Situation
Dégagé Ministries is a multi-million-dollar nonprofit that is based in Grand Rapids, MI and offers help and hope to homeless and disadvantaged individuals in the community. As a religious-based West Michigan nonprofit, they found themselves competing for limited resources in the community and as their donor-base was getting older they needed a way to attract new and younger donors with consistent messaging. Additionally, they had an initiative through their women’s shelter, Paul’s Mom’s Cookies, that needed some branding and messaging assistance.
Task
Dégagé was in need of a messaging and marketing strategy for the Dégagé brand, as well as a rebrand and messaging direction for the Paul’s Moms Cookie brand. The plan was to create consistency between the brands so that you could easily determine their connectedness through both their visual identity and branding. The current Paul’s Moms brand had a difficult time communicating those proceeds went back to supporting the women’s Open Door Shelter at Dégagé.
Action
Being that Dégagé is a name and brand that has been established in the community for decades, it was important to survey the existing donor base, volunteers, staff, and the general public to determine messaging consistency and brand awareness. As expected, the data determined that very few people (outside of staff) knew how to pronounce the name or what the brand stood for, outside of its mission. While the work Dégagé was doing had an impact with their audiences, the brand was missing that same impact.
Making a branding change on a well-established non-profit is difficult work and needs to be timed appropriately. Working collaboratively with Dégagé we determined we would first make adjustments to the Paul’s Mom’s brand that would be consistent with the ministry.
Result
Equipped with the data, branding and messaging were developed that outlined various recommendations, including:
· Updated visual identity and messaging
· Concepts and ideas for merchandising
· Brand attributes
· Tone and voice
· Elevator speech
· Positioning statement
· Audience personas
· Sample messaging
· Marketing recommendations with suggestions for implementation
While the branding and messaging work has been created and complete for these brands, they have yet to roll out the announcement to the public, so this will be updated upon announcement.