Do Nonprofits Get a Pass on Brand Science?

Does brand science apply to charities and foundations and donors and stuff?

TL;DR: yes.

F’rinstance, all brands have a banana curve of buyers. Not a bell curve. Not a flat line. Not a loyal lump.

Big brands have bigger ahem bananas than small ones. But they don’t have a different shape or distribution.

Well, if you swap ‘customers’ with ‘donors’, you see the same laws apply to nonprofits.

In this case, this data is for the English National Opera over 5 years, lovingly analyzed by Andrea Buraschi & Francesca Cornelli.

Will the ENO grow just by getting big donors? Nope. Will it grow just by getting small donors to become big donors? Nope. Can they defy gravity & have a loyal bump? Sorrynotsorry.

Nonprofits also follow other laws of brand science. And that science gives you a framework for understanding your donors, your marketing, your category, and your organization (and a roadmap for growth).

SO: if you’re part of a nonprofit and you want to grow, you ought to look into these laws of brand science. (Call us: we can help.)

Read the whole paper too. Buraschi, A. and Cornelli, F. (2014) doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-036X.2013.12030.x