Nonprofit Hub Radio

Branding That Builds Trust

• NonProfit Hub • Season 6 • Episode 37

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In this episode of the Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast, Trevan Strean, co-founder and creative director at Share, unpacks why branding and design are critical for nonprofits.

Trevan explains how outdated visuals, inconsistent messaging, and neglected storytelling can erode trust before a donor even considers giving. He shares practical steps to keep your brand fresh without losing its identity, create a simple style guide, and communicate consistently across every channel—from your website to volunteer t-shirts.

If your nonprofit is struggling to stand out in a crowded cause space, this conversation will equip you with the tools to build a brand that inspires confidence, trust, and long-term support.

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SPEAKER_00:

Marketing Support Network is proud to serve the nonprofit community by offering full service contact center, fulfillment, digital marketing, and fundraising services. Your vision is our mission, and we can't wait to partner with you. Visit Marketing SupportNetwork.com for more information.

SPEAKER_02:

Welcome back to the Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast. I'm your host, Megan Speer. Joined today by my friend Trevin Streen, who's the co-founder and creative director at Share, to dig into what honestly, what is one of my favorite topics around nonprofits, which is branding and kind of positioning yourself in the market. So I am excited for this conversation. Trevin, welcome in.

SPEAKER_01:

Thanks, Megan.

SPEAKER_02:

So tell the audience a little bit about yourself and your background in design that led us to this conversation.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, sure. I am a jack of all trades, master of non-designer. I've worked in video production, brand strategy, industrial design across a variety of industries with software and robotics and consumer goods, and now nonprofits. I'm focused on helping them become the best that they can be with the resources that they have.

SPEAKER_02:

Very good. I love that. So to that end, as we kick this off, we I'm not gonna I'm not gonna call out names. I'm not gonna like not gonna website shame anyone from the podcast. But here at Nonprofit Hub, we got an email the other day from an organization that was looking for a suggestion on a on a vendor, and I was like, oh, I haven't heard of this organization before. So I went online just to like check them out and see what they were about. The nicest way that I can say this is it looked like someone made a like I'm gonna I'm gonna guess early 2000s flyer in Microsoft Publisher, and they then thumbtacked that to the internet as if it was some sort of telephone, right? It had that kind of vibe to it. And my initial thought, knowing nothing about this organization, was I don't see why anyone is like, I don't see how anyone's giving you money. I don't know how in today's marketplace, with all of the forward progress we have made in design and in user experience and in storytelling, I don't know how anyone can like kind of compete with a publisher file thumbtacked to the internet. So I'd love to use that as a jumping off point here for this conversation and kind of get your thoughts on why branding matters. Because I can see from a nonprofit's perspective, we're so focused on the mission, we're so focused on the what we do and how we provide for our community that sometimes that can feel like it's taking a backseat. My guess is that you would agree with me it should not. But but let me go ahead and give you a platform for the reasons why.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I so first of all, I think we would both be in agreement that we want all nonprofits to succeed. Correct. It is both of our goals, yes, and the reasons we are doing what we are doing.

SPEAKER_02:

I was at the bridge conference a little while ago, and I was explaining to someone like I want good to keep going. Whatever we have to do to keep good going, I'm here for it. Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Agreed. That said, there are something like two million nonprofits in the US. And you are effectively competing against each other for fundraising dollars and donor attention.

SPEAKER_02:

Two million?

SPEAKER_01:

Two million. I can provide a source on that if we need to in the show notes. And I think the other side of this with your website comment is generally speaking, people don't compare your experience to their other worst experience. They compare it to their best experience. I like to use the analogy that Netflix is everyone's best, most consistent software experience, web experience, and that translates your website as a nonprofit. So design has sort of become table stakes, I would say. It's like a consumer expectation. And if you have bad design, or if you don't have thoughtful, complete, consistent design, then you're losing trust out of the gate.

SPEAKER_02:

I would agree, right? If I see something that looks dramatically behind or outdated, or is not easy to use, uh I don't even know that it's a conscious choice that I would say, oh, I don't trust them. But there's something about it that makes me like, I don't know. And I pretty quickly move on to the next.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yep. We all do that. We make the snap judgment. And everyone is striving to not be judgy, but it is inherent to how we navigate the world, especially from a visual communication standpoint. I would plug that good design is good communication, and nonprofits' job in a large extent, is to communicate well to their donors and the people that they serve.

