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Your website speaks volumes about your organization. Is it saying the right things? This overview of branding concepts will help you tailor your website text, features, information, prioritization, and graphic design to ensure constituents and funders see you as you would like to be seen.

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What is a Brand?

“Brand” is a frequently misunderstood word. While it's sometimes used to refer to graphic design elements such as the logo for an organization, it's really a much bigger concept than this. A brand is the impression that the public shares about an organization. It's what we think about an organization when we hear their name.

Let's take the World Wildlife Fund, for instance. Their brand encompasses our general conception of what they do – they protect wildlife – as well as what we think about what they do – they are hardworking, politically savvy, incredibly knowledgeable, a bunch of idiots, whatever. Each organization has their own brand, although they may do similar things. For instance, Greenpeace has a similar general mission to the World Wildlife Fund, but is perceived in a different way – less conservative, more prone to political actions, etc.

Brands are influenced by all sorts of things. In fact, they are influenced by pretty much everything you do and say and what others say about you. This includes logical things, such as your communications, awards you're given, or press articles about you. But it also includes things that may not be so rational – the way you design your materials, they way you answer your phone, the fact that your executive director looks like George Bush…

Some of these elements are under your control and others are not. All of these affect your brand, however, because your brand is defined by what your constituents think about you. It's not what you say it is; it's what the public says it is. All you can do is try to influence their perception.

That's what this article is about.

Influencing Your Brand through Your Website

Your organization already has a brand. It's what the public thinks about you. This brand may or not be accurate, however, or flattering to your organization.

The purpose of influencing your brand, then, is to do and say the things that will help people see your organization and its strengths clearly. This isn't deception – it's communicating what you do and why it's important. And then walking the talk. For instance, Apple is generally considered to have great quality products. This isn't just marketing spin – this brand message is enforced by products that meet real needs, work well, and are easy to use. The products themselves are ambassadors for the brand.

And your website is an ambassador too. Many visitors to your site won't have any other contact with you. Do you want people to see your organization as innovative? Knowledgeable? Friendly? Politically savvy? Your website needs to demonstrate these qualities for you.

Unless you already have a brand statement for your organization, you will need to start by brainstorming how you would like to be perceived. What, ideally, should people think that your organization is good at? What should they think makes your organization different? Important? The brand definition process is a detailed one that could (and does!) fill books – see the For More Information section for additional resources.

The outcome of this branding process is a set of unique and compelling statements that summarize what your organization is about. For instance, the Red Cross branding statements might look something like this (I've made these up):

• Red Cross saves lives by providing international disaster relief care
• Helps people prevent and prepare for emergencies
• The Red Cross is neutral, international, caring, extremely professional, politically savvy, logistically sophisticated

The idea is to create statements which cannot be applied to any other organization. To the extent that other international relief organizations could use these statements, for instance, they are not as strong as they could be. Because if it only describes you, you know that you have communicated what makes you different.

Once you have defined how you would like to be perceived, you can begin to integrate these messages into your website. This isn't an easy matter of slapping some text on a page – brands are conveyed in many different ways, and it's important to communicate a unified message. This article walks through four different ways to influence your brand through your website – Statements that appear within the website, the Information and Functionality that you provide, the Prioritization of elements within the site, and your site's Graphic Design .

Branding Through Statements

The most straightforward way to convey a brand message on your site is to simply state the message boldly. This is particularly useful to convey what you do on your homepage. For instance, Groundspring (www.groundspring.org) uses a large graphic on their homepage to state that they provide “affordable internet fundraising, email and advocacy for nonprofits”. Heifer International (www.heifer.org) uses several statements on their homepage, including “Help Hungry Families Feed Themselves” to convince you of the importance of what they do.

A tagline – a short phrase that usually accompanies your logo – can be a very useful way to state what you do on almost every page of your site. Taglines should be a concrete and clear statement about what you do or why it's important– for instance, “Connecting the world to the lands of Jewish heritage”, from the Centropa site (www.centropa.org), or “Together, we can save a life” from the Red Cross site (www.redcross.org).

However, be careful not to take your statements too far beyond simple facts. Showing is much more powerful than telling, especially with intangibles. Statements with lots of superlatives or adjectives – “We are caring, knowledgeable, and extremely trustworthy” – appear insincere and boastful.

One last thing about statements. Wherever there is text on your website, the tone and voice of that text also says something about you. For instance, the text on the Contact Us page on The Truth site (www.thetruth.com), a non-smoking site aimed at teens, says “ Got a question, query, or comment for truth? Or maybe you just want to tell us how super awesome you think we are? Or aren't. Or whatever. Lay it on us.” On the other hand, the Cancer Journal (www.tribunes.com/tribune/cancer-j.htm) , in their information for submissions, says “Cancer Journal is devoted to experimental, epidemiological and social investigations. The editor gives priority to didactic publications on biology for clinicians.” These are extreme examples of very different tones, neither of which may be right for your site. But it's important to recognize the messages your text may be sending, whether it be informality, hipness (or lack thereof), academic rigor, or friendliness.

Branding Through Information and Functionality

Information and functionality likely make up the bulk of your website. Make sure that what you provide on your site echoes the brand messages you want to convey. If you're trying to show yourself as expert, as helpful, as a resource to the community, it follows that your website ought to have helpful resources on it. If you want to convey that you provide great service, you should have examples, articles, and testimonials about that great service on your site.

The ideal is to do more than talk about your value to actually provide value on your website. There is no more genuine way to brand yourself through your website than to make the site advance your mission itself.

