What is Brandraising®?
Every nonprofit organization faces the same core challenge: how to demonstrate their value and win support with limited staff, budget, and communications experience. For over fifteen years, Big Duck has helped nonprofits of all sizes navigate these tumultuous waters through our Brandraising work.
Brandraising is a proprietary model developed by Big Duck to help nonprofits communicate more effectively in order to advance fundraising, programs and advocacy goals. It involves a blend of research, consulting, capacity-building, writing and design, coupled with variables that are unique to an organization (such as its culture, budget and staff). By keeping what works and refining what doesn’t, Brandraising enables nonprofits to raise more money, reach a wider program audience, and maintain closer contact with donors, legislators, the media, and their communities using limited resources.
To help organizations that may not be able to work with Big Duck, Sarah Durham wrote “Brandraising: How nonprofits raise visibility and money through smart communications” (Jossey-Bass, 2009). To order a copy via amazon.com, click here.
Does my organization need Brandraising?
The organizations that typically benefit the most from Brandraising:
- Are interested in expanding their donor base and need to communicate more effectively with individuals and corporations to do so
- Are clear about their vision, mission and organizational strategy- but need help getting everyone on the same page so messages are consistent
- See the value of having materials look, feel and sound cohesive, and aim to get the most out of existing communications budgets without reinventing the wheel
- Tend to communicate reactively but would rather control their communications more proactively
Because Brandraising is a process where creative work is driven by research and strategy, it is not useful for organizations that are clear what they need to do and simply need a writer or designer to execute it.
What is involved in a Brandraising process?
Brandraising is a process that involves:
- Identifying the aspects of a nonprofit’s communications and/or brand that are effective so they can be maintained
- Identifying those aspects that are unresolved, unfinished or unsuccessful and charting a path to complete or improve them
- Assessing communications-related resources (staff, volunteers, budget) to ensure that communications objectives are scaled appropriately to capacity
- Plotting and implementing a course for change that includes developing a strategic communications platform, building buy-in, refining visuals and messaging, training and institutionalizing the organization’s brand, applying new visuals and messaging to core materials, and linking all day-to-day communications back to this work deliberately.
The process generally takes 6 to 12 months to complete, and is often adapted to the unique variables of an organization. If you feel your organization might be a fit, email Sarah Durham at sarah@bigducknyc.com or call 718-237-9551 x12 for more information.
Examples of Big Duck’s Brandraising work for the following organizations are viewable on this site:
Please if you’d like to see additional examples.