As a nonprofit, sometimes it may feel like the odds are stacked against you with tight budgets, small teams, and the constant trading of one hat for another. Today you might be head volunteer coordinator, yet tomorrow you’re the special events manager or maybe the social media manager. The most tedious of all roles you might be tasked with is that of designer. You know your organization does good work, and you want to market it, but where do you start?
Creative solutions are by no means one size fits all, but there are common pitfalls, that when addressed, could make tackling your nonprofits creative problems a little less daunting. The tips included below assume that you either have or are building an established brand. This brand could have been designed in-house or perhaps your budget allowed for the assistance of a professional marketing agency, lucky you! Either way, keep reading to find ways you can stretch your brand further and avoid common mistakes that follow the hand off process.
Working With What You Have
With limited resources, nonprofits have to find savvy ways to meet needs while preserving time and materials. All of this needs to be done without sacrificing craftsmanship. We have all heard the phrase “Good, fast, cheap, you can only pick two.”
Oftentimes creative problem solving requires a herculean effort to maximize time, budget and creative output simultaneously. It is important to remember managing budget and scope is not just the responsibility of the project manager or financial team. There are many examples of predicting financial constraints while working on creative solutions. Do you really need that exciting new font or image that requires a paid subscription or fee to use? Collecting a library of free open source fonts and assets that are aligned with your current brand is a great use of time. This ensures that your overall look and feel can remain consistent in other projects, such as advertisements or website development. Another way to maintain budget friendly deliverables might be editing previously designed materials, for whatever project you might need them for. A few tweaks to color and layout can feel like a whole new design, without having to sacrifice time making something new from scratch. Just make sure to double check your brand guide first, more on that later.
Trends Are Not Your Friends
A good designer or marketer must be able to predict and follow design trends. However, when it comes to nonprofits, hyper-trendy designs should not be a cornerstone of your brand. While commercial businesses might have a guaranteed budget for frequent branding refreshes and seasonal social media campaigns, a nonprofit with limited marketing funds might not. The challenge when building your brand is resisting trends, while creating something that feels timeless, without being boring.
Centering the mission of your nonprofit, and its direct impact locally, is a genuine way to make sure the positioning remains relevant. For a nonprofit, the “product” you are “selling” is your impact, it is the central reason for their audience and community to care.
The Brand Guide, Your Guiding Light
In order to maintain your brand's integrity and ability to be recognized within your community, everything must point back to the brand guide. This document is the holy grail of information. Everything from the tiniest patch to the largest scale billboards should reference the brand guide, it is your north star, everything should point back to it. A good brand guide takes a proactive approach, predicting the needs of your team before it is even in your hands. Reference the guide for everything from color options, fonts, photography styles and common sizing mistakes. Resist the temptation to introduce new flashy fonts or colors, without first establishing a consistent look and feel.
This might be useful for a short term campaign, or event, but the core of your brand should always be recognizable. Your role after the handoff process is to learn the brand inside and out. Avoid replicating materials, and instead find new ways to create impactful and strategic designings using the tools provided to you.
By utilizing free resources, resisting trends, and always referencing your brand guide, you are sure to take your brand even further than before. Ultimately, your brand, (no matter how big or small your organization) is just as important as the work that you are doing. Creating and maintaining deliverables you feel good about is great but creating them for an organization you care about is priceless. Following tips will ensure more trust from your community, and in turn more support as well.