Your brand is not a fundraising function.
Brand doesn’t belong to your comms team.
(And brand isn’t the same thing as branding.)
Yes — brand, marketing communications, and fundraising are interconnected.
But here’s the difference:
🧬 BRAND
Identifying your distinctive DNA in a crowded world. Brand crafts your unique organizational fingerprint.
(Branding just creatively expresses your DNA through design to make your fingerprint visually distinct.)
📣 COMMUNICATIONS
Broadcasting this DNA to your audiences. Communications makes your fingerprint memorable — and it fits within brand.
💰 FUNDRAISING
Ensuring the resources to carry out your DNA. Fundraising generates the relationships to leave your fingerprint mark — and it makes a great team with brand.
In other words:
Brand lights the match.
Comms fans the flames.
Fundraising fuels the fire.
To be clear, all three are vital.
So it’s not a competition about the order of importance. It’s all about the order of operations.
And brand — the starting point — requires precise, ongoing management. From the top leadership down. That’s why every nonprofit leader is (by default) a brand builder.
Don’t just take my word for it. ⤵
“Instead of having responsibility for the brand reside within the marketing, communications, or development department, responsibility for the brand as a key strategic asset resides with the entire executive team,” says The Brand IDEA: Managing Nonprofit Brands with Integrity, Democracy, and Affinity.
(A book written by a nonprofit CEO and former funder.)
“Rather than focusing on fundraising as the objective of the brand, the new paradigm places brand in service of the mission and social impact.”
So embrace this fact:
“You have a brand whether you like it or not,” says Ingrid Srinath. “Really the only choice you have is how actively you want to shape and manage that brand.”
Brand first, fundraising second.
↳ A powerful one-two punch.
Join the new paradigm.
💪🏽💛
The daily bonus
From Shlomo Genchin, here are 10 types of question headlines:
(Great for landing pages, ads, and email subject lines.)
1. Challenge Questions
Your customers are part of an exclusive club. Ask readers if they have what it takes to join.
2. Hypotheticals
Invite readers to imagine themselves in someone else’s shoes to explain the problem you’re solving.
3. Objections
What stops them from buying? Turn it into a headline, and then handle the objection in the copy.
4. The Concierge
Inspire and encourage the customer to explore your product.
5. If X, Then Why Y?
Point out the things in your industry that just don’t make sense.
6. Shower Thoughts
Look for insights: interesting observations hidden in plain sight.
7. Warnings
Your reader is on the wrong path. Ask if they know, and then offer your product as the solution.
8. Promises
Want to brag but not too much? Disguise your promise as a question.
9. Pain Points
Ask if they’re dealing with the problem you’re solving. Works best with an interesting visual. Otherwise, it can be boring.
10. FAQs
Not all questions have to be witty. Sometimes, people just want to learn about your product/industry.
Sneak peek
Coming up in tomorrow’s newsletter:
Five steps to get donor attention — fundraising tips from best-selling books. 📚
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Love reading your package. Its explains alot as far as non_profit is concern.