Brand Matters: The small task of changing the world.

BORIS POMROY

Head of Major Partnerships and Brand

SKIP TO CONTENT

HOME

ABOUT

Brand Matters: The small task of changing the world.

APRIL 17, 2015 / LEAVE A COMMENT

At Hope and Homes for Children we are about to try something a bit different.

We have spent the last 20 years working alongside a host of public, private and not-for-profit organisations to develop our expertise in child protection reform, closing down orphanages and replacing them with family and community based care. And we are incredibly proud to be recognised by the likes of UNICEF and the World Health Organisation as global leaders in this area.

There are an estimated 8million children confined to orphanages and other similar forms of institutions across the world. We are going to end this injustice and ensure every child has the love and protection of a family. And we are determined to succeed within our lifetime.

It is a tall order but one we are confident that our programmes team, working in collaboration with dozens of other like-minded organisations, governments and inter-governmental bodies, will be able to deliver.

As long as we as fundraisers, communicators and marketers deliver too.

Our organisational strategy lays out the challenge ahead in simple terms.

On average it costs £1200 to free a child from an orphanage and reintegrate them into a family-based setting. If you multiply this by 8million you get a total cost for the global eradication of orphanages of £9.6billion.

For a medium-sized charity, that is quite a lot of money. But here is where it gets exciting. For every pound our supporters donate we leverage another £12 in investment from statutory bodies such as the EU. That means we reduce a £9.6billion problem to just under £740million. By dividing this over a ‘lifetime’ (30 years for the benefit of our calculations) you get to about £25million.

£25 million a year for 30 years and we have the chance to end institutional care for good.

Our challenge therefore is to rapidly increase the organisation’s income – from £7million today to around £30million per year by 2022. We have to double and double again. It is a big ask, but not impossible, providing we as fundraisers focus on our target audience and consistently deliver for them.

Therefore we are going to start by revamping how we are seen and heard by the world.

Our audience focus (or spiritual bullseye as a wise agency friend of mine once called it) will be those of affluence and influence, those that aspire to be, plus the business, political and cultural leaders of tomorrow. They are an audience who we define as being internationally-focused, educated, cultured, connected and family-orientated.

And why do we believe this group of individuals will be attracted to our cause and us?

First, our research has shown (perhaps unsurprisingly) that our world-class programmes and ability to demonstrate the impact our donors can have is one of the key drivers for them investing, and continuing to invest in our cause.

We have heritage. The story of our founders Mark and Caroline and their dedication, passion and gratitude are still at the heart of who we are – right down to the hand-written thank yous that are frequently delivered to our supporters. It is also Mark and Caroline’s influence that has led to another important attribute – personal and high quality service.

We are also a bit of a secret – the most effective charity you’ve never heard of! For those that do find us, they feel a special sense of discovery. This, combined with the above, can give people that warm and welcoming feeling of being part of a family or club.

Those of you who are brand-savvy may already have noticed some familiar characteristics here – they are the characteristics of what some might call a lifestyle brand.

We want to build a brand based on our great craftsmanship and quality. It will be a brand with provenance and a story, timeless, rising above changing fashions. A brand with service at its heart – not of the deferential kind, but a contemporary version that is focused on engaging and looking after people as individuals. A brand that allows itself to be discovered by its audience. It will be a club, one that is simultaneously exclusive and inclusive – that gives a sense of belonging. A brand that is aspirational.

We are making the first steps on what we know will be a long journey – and it’s a journey we want you to join us on. Brands are no longer owned by a couple of marketing experts in the corner of an office, they are owned by the people that use them – supporters, beneficiaries, child-protection specialists and, of course, our own staff.

Re-positioning a brand is about more than a new website or a set of brand guidelines – it is about us working together to analyse everything we do, keeping what is great and changing the things that are not.

But we know, when we succeed, it has the power to transform our fundraising. And that matters, because transforming our fundraising means transforming children’s lives.

I want to start by proposing some guiding principles. A set of guidelines to refer back to as we go through the process of redeveloping and repositioning the brand, something to keep us focused and on the straight and narrow. After reading a lot, talking to colleagues and friends and digging into some of the brands I most admire, this is what I’ve come up with.

Simplicity – Like a chef with great ingredients, our job as fundraisers is to show off our world-class programmes with simplicity and excellence. For me this is about bringing our supporters and potential supporters as close as we can to our beneficiaries by peeling away all the layers that get in the way. It is about simple, engaging design; honest and straightforward storytelling, using digital media to allow beneficiaries, social workers, directors of institutions etc to speak directly to our audiences, rather than through intermediaries. It is about less words, more focus and making information and stories easy to discover.

Doing fewer things better – Like most charities we are not awash with spare cash. Rather than trying to do lots and lots of things, we will focus on doing fewer things exceptionally well. Investing more in less and ensuring everything we produce, from imagery to events, are delivered to a world-class standard and their exposure maximised across a range of a channels and opportunities.

Being human – Like any sector, us charity people are full of jargon and it often creeps into our communications, risking us becoming impenetrable and off-putting. Being human isn’t dumbing down, but it is talking about the issues in a way that is engaging, understandable and brings people with us on both an intellectual and emotional level.

Talking about the big and the small –While our ambition is global in scale, the way we talk about, promote and indeed deliver our work must always be about the individual child. This will again ensure we engage our supporters on both an emotional and intellectual level; it will also be the thing that stops us becoming too technocratic in our presentation style.

Collaboration – We are under no illusions that we will be able to deliver deinstitutionalisation on a global scale by ourselves, and nor do we want to. Our expertise today has been built upon working alongside and learning from others and our future success will be built upon these foundations. Our future organisation should be a magnet for those who demand change – from policy-makers and politicians to child-protection professionals and donors. We should listen to all and be willing to learn and adapt from those around us.

So there it is, the beginnings of a new way of communicating and engaging with the world around us and some guiding principles to help get us there.

Now it is over to you. What do you think of what we are trying to achieve? Would you change the guiding principles? What would you add or take-away? Please do get in touch, either by adding comments below or emailing me.

I can’t wait to hear from you.

.