How much confidence does your team have in your brand?
Deroy Peraza, partner and creative director at Hyperakt, discusses the importance of rebranding to nonprofits, and explains how his agency’s Nonprofit Brand Score can help.
Nonprofits and foundations have faced a reckoning over the last few years. Once accepted methods of change are being questioned, values are shifting and new ways of working are emerging. For many of these organisations, it's harder than ever to know who they are and how to tell their story with confidence.
The tectonic shifts of politics and culture over the last few years have been big, but beyond this particular moment in history, change is a constant. Every five to seven years, organisations undergo the natural evolution caused by staff turnover, new leaders and new strategies that meet the moment.
This cycle of change means that it's important for organisations to regularly reflect on how they present themselves and how they use their brand voice to make sure it authentically conveys who they are and where they're headed.
Hyperakt is a branding studio that helps nonprofits and foundations build courageous brands from the inside out so they can unlock their fullest potential.
Setting the stage for a rebrand
For organisations, it's important to know when and why a rebrand is in order. The process must first be embraced by the people closest to the organisation—those who represent the brand to the world every day. Bringing them into the process early will make them feel more invested in the brand in the long run. That means starting with shared language around what "branding" means and assessing the organisation's current brand so there is a basis for agreeing on the goals of a rebrand.
Built from decades of experience working with social impact organisations, Hyperakt's Nonprofit Brand Score benchmarks confidence in a brand's effectiveness and offers insights for maximising its potential. The free tool consists of just 16 questions that help teams take quick stock of the different dimensions of their brand. In just five minutes, the assessment will generate a report for each person who completes it with scores on a 1-100 scale across four measures:
Clarity: Is your brand clearly and consistently expressed?
Resonance: Do you understand and believe in your brand?
Distinctiveness: Does your brand stand apart from competitors?
Influence: Do your peers and partners look up to your brand?
Having a quick, concrete visualisation of your people's scores across these measures, and an overall score for your brand, makes it much easier to have informed conversations around your brand's strengths and weaknesses. The average nonprofit scores 65 on the test, so immediately, your overall score will give you a sense of how your brand compares to the field. Digging into the individual metrics and seeing which ones generate the greatest variance among your team members, you’ll be able to identify where you have the most misalignment on your brand.
Brands are hard to measure. The Nonprofit Brand Score removes that barrier and helps teams build the alignment they need to get to the heart of their brand challenges. An organisation's brand is one of its most valuable assets in creating meaningful impact. Do you have a sense of how much confidence your people have in your brand?