SPEAKER_02:

So one of the things that I noticed on this very poor website, and I feel badly, if you're listening and you know this is you, I am sorry. One of the things that I noticed is that even down to like the fonts that they chose, the colors that they chose, the logo image, everything felt dated. Obviously, there's a there is a a point to be made for consistency, right? For brand awareness and brand feel. But talk to us about how we can do that and not like there has to be a way to keep the brand fresh and relevant without losing it, right? Because I do think sometimes we say, Yep, this is my logo, and this will be my logo for the next 50 years. But it does become dated after a while. And so what's that balance?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we actually have not to name names, and I'm not going to. We have a handful of clients that have been resistant to updating their logo, freshening up things, improving, modernizing the visual identity in the way that people receive communication in today's world, right on the same page with you. Like I'm not a big proponent of doing a full rebrand necessarily for most nonprofits, if they have that dated logo, like you're saying. Yeah. But at a bare minimum, freshening it up to be a little bit more polished, retain the brand equity that you've built around your nonprofit and the reputation you've built. Too often I've seen people say we want to do a rebrand and build a new logo, and then no one recognizes who you are.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So I understand the hesitation and the pitfalls around that process. I would say every nonprofit's best investment would most likely, if they're in that position, be to hire a freelancer to just give them some baseline visual guidelines. I know that that doesn't feel like it's a good use of money sometimes in service of the mission, but it will pay dividends in the long run.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, absolutely. Because to your point, right, you are not competing. And I know in the nonprofit sector, we don't like to use terms like competing. We don't want to think of it as like the corporate y business style competition. But especially in this economy, we are all fighting for the same dollars. Right. And so to your point, I think it's critical to make sure that you're putting your best foot forward. Right. Yeah. In the same way that you wouldn't go to a major donor meeting in the same clothes that you wore to the gym that morning.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

There is a way that we present ourselves to the world, and those things matter in a first impression. And especially in a in a someone's just checking you out online, where that is the only impression.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And I think the other aspect of this that so many nonprofits take for granted, maybe, or take or think that they have it dialed, is mailing their story and getting their mission articulated. Like what is unique about the way that you are serving the mission and audience that you're serving? I think we just sort of lump a lot of things into let's just say like I serve homelessness. That's not specific or unique or identifiable from a brand perspective. And you just get lumped into all of the other causes or nonprofits serving that cause. So how do you carve out your space within a greater cause ecosystem?

SPEAKER_02:

That's an interesting point, right? Because especially so I live in the Pittsburgh area. There are three that I can think of off the top of my head organizations who serve homeless population here. If you were to just hand me a flyer or brochure or even show me a social media post without the name on it, and just ask me, like, which one is this? I would not have a way to tell you, oh, this is organization A versus organization B. Because we're telling very similar stories. Unfortunately, it's such a problem that we need three organizations that are dealing with it. So, what does that look like if somebody's listening going, oh yeah, that's where we are? What's maybe the first step of evaluating how to change that or what needs to be done?

SPEAKER_01:

I think asking yourself, could I define my organization with a one-sentence mission statement that identifies who I serve and how I serve them uniquely?

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

That's a good starting point. It's free. You can do it yourself. And then kind of the extension of that is what is the personality of my organization and brand that I want to present to the world, and pick three words. And if you can do those two things, you have like a very light beginnings of a brand strategy because you have a clearly articulated mission and the way you want to present yourself to the world.

SPEAKER_02:

So good.

SPEAKER_01:

And then you start with what you were saying about not being able to identify those flyers. You have a jumping off point to start saying, okay, how do I communicate my mission in this personality visually? And visuals would be the next step of that.

SPEAKER_00:

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SPEAKER_02:

Let's talk about that visual part. Because I think that especially in the current culture of fast scrolling Instagram, how do we what does it look like to make sure that somebody without even having just a logo in the corner that somebody knows, oh hey, I bet that's from this nonprofit?

SPEAKER_01:

It's tricky. Yes. As you say, in this new fast-paced environment. I think it's less about the visual itself and more about like let's set aside having the greatest design ever, having branded photography and like animations and motion, and something that only a large-scale nonprofit with an in-house team could do. The most important thing is what can you do consistently. So if what you can do consistently is one post a week, that's a Canva template, but it's thoughtful and gets your message across, that's what you should do. Because your audience will adapt to the consistency of communication that you put out. Do you have the resources and visual chaps to produce that much variety? Are you that confident in your visual design system to execute that? It sounds easy in your head.

