The Importance of Internal Branding

 Branding is the process of creating a unique organizational identity in the mind of our community, patients, donors, and others. Maintaining the brand identity internally, is often forgotten. But using branding across employee communication is equally important to inspire the employee connection to our organization.

What is branding?

Branding is the process of creating a unique organizational identity in the minds of our community, patients, employees, donors, and others. Fundraising coach Mallory Erickson says it perfectly, "Building a successful brand is about capturing the essence of your organization, encapsulating its vision and mission, and narrating your story as a nonprofit through the tone of voice, vocabulary, imagery, interactions, social media presence, workplace culture, and anything that makes your nonprofit what it is." Branding helps to humanize the organization so we can create genuine relationships with our community.

Many believe a brand is a company logo. While a logo is an important visual element to help identify a brand, it's only a small part of the overall brand. 

Why is branding important internally?

Inform: Captures the Essense of the Organization

Maintaining branding internally helps communicate our mission, vision, and values throughout the organization. This is the starting point for building a positive work culture.

Involve: Improves Employee Engagement

When employees understand and experience our brand, they're more likely to feel a connection with what we do. When employees feel that connection, they're more likely to feel positively about the organization. When employees feel positively about the organization, they're more likely to engage and be empowered to become a strong advocate.

Inspire: Reaches Goals

Successful branding is proven to help reach goals. Whether you're trying to increase awareness, get employees to complete a task, improve engagement, or whatever your purpose for communicating is, branding helps inspire that wanted response.

Branded charity websites experience 12% more donations than non-branded websites. 

How can you maintain brand identity?

Consistency is so important to maintaining brand identity. There are multiple ways to make sure you're communicating using our brand identity.

Maintaining Visual Identity

You can maintain the visual brand by using images, colors, templates, fonts, etc. that match the HFSC brand. Images should be bright, positive, relaxed, and high quality. Use approved colors (HFSC Teal, Guardian Grey, Care Blue, Freedom Fuchsia, Growth Green, and Hero Navy).

Avoid using cliche imagery, including clip art, overly retouched images, or images with a filter.

Using Brand Voice

A brand is communicated through its brand voice across all channels, whether written or spoken. Strong brand voices have a unified tone, style, and messaging. We maintain brand voice by using:

• person-first language (person with Autism vs autistic person),

• active voice instead of passive voice (Jerry knocked over the lamp vs the lamp was knocked over by Jerry),

• first person pronouns (We provide care vs Hospital for Special Care provides care),

• positive speak; reframe challenges with learning opportunities,

• and overall maintain respectful, courteous, and compassionate messaging. 

Following Branding Guidelines

Unsure when, where, or how to use our logo appropriately? Reference our brand guidelines for detailed information about our logos, colors, and more.