With your budget slashed yet again and your fundraising goal raised, you’re probably looking for ways to raise more money with less expenditure.  What nonprofit pro isn’t?

It’s natural to think about cutting out your annual report.  It takes a lot of time to create a good one, even if you hire a good writing and design team.  It costs a lot to print and mail it. The few donors who use the envelope in the annual report to mail in a donation don’t send in enough to cover the costs. And donors don’t really care about all the financial details anyway.

So isn’t cutting out this printed publication in a digital age the responsible thing to do?

We say no.  Here are four reasons to publish an annual report this year despite the cash crunch:

1. Your annual report is your best fundraising tool. Make no mistake, the purpose of your annual report should be to get donors who have given in the past to give again.  The purpose is NOT to publish your financials, but to re-engage donors emotionally. Remind them why your work is critical. Remind them why they care. Remind them how their dollars help solve a problem in the world that they care about.

2. A well-written and well-designed annual report helps your organization stand out. So many nonprofits have decided not to publish annual reports, or to publish boring ones, that yours — if done well — will really attract the attention of your donors.

3. A good annual report reminds donors that you need their dollars to solve an issue important to them. See point number 1. Your annual report is a fundraising tool and nothing else.  Getting your donors hooked (again) on your mission, and setting your organization up as the answer to solving a challenge in the world that they want solved is your goal. And your audited financial statmement isn’t what is going to hook them.

4. Your donors don’t think about you nearly as much as you think they do. You think about them every day.  They think about you a few times a year: when you reach out via direct mail appeal; with a newsletter or via social media if you’re lucky enough to have donors following you on Facebook and Twitter.

Your annual report is one more opportunity to pack a punch about the importance of your work and the fact that you can’t make progress without them.  They aren’t tired of you.  They can barely remember your name.  If they do remember your name they may have become fuzzy on your mission and why it matters.  Use your annual report to make an emotional appeal about the work you do and it becomes an elegant addition to your annual suite of donor communications.

For more information on how to create an annual report with appeal visit http://mission-minded.com and download the free guide: Is your Annual Report George Clooney or George Kostanza? How to Create an Annual Report with Appeal. http://tinyurl.com/2dr444x

Mission Minded recently created a video for San Francisco AIDS Foundation that highlights the organization’s bold new goals.

Watch it and see how San Francisco AIDS Foundation is working to make San Francisco the place where AIDS ends first.

Many nonprofit organizations have a tough time explaining the vital work they do in a way that really gets to the heart of why it’s important. They’re more familiar with how to launch into program details and statistics than with really connecting with their audience by conveying the impact their work has on the lives of real people.

Using our Minute Message Model™ will change all that.

Developing effective messaging isn’t rocket science, and we’ve been helping good causes get better at it for over a decade. Whether you’ve got one minute to get your message across during a shared elevator ride, five minutes at a reception, or ten minutes while your audience reads your newsletter, our Minute Message Model will give you confidence that you’re using that time well.

The Minute Message Model starts with the One-Minute Message. If you’ve only got a minute to share information about your organization, you need to make sure you’re only covering the most important things about your work. The simplest message, often referred to as an “elevator pitch,” conveys simple, high-level information about your organization, builds comprehension about the nature of your organization, and suggests the problem you’re trying to solve.

A compelling one-minute message provides an introduction to your organization, its brand, and the work that you do. This simple exercise allows you to create a Mad Libs–style one-minute message that will leave your audience asking for more. How do you use it? Just replace the underlined words with your own.

If this sounds like the kind of help your organization could use, why not register today http://tinyurl.com/MMM-Register for the full Minute Message Model training, taking place in San Francisco on September 14, 2010?

When clients ask us if they should change their name, our answer is usually a reluctant, “No.”

Although we love working on naming projects, the reality is that even “bad” names usually have a degree of equity, or value, that outweighs the benefits of a name change for our nonprofit sector clients.

If people know you by your bad name, at least they know you.  And a new name could put you at risk of confusing or losing those people who already have an affinity for your organization and its work.

Changing an organization’s name takes a huge toll on resources and calls for nerves of steel. If you have those things, and many nonprofits don’t, then you’ll need them just for the act of changing the name.  Creating value from the name change is another level of time, money, and effort that most nonprofits of any size simply don’t have.

If the answer to most of the questions below is, “Yes” then you might be ready to re-name your organization for greater appeal:

1. Have we changed our mission or focus such that our name no longer reflects what we really do?
2. Is our name so similar to that of another organization that we are being confused with them (and losing support) as a result?
3. Is everyone (or almost everyone) in our leadership in agreement that we need a better name?
4. Do we have the staff time to devote to creating and introducing a new name?
5. Can we afford an experienced consultant to advise us on changing our name?
6. Can we afford to re-design our logo and create a new tagline to add power to the new name?
7. Can we afford to implement the new name and logo on all printed materials, website, and other communications?
8. Are we reasonably sure that investing in a new name will actually help us attract more supporters?

If you have any other criteria you think should be added to this list, let us know.  And we’d love to hear your successful re-naming stories as well!

Around the world, organizations like CHPL, MRCD, and PoRUG are rejoicing. NPR and the Y have officially adopted shortened versions of their old names (National Public Radio and YMCA). Does that signal to the rest of the nonprofit world that they should follow suit?

It shouldn’t.

Most nonprofit organizations face an uphill battle to be known and understood by their most important audiences. Using initials or an acronym presents a barrier to understanding who you are and what you do.

