# Does your charity brand really need a refresh?

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2012/06/21/does-your-charity-brand-really-need-refresh/
- Published: 2012-06-21T18:23:02+01:00
- Author: Kevin Baughen

**Marketing Directors, Trustees and others who sometimes feel the need to make a
significant change to how an organisation presents itself to the world will ask 
this question.  A lot.**

The result of senior people raising this question can be a lot of creative workshops
for teams who are busy already, potentially an expensive redesign, internal, subjective
arguments over what folks like and don’t like and lastly a bad taste in the mouths
of regional teams or outposts who feel ‘done to’ by head office again. The next 
time a senior type asks whether it isn’t about time you refreshed or changed your
[brand](https://fundraising.co.uk/tag/brand/) try answering the following before
you act:

 * Is your current brand still fit for purpose?  Does it directly support what your
   organisation does day in; day out?
 * Has your current brand identity been around for less than two years?
 * Is there still work to be done to meaningfully engage with all the key target
   audiences you set out within your last marketing or strategic plan?
 * Is the senior person raising the issue relatively new to the organisation?
 * Would you still like to improve your brand awareness amongst your target audience?

If you can answer ‘yes’ to even one of these questions, I would challenge the need
to refresh anything without doing some significant further research.  Brands aren’t
about right or wrong, they are about fitness for purpose and we need to be certain
that ours aren’t before contemplating change.

## Advertisement

Secondly, what do senior types mean by ‘brand’? Do they mean your real brand – your
values, emotional benefits to users/beneficiaries, how you conduct yourselves and
use these assets to support your activities – or do they mean your logo and strapline?
If it’s the latter, refer back to points above.  If it’s the former, refer to Chief
Executive and or strategic plan for verification about the kind of organisation 
you are aiming to be… and then go back to assessing ‘fitness for purpose’.

Your brand needs to work as a powerful asset to support all of your activity from
fundraising to service delivery and back.  Consequently, we shouldn’t be tinkering
with such an important tool without thinking it through very clearly. But more on
this in our next blog…

 * **[No-one's shouting about Cancer Research UK's new brand](https://fundraising.co.uk/2012/08/23/noone039s-shouting-about-cancer-research-uk039s-new-brand/)**(
   23 August 2012)
 * **[DEC rebrands to help strengthen fundraising](https://fundraising.co.uk/2012/10/12/dec-rebrands-help-strengthen-fundraising/)**(
   12 October 2012)
 * **[Managing your brand in a digital world](https://fundraising.co.uk/2013/03/15/managing-your-brand-digital-world/)**(
   15 March 2013)