Your non-profit is as unique as you are, and you should embrace it. Your organization has a reputation, a personality and an agenda, all of which impact how your organization is seen comparatively to others. Knowing what sets you apart, finding your niche and remaining true to your organization’s image, separate you from the rest of the pack.

First, consider how your organization is seen by the community. Not the simple answers, but more in-depth; is your organization cool, reliable, hip, conservative? What draws people to your organization? Why is it that your volunteers are at your organization? These are all extremely important questions that you’ll need to answer. Being able to standout requires you to understand the competitive environment and understand how the community sees you in that environment is important.

Second, decide how you want to be seen by your community.  Take what you’ve learned from the first step and honestly consider how you should present your non-profit. This doesn’t have to be set in stone, but when developing the culture and personality of an organization should try to remain consistent. Being critical of your organizations strengths and weaknesses will help narrow down the possibilities, as knowing where your organization is situated in the market is important to your image. Finding the ways that your organization is different, innovative and evolving is really the best way to know where you’ll standout.

Third, make the effort for your organization to be seen in a good light. Conscious decisions to uphold your organization’s image have to be made. When it comes the reputation of your organization, as few things should be left up to chance as possible. Deciding the tone of communications, how you train volunteers, how you communicate, all inevitably is a part of how your organization is seen. Taking what you have learned from the first two steps, begin communicating in a way that will help highlight your standout qualities. The idea is that once you know what makes you special, make sure that everyone knows about that. Promote how your organization is doing something different and how the community can get involved.

Developing an identity and promoting that is what will make your organization standout. Donors want to feel that they know who they are giving their support to. Making it easy for anyone to know what your organization is about will help people decide to donate. What has been observed in the past is that organizations with a strong, unique personality are often successful, because people feel a more deep connection to your company.

What are some of the charities that you are involved with and why did you choose those particular organizations? Comment away!

photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/34700343@N08/27144955696″>Coloring</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/”>(license)</a>