Customer Reviews

Branding for Nonprofits

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is an awesome book to read as you begin to plan how to communicate the identity of your organization! I like the line on page 2: "Cowboys all know you can't brand nuthin' till you tie three of its legs together, slam it to the ground, and sedate it." (Quote from Bart Crosby, Brand Designer) I agree, you have to master the subject--fully understand it to really brand it.

Holland writes (page 21), "Unfortunately, many nonprofits are too quick to hand the organization's branding over to an outside consultant and assume a reactive rather than proactive approach to the process. Worse than that, many consultants who work with nonprofits skip the design brief altogether. How can consultants possibly tell your story without you? They answer is they can't--and trying to do so often leads to unwelcome consequences, not the least of which is the possibility that your organization will have to live with an ineffective, half-baked brand,"

The book makes the case that we shouldn't design our brands without really understanding the entire organization and her target audiences. I wish more church graphic designers would take this advice and learn about ministry more before they start whipping out the stock images and funky-rock-and-roll designs. The book shows practical examples of branded collateral, etc. You need this book even if you are not a designer or in charge of the brand management of your organization!

What a gem of a book. I just loved it. While it is clearly written for executive directors, development directors, and board members of nonprofits to read to learn about branding their nonprofit organizations, I think the book is just as applicable to small and large for-profits. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has a nonprofit or business and needs to have a brand identity that potential users, members, donors, customers, or clients can embrace. The book has the following 12 chapters:

1. What's that branding buzz I hear?
2. Anatomy of a Design Brief
3. The roles and responsibilities of the branding team
4. Getting the team ready to birth the brand
5. What designers do and how they do it
6. The design process
7. Arriving at a new brand identiy that everyone can embrace
8. From inspiration to implementation
9. Implementing your new brand
10. Storytelling and the brand
11. Management, staff, and branding
12. On the evolution of branding

This book is very well written and so well organized. It was an incredibly easy read and jam-packed with so much wonderful information. In the Appendix there is a sample branding guide, a sample graphic standards guide, and two sample PPT presentations on branding. They significantly add to the value of the book. And there is also a "Brand Glossary" included.

What I got from this book is that you can put together a sound business plan, and you can provide a wonderful service or product, but you also must seriously think about packaging your nonprofit or business so it can be effectively marketed. And if you follow the steps in this book to brand your nonprofit or business and find you can't create a masterpiece of a brand, then you will discover that you probably don't have a sound business plan or that you don't really provide a wonderful service or product. If you understand what I am saying here, then you will understand how simply marvelous this book is and how helpful it can be to tweeking your idea for an enitity or improving upon your existing going concern. 5 stars!

This thin book delivers its clear message about branding that works by providing memorable illustrations of famous and emerging organizations that have broken the code.

With examples surrounded by principles and organized guidelines, the reader will know exactly how to proceed in tackling such an important responsibility.

I purchased copies for eight people on our team assigned to re-brand a 92-year old noble organization. DK Holland's book has illuminated our way to a very successful outcome.

I highly recommend reading this book. It also provides a great lesson for how to organize complex ideas and information.

Sheila King
Sheila King Public Relations in Chicago

This is a great book that sheds a lot of insight on working with nonprofits. The examples that it provides (in the visual appendix of successful nonprofit brands and in the written experiences of the author and different designers) are numerous and helpful. I found it especially useful when the book delved into the processes of one or two brands and how they worked with designers.

That being said, I should note however that this book is catered more toward nonprofits than designers. I am myself a designer, and although I found some parts of the book to be helpful, it did little more to inform on working with nonprofits.

From a design point of view, it seemed a little too optimistic. All examples are success stories, where the nonprofit board and the designer were completely in sync. In reality though, that hardly ever happens. In my experience, there can be a huge communication gap between the designer and the board, and there weren't enough examples of failures or how failure was avoided to address that.

This book doesn't tell me anything more than I already know. This book is more suited to marketers who are just starting out and need the fundamental basics to get them going.

This book is great for boards, Executive Directors, Communications Manager, or even the small one-person dynamo running a nonprofit. It gives you clear steps you can take, considerations, and helps you prioritize.

I found this book disappointing. It is more of a rah rah to hire someone which is not possible for many nonprofits. I would have found it more useful if it were more of a how-to book for nonprofits. Interesting read but I expected more from the cover. I would not recommend it for a first book on branding. there are better.