SPEAKER_02:

Until you start to do it. Yes. And I say that as someone who runs an organization that posts content 20 365 days a year. Nonprofit Hubbies consistently putting out new stuff and our social is out every day. And it is a beast that consistently needs to be fed if that's what you're doing. And it is a huge undertaking. So to say, I'm gonna get on my soapbox for a minute. You have unleashed my opinion. Something that irks my soul to no end is when we say to somebody who already has a full-time workload, can you just add social media on top of it? Right? Social media itself, right now, right? If you want to do it well, and if you want to do that consistently, even if you're doing five days a week, right? You're just doing it on the weekdays. That in and of itself is a full workload to do it well. And man, I wish we could stop underestimating that.

SPEAKER_01:

Totally. In today's world, it really is multiple jobs. You should have someone focused on social media, engaging with your audience, and you should have someone designing and producing the content. So at a minimum, you're looking at two people, not the hey, can you do this extra?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, K just had that on how hard can it be? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So I mean, a lot of the times we consult clients to just say, either do it or don't do it at all. Don't be in the middle. Commit or don't commit. One of the ways that most people could probably do themselves or with the help of a part-time person just pretty quickly would be take your existing brand and create a one to two page style sheet that has here's your logo or all the logos that are approved. Here's your primary color, your secondary color. If you want to get crazy and have three, go for it. And then have that like mission statement and brand personality words on the sheet as well. So you can you have this one sheet that you can hand out to people and you're like, this is our brand. It's not where you should end up, but it's a really good starting point that is very resource-like. And most people can access that level of documentation.

SPEAKER_02:

So I want to maybe give people a framework for this, right? Oh, as like should I is it time for me to do this?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

If the answer to So, for example, um if the answer to somebody asking for your logo, if you're working with a designer or an ad agency or whatever, if your answer is to send them a Word document that just has a JPEG pasted into it and that's the logo that you've been using for the last decade and a half, it is time.

unknown:

Right?

SPEAKER_02:

I as a dis as a someone with a design background, this is one of my biggest pet peeves, is when I see, like, oh, I printed my logo on this postcard or I did an ad in a program and it is super pixelated. So when we say logos that are approved, those logos should be high quality files, high resolution, in an actual photo format. Right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

So if the answer is no right now, it is time for the refresh.

SPEAKER_01:

Specifically for logos, if we wanted to get real in the weeds on file formats, you want an SVG because it doesn't have a resolution and scales infinitely. So it will be high quality no matter what format you put it in. Yeah. Like that should be your go-to. Not a JPEG. If you have a JPEG logo, even if it's not in a Word document, just by itself. If you have a JPEG logo that you give to everyone, you should probably do this.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, it is time for a refresh. So I want to let's go back to something else that you said for the style guide, though, and that is your primary color, your secondary, and if you're getting crazy, a third one. I worked for an organization one time pretty early on in my career who had a very like a pretty well-drawn out style guide that had been very well done, and they had 13 colors.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Right? Is so what are we shooting for? Because 13 was like anybody could decide I like these four, and the next guy could say I like these two, and now our brand does not look similar from one design to the next, right? So what what's the sweet spot for brand colors?

SPEAKER_01:

I think it depends. My recommendation always in this framing of conversation that we're having is keep it simple.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Three max. Yeah. You don't need more. I mean, think of uh this is gonna be a Pittsburgh analogy. Think of the Steelers. Like their colors are yellow and black and white, and that's it. And you recognize them by that plus their logo. You don't need so many colors to be recognized. It's actually probably more effective if you have less, because you're starting to carve out a niche in someone's mind around specific colors.

SPEAKER_02:

I actually was just having this conversation with somebody not that long ago. I understand I'm biased. I'm from Pittsburgh, super proud of it. I do think that Pittsburgh is the only city from a strictly from a branding perspective that did it right. Because all three of our major sports teams are black and gold. And that's it. So like right, Pirates Penguin Steelers. Now, I I don't know that the Pirates at this point qualified to actually be called a major league team anymore, but we're like that's a whole separate podcast. When someone thinks Pittsburgh, they think black and gold, regardless, right? It's become the identity of the whole city. And I don't see that in a lot of other major markets.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, this is a perfect billboard advertisement for consistency in brand communication. How are you consistently deploying this across multiple channels? Like, yeah, okay, on social media, yes, but what about out of home and sending mail and donor asks? And what happens when your volunteers hit the ground? Like, are there t-shirts that color? So, like, how are you activating your brand across all these different touch points within your organization as you execute your mission?

