised by delegates in the workshop.
If you missed the event, download speakers’ presentations here: