Registered charities, community groups, and social enterprises in the charity sector rely heavily on their branding to evoke action, create an emotive response, and demonstrate the value and importance of supporting their causes and campaigns.
Regardless of the work a charitable organisation focuses on, the impacts of the cost-of-living crisis have meant many are finding it challenging to communicate why the charity’s mission matters and develop a solid foundation that will stand the test of time.
Just as branding is a crucial aspect of corporate strategy development, it underpins all the marketing efforts and communications a charity invests in – ensuring that supporters, donors, partners and groups with common beliefs and values are actively invested in the success of the charity and consider it a vital part of the community it exists to serve.
Here we’re looking at the multifaceted areas charity branding needs to cover and how positive differentiation, authenticity, and real, genuine stories are fundamental to triggering a response from target audiences, tapping into human psychology and sentiments to protect the organisation’s sustainability.
Why Emotional Charity Branding is an Integral Part of Organisational Strategy
Charity branding provides every organisation within the charity sector with clarity, direction and a tone of voice that shapes their communications. A set of cohesive brand guidelines applies to all visual assets and marketing materials, including:
- The colour palette and imagery used in fundraising, website pages and campaigns.
- How the organisation conveys and illustrates the charity’s purpose and goals.
- Logo design – ensuring every viewer recognises the charity’s branding.
Having an identifiable, distinct visual identity is only the start of a comprehensive charity branding project, where charities look at the best ways to cement their position and foster loyalty and support from prospective followers in as much as a single interaction.
The goal of effective charity branding isn’t only to explain why the charity exists and its values and goals, but to prompt action.
This ensures that every donor or supporter feels involved, valued and a part of a positive forward movement – attracting partnerships, resources and opportunities based on principles of shared beliefs.
Using Storytelling and Authenticity to Tap Into Emotive Responses
There are countless reasons to donate to a cause, follow a charity’s social media pages, participate in a fundraising activity, buy fundraising t-shirts or products, or provide long-term support financially or through community advocacy.
It is essential that charity brands conduct in-depth audience research to recognise and leverage the ‘reasons to believe’ or the core feelings the work of the charity can provoke.
Behind every donation is an emotional response, where we feel compelled to get involved with a charity’s work because we care. Activating that sentiment and communicating how fundraising will deliver tangible, positive outcomes is paramount—and also one of the most difficult aspects of branding.
While the right process for refining or refreshing a charity’s branding will depend on the nature and focus of its work, the guidelines below apply to the vast majority of charitable strategic branding projects.
Creating a Personable Charity Brand Identity
Charities are not faceless institutions, but teams of staff, volunteers, supporters, and partners. By putting the people dedicated to the cause at the forefront of communications, charitable organisations can form an authentic identity and personality with which viewers can engage.
Photos, videos, anecdotes, and case studies published through marketing channels are great ways to demonstrate how the charity changes people’s lives, promotes change or protects vulnerable people or animals – rather than assuming followers or readers automatically understand what the charity does from the outset.
Making Charitable Branding Authentic
Asking people to donate money, time, or energy to a charitable cause can be tough. To garner that support, charities must be brands that key audience segments trust, respect, and believe will do as they say they will.
Charities that follow clear brand strategy guidelines can apply consistency across the board. Their websites, social media pages, email campaigns, fundraising literature, and all other touch points feature the same recognisable branding, slogans, and colour – without confusion, lack of continuity or any variances in the content and information shared by the organisation.
Regular reporting boosts credibility and showcases that the charity is everything it appears, ensuring supporters are comfortable that the contributions they make will go towards the causes they expect.
Storytelling in Charity Branding
Finally, connections exist because viewers are engaged and emotionally invested in the story behind the charity. Stories, human faces, and real-world examples of charity at work evoke empathy and connection, where potential supporters can perceive how the charity might become critical to them or their loved ones in a similar scenario.
Notably, stories should showcase the outcomes the charity achieves and clarify how supporters can become part of those results. This avoids a focus solely on highlighting causes and difficulties but shows how direct action can contribute to solving hardships.
For instance, sharing statistics or facts can be stark but impassive. Clarifying how it would feel to be faced with a similar situation or to be a victim of disadvantage and showing how the charity works to restore balance, opportunity, and happiness provides an uplifting boost and incentivises action.
Consultative Brand Strategy for Charities: A Case Study
Flintlock’s work with Stonepillow, an incredible Chichester charity that works to prevent homelessness, was based on a brief to refresh and adapt the organisation’s communications through its branding, aesthetics and website – bringing these elements in line with a new internal strategy.
With rising demand for support and a reliance on donations and fundraising, Stonepillow wanted to find the right ways to share its story and provide excellent experiences for supporters visiting its website.
The Flintlock team started with a brand audit, discovering that the colour palette, copy, and navigation required attention, with a need to shift the focus to connection and inspiring audiences keen to support the charity’s work.
Further qualitative and quantitative research into the charitable landscape identified that to capitalise on the charity’s superb brand equity, it would benefit from more dynamic branding that would bring the human stories behind the organisation to the fore and ensure Stonepillow stood out.
We worked on establishing three core messaging pillars, with website development and visual assets to freshen the appeal of the charity’s communications and landing pages, with user-friendly navigation, accessible design and clear calls to action. Our subsequent Get Sparked workshop helped to clarify how strategy could be transformed into active communications and be applied across all fundraising campaigns.
Charities and non-profit enterprises interested in learning more about the significance and importance of emotive brand marketing and cohesive charity branding are welcome to get in touch with Flintlock Marketing to arrange a convenient time to talk.