SPEAKER_02:

I think that's a good call out though, because I think unfortunately a nonprofit, we tend to live pretty siloed. Across the board, right? So somebody who is maybe in charge of fundraising or in charge of social media or whatever may not be the same person who's getting the volunteer t-shirts. So this really has to, I think this is a great call out that the brand is not just for the marketing department, right? It really has to be a bought-in by the whole organization piece.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Uh, I think this is something I was having a conversation with someone else about the other day. Too often people get hung up on the idea that your brand is your logo. That is not what a brand is. Your brand is effectively what other people say about you when you're not in the room. It's like the perception and your reputation. And the logo is just the mark that they identify you by. It's important. I'm not gonna say that it that it doesn't matter, but it's more important that you're cultivating a good perception and a consistent reputation that people can attach to that logo. And I think that comes to what you're saying about branding living in marketing only, or living in silos. It's like, no, that's we need to have a zoomed out perspective on what brand is, and that this is integral to how we conduct ourselves as an organization.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, so to that end, I know we have a lot of executive directors who listen to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

So let's talk to them specifically. If they're listening, going, ooh, you know, I'm not sure that we have that big picture view of the brand, right? It is maybe something that lived in the marketing department or it has just been about our website or our logo. What's the what's the first place to start to get people thinking that way? How do we help drive that change as leaders?

SPEAKER_01:

I am a big advocate of brand strategy, uh, which is basically what is your process of how you're going to cultivate that brand. And I think that is a good way to get high level because the core elements of that are like what is your mission and articulating that. Like if you achieve your mission, what is your vision of that outcome? So that would be mission, mission and vision. And then I think values are a super important part of brand strategy that end up trickling down in organizations where you could think of those as how are we going to conduct ourselves internally and externally, and what are the standards that we're going to hold ourselves to as we do business and serve the communities that we're serving. I think that's the best way to start, in my opinion, to connect it to the rest of the organization, because you're effectively creating a framework of expectations for that should permeate across everything that you do. Where you go from there kind of starts coming to what we were talking about before with how are you presenting yourself? How are you activating your brand across channels? How are you speaking to your audience? Who are you speaking to? So it can get to be a lot and it can get to be overwhelming. For the top-level thing, clarifying mission, vision, values is a great place to start. That is also something that you can do yourself. Um could bring in an expert, but this is something that you could do by yourself because no one knows your organization or mission as well as you do.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So speaking of the experts, tell us a little bit about the work that you guys do at Share.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, uh at Share, we help small to medium-sized nonprofits do digital marketing and fundraising and branding. So we, you know, we are striving to equip these people with the tools and processes that they need for that next leg of growth. We help you grow your fundraising so that you can grow your impact.

SPEAKER_02:

That's great. I love it. Trevin, there is a question that I've been asking everybody as we close out this episode, but I've been asking it as a closer off season, understanding that this has been kind of a crazy year for a lot of nonprofits and just kind of in the world in general. What's your one piece of advice or wisdom or encouragement to nonprofit leaders in this season?

SPEAKER_01:

You can do it. Um, I think we all so often are in a series of like self-doubt moments where you're like, oh, am I cooked for this? Oh, am I can I do this? Is this my skill set? Am I good at this? Uh the answer is yes. You can. You are. And don't pay so much attention to the way that other people are doing things. Figure out what works for you and what you can execute on and do that because that's going to be the thing that you can do most confidently and most consistently. And at the end of the day, that's what's going to last over the long term and let you stick around continuing to execute your mission.

SPEAKER_02:

That's so good. Trevin, thank you. This has been fantastic, and I think giving people some really practical things to think about, but also steps to take to have a better brand so that they are not a flyer thumbtack to the internet.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, absolutely. Again, my guest today has been Trevin Streen, who is the co-founder and creative director at Share. My name is Megan Speer, and this is the Nonprofit Hub Radio Podcast, and we'll see you next time.