Why Include a Charity opted for a rebrand

Charitable giving organisation needed a new brand identity to reflect the changing focus of people leaving money for charities in their wills

Looking to change the focus for charitable giving in wills, Include A Charity has undertaken a complete refresh of its 12-year-old organisation and launched a new brand identity and logo.

Established in 2008, Include a Charity is a social change movement of more than 70 charities, which aim to encourage Australians to leave a gift to charity in their will. 

Include a Charity undertook the brand refresh to change the way Australians think about will-making, so they see it as an opportunity to share their wishes for the world, and to make their mark by leaving a charitable gift. The not-for-profit's director, Helen Merrick, told CMO it wanted to focus on the donor and make the project more of a movement than just the campaign.

“When we’re talking to donors and talking to everyday people about leaving something in a will, it's about something much bigger than ourselves; it’s about making your mark. We wanted to incorporate that into the organisation’s identity,” Merrick said.

The new logo design reveals the brand essence of leaving a unique mark on the world. It visualises a fingerprint combined with a heart to symbolise the unique difference one can make and incorporates the tagline ‘Make your Mark’.

“There's a great concept called symbolic immortality. This really captures what we're trying to do which is talking about the immortal thing someone can do. We wanted to move it towards that and being more aspirational with the brand rather than being so specific about the cause or the work that the charities do,” she continued.

Kicking off with a series of refresh workshops, the process then took the organisation into its fundamentals as a brand and what it stood for, its mission and vision. “We looked at what was the brand DNA around that, going a lot further down what we've ever done before,” Merrick said.

Digital emphasis

Designed to work across both digital and physical channels, the fresh emerald green and navy blue logo evokes a feeling of inspiration, generosity, and warmth people feel about their favourite causes. It will be used in all communications for this year’s Include a Charity Week campaigns.

Merrick said the charity and non-profit space is crowded and it wanted something that was clean, stood out and was "very recognisable”. These days, the NFP's campaigns revolve around digital, radio and PR, rather than TV, which it utilised in the beginning. This also put an impetus on a distinctive visual mark.

At a more strategy level, digital enables a more personalised conversation and targeted segmenting for audiences who may be receptive to a conversation that involves thinking about wills, end-of-life considerations and personal legacies, as well as particular personal interests people may want to support through their wills, Merrick said.

“When the organisation was established, digital was just Web. Now it’s many different digital assets, there’s mobile and social media. The majority of our communications we do now are through digital platforms,” she continued.

“Overall, I think the message we've come up with, ‘make your mark’, is key. It doesn't matter what your interests are or what you support, you still want to have that legacy and that generational impact to actually make a difference."

Finally, while data and new techniques are important, Merrick believed one of the keys to charitable and non-profit marketing is weaving a powerful story into the message. “The organisations that work amazingly well are those focused on storytelling, who are looking at their brand and taking that time to invest,” she said.

“They’re telling people about the impact they have. With gifts in wills, it’s about telling people they can leave a gift in their will - it’s seeding a conversation and drip-feed marketing. And the more you tell people, the more it can normalise the conversation.”

“Digital is great for that because you can just keep dropping those messages in and telling those stories. It's about finding the successful ones and investing in great storytelling, with really clear strategic messaging.”

Follow CMO on Twitter: @CMOAustralia, take part in the CMO conversation on LinkedIn: CMO ANZ, follow our regular updates via CMO Australia's Linkedin company page, or join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CMOAustralia


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