Build a Clear Brand and Healthy Culture

A brand strategy provides a foundation for everything an organization does — a north star that guides decisions, programming, services, products, and marketing. It involves creating a memorable and clear way to communicate who you and and what you’re doing so others know where they fit in and can engage in the cause.

Brand & Culture

Framework

The metaphor of a tree makes a useful framework for understanding the core elements of a brand and culture strategy and how they work together to get results. When all of the elements are healthy and connected to one another, the entire “tree” is healthy and likely to produce fruit.
1 - Roots

Foundational Beliefs – These provide motivation for our mission by answering our big “Why?”

1 of 5 2 - Trunk

Core Identity – The inner heartwood of the trunk is the core of a brand strategy: Mission, Core Values, and Personality. The bark represents the elements that require looking outward: Audience, Uniqueness, and Messaging.

2 of 5 3 - Branches

Key Channels of Your Efforts – each program area, product category, administration, marketing, etc.

3 of 5 4 - Leaves

Touchpoints – the leaves represent all the ways people interact with your organization: each way a person might bump up against your organization. These experiences form your brand — the thoughts and feelings people associate with your organization.

4 of 5 5 - Fruit

Results – Healthy growth is a good indication that the roots, trunk and branches are authentic and aligned: the roots (beliefs) feed the trunk (core identity or guiding principles) which fuel the branches (channels of your efforts) and produce results.

5 of 5

6 Ways You Benefit from an Aligned Brand

1

Clear Direction

A clear brand strategy provides a strong framework for making better decisions

2

Elevated Trust

Consistent experiences breed confidence with your stakeholders

3

Increased Visibility

A clear message and compelling designs cut through the noise with marketing that resonates

4

Strong Relationships

When people catch a vision for how you can help them, you begin a relationship, not a transaction

5

Amplified Message

Equipped with a clear message, your staff, volunteers and donors become an army of promoters

6

More Impact

You’ll have more of what you need to carry out your mission: connections, influence, funding, and volunteers

We align your organization’s DNA with a clear messageand irresistible designs that grab attention and help you grow.

Our Branding Process

Discovery

We help you get a clear picture of your current landscape with a communications audit, stakeholder surveys and interviews, and an audit of peer organizations’ communications.

Planning

We guide your key leaders through a Brand & Culture Workshop to develop or clarify your brand strategy.

Alignment

Get everyone speaking in one voice about who you are and how you help people and nurture consistently positive experiences at each touchpoint.

Identity Development

We create your identity (logo, tagline, brand maxim, color palette, typefaces and imagery) and load your visual and verbal elements with meaning to reflect the core of who you are.

Logo Design

See Case Studies

How Do You Know If It’s Time to Rebrand?

Branding involves an on-going process of evaluating the alignment of your activities, plans and communications with the crux of who you are as an organization, who your audience is, and what their needs are. Because your brand strategy is foundational, it shouldn’t change on a whim. Rebrands should be rare. However, there are some times in the life of an organization when it may be wise to rebrand.

Here are several instances when you might choose to go through the rebranding process.

As organizations grow, sometimes their mission expands as well. Maybe you started as a food bank but grew to respond to needs for transitional care for teens aging out of foster care. Or perhaps you started as a local organization, but are expanding regionally or nationally. Or, maybe, like the March of Dimes which was founded to combat polio, you accomplished your original mission yet have connections, systems and resources that could continue to do good in other areas. If you find yourself serving in areas beyond your original scope, rebranding may be necessary.

As organizations grow, sometimes their mission expands as well. Maybe you started as a food bank but grew to respond to needs for transitional care for teens aging out of foster care. Or perhaps you started as a local organization but are expanding regionally or nationally. Or, maybe, like the March of Dimes which was founded to combat polio, you accomplished your original mission yet have connections, systems and resources that could continue to do good in other areas. If you find yourself serving in areas beyond your original scope, rebranding may be necessary

Perhaps you have a vision to reach a new target audience with your process, product or service. The needs, demographics and psychographics of the new audience may necessitate rebranding in order to appeal to them.

Perhaps you have a healthy brand and culture that has resulted in rapid growth. You need to be able to engage new people and team members in your mission and the core of who are so your culture scales with you and you don’t lose the momentum you currently enjoy.

New leaders often come into an organization with a fresh vision and a change of philosophy. This doesn’t always require a full rebrand, but it can be a good time to adjust your core and realign your identity to reflect the changes.
Perhaps your organization has been rocked by a scandal that has depleted the trust of your audience. You’ve taken the necessary steps to address the problem, but the negative reputation remains. Rebranding may be a necessary to rebuild with a new image.
If you add a disclaimer when handing out a business card or sending someone to your website, it may be time to rebrand. This is why we rebranded ourselves. Perhaps your core strategy is solid but you need to reframe how you talk about it and communicate it visually in your brand identity.

A logo plays a role, but it is not branding or a brand strategy. If you have never clearly defined your mission and core values or identified your target audience and their needs, you need to go back to the beginning and start there. Then you align your visual identity — the part of your branding that people see — with that core.

