If your not-for-profit organization is thinking about or preparing to embark on a brand refresh or rebranding project, consider a branding workshop before moving forward.
A branding workshop provides a way to bring together leadership, senior staff and team members for constructive and collaborative discussions centered around branding. The moderated workshops, which typically span several sessions over several days, can identify challenges and opportunities, and begin to create the foundation of your updated brand.
Below, I touch upon several reasons why it’s a good idea to conduct a branding workshop for your not-for-profit and how it can help your organization. There is an investment of time required for your organization’s participants but the end result is a better outcome of the branding efforts. At Trillion, our moderated branding workshop exercises serve several key factors:
Group Consensus and Understandings
Let’s face it, sometimes a leadership team does not have the same perspective or knowledge about branding. When embarking upon a high-profile project such as a brand refresh or rebranding, it is critical to focus on a direction. A branding workshop brings management and all of the key stakeholders into the same room to participate and reach a collaborative conclusion. This helps provide the company responsible for the new or revised brand with a clear direction to work toward.
Who should attend a branding workshop?
- CEO
- Senior fundraising staff members
- Department or program leaders
- Marketing and communications leadership
- At least one long-time employee
- At least one new hire
All Voices Heard, Which Leads to Better Acceptance of Change
Organizations with many departments and team leaders may all have ideas that need to be heard. It’s important for everyone to voice their opinions and also listen to the ideas of others.
The branding workshop is a great opportunity for everyone to share their ideas while everyone is together, so everyone has a thorough understanding of the rationale behind specific decisions. All of this leads to a sense of ownership of the brand and encourages brand advocacy.
Building a Foundation for the Brand
Most importantly, the branding workshop helps lay the groundwork and tools for the branding process. The exercises and team-building sessions help extract vocabulary that should or should not be used in communications. It also helps the drafting of positioning statements and core messages. These proclamations help define key information about competitors, and also help state what the team thinks it does best. This exercise will inform branding decisions deep into the process.
Increases Excitement for Something New/Better
It’s likely that few in your organization have gone through a branding project before. While all of this might be new to them, a branding workshop can help build excitement toward what’s to come in the refreshed brand. Being involved in the branding workshop will allow them to talk about the process and understand why certain decisions are being made. The branding workshop helps team members see how a brand refresh can lead to something greater for the organization and for them as individual team members.
Do you have questions about conducting a branding workshop with your not-for-profit?
Trillion can help facilitate your branding workshop and bring the wind to your sails. We bring visuals and tools to keep participants engaged and to bring out value for the organization. Our branding workshops can be held at your offices or any offsite meeting space. If you would like to discuss the benefits of a branding workshop, give us a call at 908.219.4703 or complete our simple contact form to schedule a time to discuss your challenges.
