MPs recently talked about large charities being the Tescos of the sector. It was meant as a rebuke for the way that the sector was developing: that larger charities are taking an ever-increasing share of the sector’s resources. There is no doubt that small charities are finding it harder and harder to survive. But that shouldn’t disguise the fact that charities have a huge amount to learn from Tesco. And any charity that is compared to Tesco can decide whether to be thrilled for all the things that are good about them, or devastated for all the things that people dislike about them.

In one of our previous Insights exploring the value of the notion of brand equity for the charity sector we have argued that the nature of charitable giving – which is such that donors do not have direct experience of the benefits generated by their own choice of giving – means that trust in the brand becomes a crucial aspect of the relationship between supporters and the charity in question. In this Insight we will look more in depth at the notion of trust in charity brands and what its key drivers are.

The significance of brand and how to research it, drawing on the experiences of two national charities and nfpSynergy's experience in tracking charity brands over time.
 

That the brand is one of the most important assets that a charity has been widely recognised not only by experts but also by the charity sector itself. Now more than ever charities are increasingly taking responsibility for devoting more and more resources to the process of building strong brands.

1. Remember what you believe and tell everyone

At the heart of a strong brand are strong beliefs. Too many organisations were founded on strong beliefs and then they cover them up and let them grow mouldy. So take the time in 2010 to make those implicit beliefs explicit. Beliefs are important because they are also what inspire people. People join a cause because they share a desire to do something and they believe your organisation can make the difference.

nfpSynergy is regularly commissioned to conduct communications research for a wide range of our not for profit or public sector clients, and often directly by a creative agency working for a charity. We have seen many times how valuable it can be in helping a campaign to fulfil its potential and ultimately help an organisation to meet its objectives.

Once upon a time (well about ten years ago) awareness building was relatively simple. If you wanted to increase awareness you either had to spend money on TV or print advertising or be very good at doing the things that the media wanted to cover. Now things are very different. The age of the internet and the changing culture that it brings with it affect the way that every charity can build awareness.

Not every charity can spend millions of pounds on awareness advertising to boost its awareness. However every organisation can integrate its communications at minimal cost in order to maximise the impact of its message. Integration can be done at the tactical level or the strategic level. There are two broad ways in which an organisation can integrate at a strategic level.

Exercise 1 – Meet and greet each other

The first exercise is very simple. Get everybody to introduce themselves to each other and explain simply and succinctly who the organisation is that they work for. The idea is to get across in two or three sentences about the organisation, its work and what makes it special. In other words they need to introduce themselves by putting across the brand very clearly. Once the group has spent 10 or so minutes doing this and has moved on two or three times, stop the exercise and ask people how they found it and what worked and what was hard.

Chief Executives play a vital role in creating awareness – yet all too often they are bystanders in the awareness process. It is interesting that in the commercial sector most CEOs would see themselves as the guardians of their brand (of which awareness-building is the first step) yet in the charity sector most CEOs are at best neutral and often hostile to branding and, by inference, to awareness-building.