FAQs about Branding & Culture

Terminology around branding seems confusing because so many people use related but distinct terms interchangeably. To help clarify what branding and its key components are, we’ve compiled the following definitions.

A brand is the sum of the thoughts and emotions a person has when he or she thinks of your organization. It’s how a person distinguishes you from your peer organizations. A brand is formed as people bump up against your connection points: a phone call, social media post, billboard, brochure, your facilities, a donation/receipting process, something a friend mentioned about you, etc. You don’t own your brand because it lives in the minds of other people, yet you can strategically nurture the kind of impressions you want people to have.

Branding is the process of forming your brand in people’s mind.

Brand strategy is a plan to define and align the crux of who you are and your efforts to create consistently positive experiences that resonate with your target audience. A brand strategy provides a foundation for everything an organization does — a north star that guides decisions, programming, services, products, marketing, etc.

Brand identity refers to elements people see — how they recognize your organization. Sometimes it is referred to as your visual identity. It includes your name, logo or symbol, tagline, colors, typefaces.

A logo is a unique visual symbol or design that reflects your brand strategy in some way and identifies your brand.

Terminology around branding seems confusing because so many people use related but distinct terms interchangeably. To help clarify what branding and its key components are, we’ve compiled the following definitions.

A brand is the sum of the thoughts and emotions a person has when he or she thinks of your organization. It’s how a person distinguishes you from your peer organizations. A brand is formed as people bump up against your connection points: a phone call, social media post, billboard, brochure, your facilities, a donation/receipting process, something a friend mentioned about you, etc. You don’t own your brand because it lives in the minds of other people, yet you can strategically nurture the kind of impressions you want people to have.

Branding is the process of forming your brand in people’s mind.

Brand strategy is a plan to define and align the crux of who you are and your efforts to create consistently positive experiences that resonate with your target audience. A brand strategy provides a foundation for everything an organization does — a north star that guides decisions, programming, services, products, marketing, etc.

Brand identity or visual identity refers to elements people see — how they recognize your organization. Sometimes it is referred to as your visual identity. It includes your name, logo or symbol, tagline, colors, typefaces.

A logo is a unique visual symbol or design that reflects your brand strategy in some way and identifies your brand.

Yes, if you already have a core branding strategy with clearly defined foundational beliefs and core identity (mission, core values, personality, uniqueness, audience, and key messaging), you are ready to develop the visual identity of your organization.

Give us a call today and we can discuss your challenges, objectives and needs. We’ll start wherever you are in your branding journey, whether you need to start from scratch, reposition yourself, or simply refresh your visual identity.

We don’t have set prices because every organization is at a different stage of developing their brand strategy and so their needs vary. A full brand strategy with surveys, audits, workshop, key messaging, full visual identity development (with different lock-ups or arrangements of elements for vertical and horizontal usage, color palette, fonts, mock-ups to test it in “real world” scenarios, stationery package, and coordinated graphics), and brand guidelines would cost somewhere in the range of $7900. A logo by itself costs around $1200.

After a free 30-minute strategy call to evaluate your needs and determine if we’re a good fit, we can send you a proposal with details specific to your needs.

Developing a full brand strategy takes at least 4-6 months to do the audits, surveys, analysis, workshop and to wrestle with the words for the key messaging. Then, designing the visual identity is usually a 3-4 week process. 

We explore many options in sketch form in the design process then refine and present to you the 2-3 best concepts that align with your brand strategy. Once we receive your feedback, we will make revisions until you are happy with the results.

We can often find a way to adjust the deliverables to fit smaller budgets. It may require you doing more legwork, analysis and writing on your end, but we’re happy to point you in the right direction, offer advice, and guide you as you work through building a solid foundation for your brand. We’re working on a workbook that may be helpful, so contact us and we’ll let you know when it’s available.

Yes, absolutely! If you don’t already have a core branding strategy that includes your foundational beliefs and core identity (mission, core values, personality, uniqueness, audience, and messaging), you can lead your team through defining these key components of a brand strategy, tackling one component at a time in several 2-hour sprint sessions or a 2-day retreat. Keep in mind, though, that an outside perspective is often helpful: 

  • Sometimes you know so much about your industry that it is difficult to get past the complexities and talk about who you are, what you do, and who you serve in simple terms that your audience can understand. We ask clarifying questions that uncover the essence of who you are and how you talk about it with your audience. 
  • Facilitating a workshop and actively participating in the discussion is difficult to balance. Hiring a facilitator allows you to keep your focus where it is most valuable: listening to other team members’ insights and offering your own.
  • Nobody can spot confusing insider language quite like an outsider. 

Once a logo is completed and approved, we supply you with vector and raster file formats in full color,  spot colors, grayscale, black, and white (for dark backgrounds). If we create icons, patterns, or supplemental graphics as part of your visual identity, we include files for that, too. 

How healthy is your brand and culture?

Download and take a simple quiz to gauge how clearly defined and aligned your brand and culture are in four areas:

  • Strategy
  • Messaging
  • Visuals
  • Experience

We even give you some quick fixes and easy next steps.

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