If we think about some of the most cherished friendships in our lives, we discover that much of their resiliency emanates from their consistent ability to embrace change. They provide us with growth because of their openness to change, and comfort from their consistency to do so.

As marketers, communicators, or fundraisers in the nonprofit sector, what is it that we can emulate from these friendships? In general, we can learn about ourselves, our organizations, and the people we serve and wish to engage in our work. Specifically, we can explore how our organizations can embrace change, remain relevant, and ultimately become social innovators. Since much of our work is about engaging various constituencies in working for change, and broadly in moving social justice issues forward, organizations themselves must create and foster organizational cultures that not only adapt to change but can lead it as well.

The emotional and spiritual dimensions

Branding for change takes into account your organization’s internal culture and capacities, as well as your external mandate. Branding for change rests heavily on the emotional dimension and spiritual dimension of your story. The emotional dimension of your brand is the ability to support personal transformation through new insights into yourself. The spiritual dimension encompasses how your brand makes a difference in the world.

Brands with staying power centre around engagement, dialogue and active listening. Like any friendship, sometimes your story will be well received, sometimes not, and sometimes people will ask you to rewrite a few lines. The rewriting is the place where the emotional and social dimensions of your brand can flourish and thrive. A responsive brand that resonates with its audience is an emotional and spiritual reflection of an organization whose brand can attract and sustain many in the delivering of its mandate. Organizations that are branding for change attract social innovators.

Remaining open to new possibilities

But let’s get back to thinking about our most important relationships. Chances are, the change that they represent for us has been challenging at times, has pushed us to places we thought we could never go, and has opened our hearts and our minds up to new possibilities. These new possibilities sometimes affect how we see ourselves and the impact we feel we can have on our own lives, our community, and our world. Organizations that are branding for change thrive in this evolving space.

Branding for change is an extension of expressing our core values and purpose. It doesn’t mean change takes an organization away from its core values, but rather into new directions, new perspectives, and new possibilities that always remain authentic to those values. Organizations that are branding for change have a clear sense of themselves.

Nonprofit organizations are under tremendous pressure from funders, from limited resources, and from increasing demands for their services. Branding for change may seem like an uphill battle; it may seem like a course filled with unnecessary risk, and it may appear as if it requires more resources than we have. Quite the contrary.

Finding ways to be consistently relevant

If we define ourselves by our limitations we will never be free from our limits. Branding for change is about all of us in the nonprofit sector working for positive social change to authentically seek to be consistently relevant in the lives of our constituencies. How can we invite people to donate, volunteer, become a sponsor, or participate in an event if we do not extend ourselves to be open and to be invigorated by change.

Branding for change is about creating and nurturing relationships that are consistent and comforting because they remain relevant and meaningful. If you are not branding for change, then what are you branding for?

Pattie LaCroix has directed marketing and communications programs for nonprofits for over ten years. As vice president of Communicopia, she is passionate about creating online communications strategies for nonprofits that engage their audience and build support for their work. You can contact Pattie through www.communicopia.net.