How Rebranding Led to a Nike Grant with Lauren Atherton

Reading Time: 3 minutes

LISTEN ON APPLE | LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

Your branding is living and breathing ALL the time. No matter the stage you’re in, there’s always something you can be massaging.

Today’s episode features one of my favorite humans – Lauren Atherton, founder and creative director of HeartSpark Design. She’s also the website designer for my monthly giving mastermind program and is a whiz at all things design and branding.

According to Lauren, the magic of going through a rebranding process is that it helps nonprofits better understand themselves, who they are, what they do, and how to communicate with confidence.

Has your organization changed since your last rebrand? Have new donors plateaued? Are you feeling embarrassed about your website design or your copy? It’s time to bring it all back into alignment, and this value-packed conversation will inspire you to do just that!

Sneak Peek:

In This Episode:

• How to know when your organization is in need of a rebrand (for example: when people in your organization don’t have a clear idea of what you do!)
• What constitutes a brand beyond logo fonts and colors, and what a rebranding might actually involve (think website refresh, messaging work, and a more consistent brand style/identity)
• The importance of connection and curiosity-building in your branding. How does your audience feel about your cause? How does your nonprofit alleviate/solve that problem?
• How one rebranding project with Children Striving Together helped the nonprofit acquire a grant with Nike and improve website analytics
• What to consider in a website assessment (goals of the site, first impressions, navigation/structural system, etc.) and Lauren’s favorite content management systems
• The Matchbox Method, designed by Lauren, which is one of the first branding courses of its kind meant to teach practical, tangible branding strategies for nonprofits

Notable Quotes from Lauren

“It’s hard to quantify what branding is. And I think that’s why a lot of times nonprofits kind of skipped over it. Marketing you can measure. Design looks good or it doesn’t. But with branding, it’s a little bit tougher to measure. It’s like, how do you measure impressions? Or if you left a good feeling to someone? Or if you’re connecting or resonating with someone? Really, when you see the results after the fact – that’s when it’s like, okay, something shifted, and we’re seeing the fruit of that decision.”

“How does your audience feel about your cause? And not your nonprofit – how do they feel about the problem that we’re affecting? Once we get to that root, and then we can figure out: how does our nonprofit actually help alleviate and solve that problem and help our audience feel better about it? And when I say audience, it’s not just your donors. It’s your beneficiaries – how you’re helping people improve their lives, or animals, or the environment.” 

Resources & Links

You can follow Lauren and her work on her website and on Instagram. Be sure to check out the Matchbox Method, one of the first branding courses of its kind, which launches in May.

Also mentioned in this episode: Obsessed: Building a Brand People Love From Day One by Emily Heyward; Made to Stick by Dan and Chip Heath; Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life; the We Are For Good podcast and SmartLess.

Tune in to Episode 59: One Website Update That Can Drastically Improve Your Conversion.

Spend less time posting manually and use Later for all your social media management and analytics needs! Start with a FREE account today.

What if you could grow your email list with passionate supporters ready to rally behind your mission? My bestselling course, Grow Your Supporter List, is on sale for 20% off, just for podcast listeners. Enter code PODCAST at checkout and learn how to launch two social media ad lead generation campaigns in an hour! This offer is valid through April 30, 2023.

Want to make Missions to Movements even better? Take a screenshot of this episode and share it on Instagram. Be sure to tag @positivequation so I can connect with you.