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Why can't charity be a bit more rock 'n' roll? 3

Fundraising | Garreth Spillane | 3 Mar 2010

At the outset I should make a confession: there is nothing particularly rockstar about me, in fact a great deal of my time is spend at home, drinking red wine with Maria Callas blaring out of the CD player. So, all in all, I am an unlikely suitor to promote rock ‘n’ roll thinking for civil society brands.

My first job in the charity sector was running the events and fundraising programme at a health promotion charity. I actually loved it, though I was big on ideas and not entirely efficient. I then moved into the arts and worked for a festival that had an amazing drive to inspire and excite in all its communications, and then an opera company that bored me to death.  

Nowadays I find myself at the Foundation for Social Improvement, a charity that is at the heart of a vibrant small-charity sector, that does what it does well and that is always on the lookout for ways to better deliver support to small charities. I figure, though for modesty’s sake it hasn’t been explicitly stated, that my job is to turn up the FSI’s mojo; but maybe the wider sector needs a dose of brand Viagra?

We’ve all got passion and zeal, but so many charities aren’t harnessing this to maximum benefit: we’re simply not in touch with our inner brand rockstar.  

Why don’t we talk brand more?

Branding on a budget

Mad Men is the hottest thing on television, so why aren’t we embracing our inner ad man (or rockstar) more?  It is a particular concern to smaller charities who want to get noticed.

Without huge budgets I recommend trying ideas out: storyboard what you stand for, what makes you stand apart, how you’d would sell your charity if it were a product, what a campaign may look like if you had an unlimited budget and the best creative minds in the business.

Do it over morning tea or Friday drinks with the whole team; collectively discussing your brand informs all manner of work from the obvious applications in marketing, through to ways that it can support fundraising, staff development and your whole public-engagement programme. Your language is your emotional toolkit – use it or lose it!  

Brand isn’t just visual identity- you don’t need to roll out a new logo or letterhead or website to affect a brand shift. Start at the beginning and get your team thinking about the values that define your brand and apply it. It may manifest in the way you speak to a donor, the image you pick for your Christmas card, or perhaps create a word that enters your organisational vernacular, the opportunities are there - you just need to get a bit rock ‘n’ roll about finding them.

Make it fun: If our brand was a drink what would it be? Hot chai (authentic, international, easily-adapted), water (essential, the essence of life, clear), coffee (a driver, addictive, adult), Dom Perignon (a classic, sophisticated, unobtainable), or Wicked (cheap, cheerful, regretted the next morning)? 

When you are writing that all-important first paragraph of your annual report try thinking about that drink and how it would introduce itself - you’ll be amazed where inspiration comes from!

Personally, I like to think that I’m a champagne cocktail: bubbly, fun, yet well-crafted with a bit of prestige (maybe I’m dreaming!).  Every day I try to apply a bit of this to what I do.  I want the charities I work with to have fun with their brands and embrace their inner rockstar too.

So, what would your personal storyboard look like?

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Directory: Foundation for Social Improvement
Who's Who: Garreth Spillane