Over the course of my career helping organizations advance thoughtfully and effectively in the marketplace, I’ve invested a lot of time exploring the complex, multifaceted strategic assets we call brands.
There is great power in marketing and well-executed communications, but an organization’s brand is the strategic foundation that informs decisions, prompts and sustains engagement, and influences long-term success.
These dynamics are not limited to the commercial sector, as they are equally at play in not-for-profit organizations—my first love.
I continue to draw inspiration from Alexis de Tocqueville’s early observations about America’s voluntary associations and from the work of scholars such as Roger Lohmann, in The Commons, and Michael O’Neill, in Nonprofit Nation. Their classic commentaries helped illuminate what has come to be known to some as the “third sector”: the social institutions that reside and thrive outside the home, outside business, and outside government.
Efforts to describe the reach and impact of civil society—and, indeed, its distinctive character and contributions—have continued ever since. Over the past several decades, the American nonprofit experience has helped fuel a robust global presence of nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations.
So while the perspectives I share on this site examine brand management across sectors, they center especially on organizations that enhance our quality of life, protect the environment, educate our citizens, improve untenable social conditions, and positively shape public policy.
To be most effective, every organization must affirm its brand promise every day by demonstrating a commitment to shared values, delivering programs and services of deep meaning and impact, and allowing its distinctive personality to shine.
-JDC
-JDC