There are many types of information or functionality you can use to do this. For instance:

• A clearinghouse of news and information. Creating a clearinghouse of events, news, articles, and other resources related to your area of expertise shows your helpfulness and positions you as a key leader in your field.
• Whitepapers. Providing articles, whitepapers, or other summaries of topics about which you are knowledgeable provides tangible proof of your expertise and your willingness to share your knowledge.
• Articles about your own services. Articles about your own activities shows what you do in a very tangible, concrete, human way that's often connects better than high level overviews of programs.
• Pictures and videos . Pictures and videos can show things that are difficult to convey in any other way, and are more likely to provoke an emotional response than a bunch of text.
• Searchable databases. Functionalities that allow users to search or browse through key information can be very valuable to your constituents, show the depth of your information, and demonstrate your commitment to making it accessible.
• Community tools. Community tools such as blogs, message boards, and the like can show you as a force that can involve a whole community, and can provide a lot of value to your constituents. These types of tools are difficult to pull off successfully, however. Keep in mind that an empty message board or blog can brand you as sad and unsuccessful.
• Interactive pieces. Games, animations, or other interactive elements can communicate sophisticated ideas in a fun and interesting way.
• And more. Think about interactive maps, wikis, document sharing, chat functionality, online training, products for sale, financial calculators, glossaries, guides to services….

The sky is the limit. Brainstorm information or functionalities that would be useful to your constituents while reinforcing what you would like them to think about your organization.

Branding Through Prioritization

There is invariably a lot of information in a website. Prioritize to draw your visitors to key things that you want them to see and do. This is easier said than done; simply deciding what the key elements should be may require some difficult tradeoffs for your organization.

Start by choosing only a few things to highlight on your homepage. If everything is featured, nothing is emphasized. Many competing elements will just confuses your users and make it hard for them to notice anything.

Think through the elements in your navigation. These menu items summarize your site and your priorities as an organization. Make sure that they are clear, that the navigation as a whole summarizes what is on your site, and that it prioritizes the key aspects of your organization that you would like to communicate.

Use eye-catching “teasers” to direct visitors to key parts of your site, such as articles or functionalities. Teasers usually include a catchy headline, a brief but compelling description, and a link which encourages visitors to read more. They are often formatted in a box with bright colors or with a picture to capture the visitors' attention. The Humane Society site (www.hsus.org), for example, makes good use of teasers to draw you into the site.

Finally, carefully balance branding elements against links to desired actions to ensure that both are noticeable. While it's important to show clear links and teasers to areas where visitors can donate, sign up for your newsletter, and the like, make sure these types of actions don't take over your site. You don't want to brand yourself as a demanding organization that just wants to suck visitors dry.

Branding Through Graphic Design

Last but certainly not least, we turn to website graphic design. There are two key things that every site's graphic design must do:

• Establish that you are professional and credible. A reasonably well designed site communicates your professionalism, reliability, and trustworthiness. This doesn't require a high level of polish; just a clean and clear layout that doesn't violate established web conventions. Taking it a step beyond to a very polished, “big organization” feel can be powerful in a different way – it can successfully make your organization look bigger and more established than it is.

• Reassure your audience that the site is intended for them . Your graphic design communicates a lot about who the site is aimed at – technical people? Teens? Web newbies? While it's certainly possible to create a graphic design that's not particularly targeted in one direction or other, make sure that it doesn't convey unintentional messages. For instance, it's not uncommon to see very “technical” looking websites that appeal to the designers, but scare away typical organization constituents.

Just a note about “themes” – designing around a concept like America (using red, white, and blue and stars) or The Environment (using green with nature photos). Themes can be successful, but are difficult to pull off without looking heavy-handed. Unless you're really confident in what you're doing, it can be best to stay away from more literal uses of colors and traditional symbols.

Graphic design is a difficult area in which to give concrete advice. However, the colors, fonts, shapes, images and overall feel projected by your graphic design strongly influence your message. They can make a site seem “fun”, “expert”, “friendly”, “cold”, “quirky”, “inclusive” – an infinite number of messages and combinations of messages. Choose your design and your designer carefully.

Putting It All Together: Overall Site Feel

All the elements of your site in combination send cues about your organization. The key is to make everything come together to represent your organization in a cohesive and distinct way. The website for a museum of contemporary art, for instance, might feel very innovative, cutting edge, even a little freaky. A website for your local daycare should not, however, feel remotely freaky – but likely more friendly, welcoming, and down-to-earth.

Your website should feel unique and highlight the uniqueness of your organization. It should communicate what you are all about, and give visitors a sense of your key values and priorities. It should feel like a website that could only be used by your organization. This, at the end of the day, is what it means to have an effectively branded website.

For More Information

Branding Through Websites Presentation

www.alderconsulting.com/resources/branding.pdf (PDF file)

An alternate, more detailed, version of this same information, as presented at the NTEN 2005 conference. It includes many images and screenshots as examples.

DK Holland on Nonprofit Branding

http://www.fdncenter.org/pnd/npodesign/npodesign.jhtml?id=37800053 (Part 1)

Part 2  |  Part 3  |  Part 4

DK Holland has a fantastic four part series on defining nonprofit brands, written for the Foundation Center . As there doesn't seem to be any index to the whole series, here's a link to each part.

Branding White Paper: Distinguishing Your Nonprofit From Others

http://www.pavingpathways.org/tools/Branding_White_Paper.pdf (PDF file)

A very useful and in-depth look at what branding means for nonprofits from Community Wealth Ventures

The Brand Gap, by Marty Neumeier

A great, succinct book that gives a overview of what branding means

Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind , by Al Ries and Jack Trout

A classic in the field of branding; this book gives a more in-depth look at branding strategy and tactics