
Putting Your Brand to Work: Fundraising
Education
In the “Putting Your Brand to Work” blog series, I’ll explore four of the most important uses of brand in higher education.
Nearly every college and university relies increasingly on external fundraising for long-term fiscal sustainability. In theory, an institutional brand should provide a foundation for the kinds of messaging, storytelling, and donor engagement that sustain both annual giving and longer-term capital campaigns. But using your brand to create differentiating messaging and experiences for prospective donors requires thinking outside a few conventional boxes.
Engaging donors in ways that align with your university brand can be as challenging as recruiting students, albeit for different reasons. Brands are often defined and articulated with students in mind as the principal audience. As a result, translating these concepts for a demographic that is older and not interested specifically in enrolling can be difficult. In addition, the interests of prospective donors will often vary widely. Donor priorities are highly idiosyncratic, and they will not typically align with institutional priorities. As a former advancement colleague always advised, donors have their own goals in mind and rarely want to help solve university problems, especially by simply filling a budget hole.
The key to communicating with donors is to translate your brand values and identity into terms that resonate most closely with their intended outcomes. Where students are preoccupied with the cost and return on investment associated with earning a college degree, donors tend to focus on the impact their giving might have on a cause that matters to them personally. For example, a donation to support scholarships might aim to improve a particular community or student demographic; an endowed professorship might support research to solve a specific problem; or a gift to name a building could be aimed at helping local businesses hire and retain new talent. Whatever the cause, what most such gifts have in common is the desire to make a personal difference through the education and community service that a university provides. So, as you think about how best to communicate with stakeholders regarding fundraising, consider the following:
What is it about the unique brand of education your college or university provides that will most help prospective donors to accomplish their goals?
Are there differentiating experiences or support you provide that align with the kinds of issues that donors might wish to address, such as access to opportunity, social mobility, research, or economic development?
Once your advancement messaging is framed in terms that align with and reinforce your brand, turn your attention to donor experiences. As with student recruitment, it’s vital to pair a strategic marketing campaign with donor engagement experiences that help to demonstrate your brand values and institutional identity. In other words, donors need to live your brand, or at least see it in action, just like any group of important stakeholders. Although it won’t be possible to bring every donor to campus, there are many opportunities to increase their engagement, including: inviting their participation in major campus events; encouraging their interaction with students, faculty, and staff members as they teach, learn, and research; and ensuring they see directly the impact of university initiatives that improve research, help businesses, or solve problems. The more donors see firsthand the difference you make in the lives of your students and the communities you serve, the more they will understand how a gift that supports your work might create a lasting impact on an issue personally important to them.
If you’re interested in learning more about how to work with university leaders to maximize the impact of your brand, let me know. Email me at [email protected] and we can talk about best practices for helping your college or university to genuinely live your brand. Or you can visit BVK’s Brand Academy for Colleges and Universities to explore how to develop and leverage your brand.
We also offer a free presentation called Beyond “Telling Our Stories Better”: How to Work with University Presidents, VPs, and Deans. You’ll receive practical, step-by-step guidance for how to engage your campus leadership in ways that build trust, broaden their understanding of marketing and communications, and yield genuine partnerships that facilitate your work. To learn more, download our Presentation Overview below.