Take BayCES, for example, an organization that believes every child has a right to a quality education. The name was understood only by insiders and ardent supporters. Every introduction required an explanation, which hampered the organization’s ability to achieve its mission.

With Mission Minded’s help BayCES has renamed itself National Equity Project. The full name explains who they are and what they do — they are an organization dedicated to ensuring an equitable education for every student in the country. And, they have resisted the urge to shorten the name to NEP. Doing so would only serve to obfuscate their important work.

Even major national nonprofit brands face this challenge. Ask yourself this: Which organization would I rather support, the SPCA or the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals? Which name paints a picture and has punch?

So Why Can They Do It?

NPR and the Y are special cases. For NPR, the three letter abbreviation is a standard practice in the world broadcast journalism. NPR isn’t competing with other nonprofits for attention; it’s competing with CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC and FOX for market share.

More importantly, NPR owns the airwaves. Most nonprofits have only a few opportunities to get people to know and understand their name. NPR can remind its listeners many times a day what the NPR brand stands for.

For the Y, the organization has had more than a century to build brand awareness for its shortened name. It is one of the best-known nonprofit brands in the world, and as such can marshal the resources needed to make such a move. Additionally, the original name is now so irrelevant that it’s comical. If being a young male Christian were still a litmus test for membership, the organization would lose most of its clientele.

So What to Do?

Choose a name with meaning and stick with it. If you need to shorten it, let the shortened name have meaning too. This means that an organization like American Heart Association should use its full name whenever possible and shorten it to “Heart” in casual conversation, rather than as “AHA.” The result will be greater understanding and support for the organization’s mission.

Nonprofits typically don’t have as much money to spend on marketing as for-profit companies do. But what you lack in funds you can make up for in disciplined use of consistent messages and media over a long period of time.

Nonprofits tend to up and change their messages and design far too frequently. This results in a lack of any clear message being received by the people they need to reach.

You’re not in business to entertain yourself; you’re in business to change the world. To change the world, your message has to stick. For your message to stick, it must remain consistent.

Think of how many times a year you get a chance to really connect with your target audience. Not many, compared to a high-profit marketer like McDonald’s. When the chain launched its national marketing campaign, everyone in America had probably heard the slogan “I’m loving it” inside of two days. McDonald’s can afford to plaster the campaign all over your town along with everything you listen to and watch. But equally important—and the nonprofit’s take-away lesson—is that McDonald’s knows about consistency.

What if, instead of sticking with “I’m loving it” in every aspect of the campaign, they had put “I really, really like it” on some of their posters, and “You will love it” on others, and then used the line “McDonald’s equals love” in their TV ads?

It might have been cute, but the message would have been diluted and far less likely to be remembered. McDonald’s resisted the temptation to “go wide” and chose instead to make something memorable.

Yet, nonprofits make the “variety” mistake every day. They worry that their target audience might be bored with their message. They worry that they could find a better way to say the same thing. They change their focus and so assume they need to change their message.

That’s a big mistake.

Consistent use of message over time is the way nonprofits can successfully capture attention and stand for something.

Think of some of the organizations we know that do this well: “A mind is a terrible thing to waste” has been the tagline of the United Negro College Fund for decades. “Only you can prevent forest fires” has been Smokey the Bear’s motto since most of us were kids.

Pick your messages and stick to them through thick and thin: it’s the way to make your marketing efforts stick.

“A brand is a result, not a tactic” – Lucas Conley

While the process of “brand building“ can be complex, in its simplest form brand is just another word for “reputation.”

In discovering a brand’s essence, determining what factors make up a compelling brand, and working to turn your organization into a great brand, you are articulating how your organization wishes to be perceived—what reputation you wish to have—and then doing everything possible to establish and reinforce that reputation.

Your brand is not your name, logo, or graphic identity.  These are signifiers about what your organization stands for, but your brand is the combination of facts and emotions about your organization and its work that comes to the minds of your audiences when they hear or read about you and your activities.

In his book, A New Brand World, Scott Bedbury, the marketing guru behind Nike and Starbucks, defines branding in expansive terms:

A brand is the sum of the good, the bad, the ugly, and the off-strategy.  It is defined by the award-winning [work] and the god-awful [work] that somehow slipped through the cracks….  It is defined by the accomplishments of your best employee—the shining star in the [organization] who can do no wrong—as well as by the mishaps of the worst hire you ever made.  It is also defined by your receptionist and the music your [constituents] are subjected to when placed on hold.  For every grand and finely worded public statement by the [executive director], the brand is also defined by derisory comments overheard in the hallway or in a chat room on the Internet.  Brands are sponges for content, for images, for fleeting feelings.  They become physiological concepts held in the mind of the public, where they may stay forever.  As such, you can’t entirely control a brand.  At best you can only guide and influence it.

In short, your brand is all that you are.  It’s the sum total of your organization’s services, behaviors, and signals.

It is far more than just a logo or tagline; it’s how your organization lives its mission and practices its values.  A brand is an organization’s core promise, its identity, and its reputation.  The best brands live in an organization’s DNA.

The best brands are defined by clarity of purpose, rather than a description of an organization’s strategies or programs.

Think of the best-known nonprofit brands—SPCA or Amnesty International, for example.  You may not quite know what these organizations do every day, but you know why they exist.  And that’s the idea: the goal of branding is not to describe comprehensively what your organization does, but to explain compellingly why it matters that you do it.

It’s about articulating your organization’s unique niche in making the world a better place, and claiming the distinctive role that will attract the public support you need to accomplish your goals.  Nonprofit branding persuasively answers the busy public’s inevitable question, “Why should I care?”