Using Design to Differentiate Your Non-Profit - Part I

(Click here for the original presentation this post is adapted from, a round-table discussion David facilitated for a non-profit federation marketing seminar in November '08)

Have you heard this before?

> Marketing = "I'm great in bed."
> Advertising = "I'm great in bed. I'm great in bed. I'm great in bed."
> Public relations = "Trust me: He's great in bed."
> Design = "Let me show you how great I am in bed."

All of these approaches (I mean marketing, advertising, etc.; not so much love-making) have their place in outreach and communication to members, donors, constituents. Non-profit organizations struggle with all of them, but design, with an emphasis on pictures instead of words, tends to give them the most trouble.

Pictures vs. words

Universally, non-profits are content experts. They have unique academic knowledge, research expertise, unique understanding of a particular constituency, or skillful approaches to delivering services. This makes it pretty easy for them, as organizations, to write about or say what they do. (Although there are plenty of challenges there). But to show it?

How the brain works - noticing what's different

Many for-profit companies have learned this. They know that our brains' primary role is to protect us from too much information. Because it is hardwired to notice what's different, they've learned to use brand images that catch us unaware in the continual stream of as many as 4,000 marketing messages we witness daily as Americans. You've heard this before -- be different. But what does that mean?

Avoid the mistakes most non-profits make in their marketing

We've had the good fortune to work with many, wonderful non-profit organizations. Here are some of their pitfalls when it comes to launching design projects.

NO CULTURE OF DESIGN.
Study the administration of our outgoing President and you'll learn that leadership doesn't require knowledge of all the ins and outs of your particular discipline. Likewise, you don't have to staff your leadership team with graphic designers to create a base-level belief in the importance of marketing and design. This makes your organization more likely to budget and commit resources to a strong marketing focus that will support design efforts.

FEAR.
Many organizations would sincerely like to be more creative in the way they communicate their brands, but talk themselves out of it. There will be resistance to something new. If the approach you're conceiving is well though out, it's worth challenging that resistance.

TMI (TOO MUCH INFORMATION).
I was recently working on a a web project for a large, non-profit professional association. I asked them to prioritize which of the content "buckets" they wanted on their web site were most important. Someone said, "Well, the events committee will tell you events are most important." Weed through these multiple agendas by asking yourself what your audience needs to hear, not what you want to say, to avoid visual or verbal clutter.

CLICHES.
There's a stockpile of images we instantly reach into when we need to represent something visually. Stay away from there. Everyone else is dipping into that stockpile of hearts, globes, little dancing people and religious icons. You won't stand out.

THE SWOOPER.
When organizations haven't fostered a creative culture, leadership is not involved upstream in marketing and design decisions. The "swooper" is the individual with veto power who swoops in at the last second, when the rest of the team has signed off on a design project, to say, "but I hate red," for example.

ALL THINGS TO ALL PEOPLE = NOTHING TO NOBODY.
Focus on the audiences that really count rather than trying to make your message suit every possible audience. You risk twin extremes of either too much information or generic appeals. One-off audiences don't need a home on your organization web site; they need a one-pager.

DON'T DESIGN BY COMMITTEE.
Identify a select group to steer your design project. Then survey the general organization for feedback, so they can feel they participated, but let the small group winnow down and prioritize the responses and work with your designer. Ask people for feedback on general approaches rather than minute details. Judy in the mailroom has crashed many would-be successful design projects by bogging down the process with endless edits that eat up the budget and leach energy from the process.

"BUT MY WIFE DOESN'T LIKE IT."
It's good to solicit outside opinions, but remember they come from outside. More than once we've gone through a well-thought-out, consensus-driven design process only to have an executive director tell us he's having second thoughts because his wife didn't like the typeface. If his wife was part of the target audience, that's important feedback. If not, take it with a grain of salt -- or at least ask for opinions like these earlier in the process.

AVOID BORING.
If you work for a non-profit organization, you're on a mission. Don't settle for a design approach that doesn't excite and inspire.

The end result of all these pitfalls is a message that doesn't get through, or doesn't land, sometimes because the project never even gets completed.