Developing Your Identity 101: Getting It Right The 1st Time

1
Developing Your Identity 101 Getting It Right
The 1st Time

• Deborah Obalil
• Alliance of Artists Communities

2
Whole Organization Issue

• Not just a materials issue
• Involves all staff, board and volunteers
• Alumni, by default, are integral to your brand
  identity
  

3
Reasons for a clear, unique identity

• Creates value
• Garners support
• Makes you recognizable
• Builds reputation

4
Audiences affected by your identity

• Board
• Artists
• Foundations
• Individual Donors
• Community leaders/partners
• Staff Volunteers
• Other program participants

5
Whatever the audience. . .

• Two considerations
• Who needs to know about you? (aka The
  Target)
  
• What do they need to know? (aka The
  Message)

6
Begins with mission

• Mission the psychological and emotional logic
  that drives the organization
  
• Inside view looking out
• Source of passion, purpose social value

7
Components of mission

• Core Values
• Purpose
• Goals
• Vision

8
Core Values

• Abstract concepts considered inherently good
• Held uncompromisingly by organization
• What does this mean? you would turn down
  money/opportunity if in conflict with any core
  value

9
Purpose

• Your raison detre
• Ask why, why, why
• Key tests for purpose
• Enduring
• Motivating

10
Goal

• Not just any old goal one that applies to the
  whole organization and requires 10 to 30 years of
  effort to complete
  
• Provides focus, attention and structure
• Passes the Veuve Clicquot test

11
Vision

• What will the world look like when you achieve
  your goal?
  
• Rich, textured vivid
• Place in the mission where poetry is key

12
Time to share

• What is your mission?
• What would you change about it knowing what you
  know now?
  
• For others does it ring true? Is it inspiring?
  Whats missing?

13
Consumer/donor insight

• Purchase decisions (and donor decisions) are made
  in the unconscious mind. Repetition implants the
  purchase idea in the unconscious mind.
  
• Jay Conrad Levinson
• Guerrilla Marketing

14
Keys to successful repetition

• Clarity
• Brevity
• Consistency
• Connection

15
What is a Brand?

• Trusted promise
• Encapsulates a Big Idea

16
Branding

• Defines you relative to the competition
• From outside looking in
• Depends on an understanding of the needs and
  motivations of the customers
  
• Highly focused
• What do I have thats worth their attention,
  time, effort and money?

17
Tasks of a Brand

• Create value by meeting real consumer needs
• Promises you are unique and different
• Binds people together
• Celebrates differences
• Allows for new, creative ideas

18
Brand Your most valuable asset

• The key driver to success in social sector
  economics is brand reputation built upon
  tangible results and emotional share of heart
  so that potential supporters believe not only in
  your mission, but in your capacity to deliver on
  that mission.
• Good to Great and the Social Sectors, Jim Collins

19
What will branding do for you?

• Expressway into the targets mind
• Focused, efficient messages
• Puts you on targets mental ladder
• Key to distinct visual identity or image

20
Examples
21
Branding Components

• Customer Who needs to know about you?
• Competitive Advantage Who do you compete with
  for their time/money?
  
• Core Competency How can you make the mission
  relevant in their lives?

22
Step 1 The Customer

• Who are they, demographic description?
• What are their wants, needs, desires, attitudes,
  interests, barriers, concerns, pressures?
  
• How could you benefit them? Solve a problem?
• What, if any, position or image do you conjure in
  their minds?

23
Step 1 The Customer

• Artists Community Customer Segments
• Artists
• Donors
• Foundations/Grant makers
• General Public/Community Constituents
• Others?

24
How to get customer info

• Artist applications and exit surveys
• Alumni surveys
• Donor relationships
• Foundation research Chronicle of Philanthropy,
  Foundation Center, local Donors Forums
  

25
Step 2 The Competition

• What are each target groups time/income
  priorities?
  
• What are the competitions strengths in the
  targets mind? Weaknesses?
  
• Where are they on the targets mental ladder?
  Benefits?
  
• How do you compare? Contrast?
• Unoccupied position you could claim?

26
Who is the competition?

• What is the comparison to the target?
• Local community
• Regional/National community within and beyond
  the field

27
Example Artist Competition

• Staying home, working in own studio
• Other artists communities
• Personal/work obligations
• What else?

28
Foundation/Donor competition

• Non-arts issues/organizations poverty, child
  abuse, hunger, etc.
  
• Other arts organizations presenters, museums,
  community-based centers
  
• Other artists communities/residency programs

29
Differentiation in the Field

• Important especially to funders foundations,
  NEA, etc.
  
• Diversity key, yes but what makes you better?

30
Directors Quotes Unique?

• The Residency program provides artists with
  focused time for unfettered exploration and
  completion of work in a supportive setting. The
  program encourages personal growth and
  interchange between artists.
• The XXX Center is a place where artists are
  granted the opportunity to be productive in a
  supportive environment conducive to
  self-challenge and experimentation.
• Our desire is to provide a place that is both
  supportive and nurturing one that encourages
  creativity, collaboration and experimentation.
  

31
Directors Quotes Unique?

• Time at XXX is an opportunity to work, relax,
  reflect and be inspired by the quiet refuge of
  the countryside.
  
• The program provides the ideal combination of
  seclusion and community in a setting of truly
  inspirational beauty.
  
• The solitude, uninterrupted time, and an
  appropriate workspace, all within a supportive
  community of other creative people, make for the
  perfect environment.
• Artists have the opportunity to spend their
  residency in quiet, contemplative solitude and
  immerse themselves in their work.

32
Directors Quotes Unique!

• Time is measured by sun and night sky, not by
  clock or calendar. Space finds its borders by
  proximity to sound and silence. The sky and your
  ears are full of sounds and shapes of birds and
  bugs. And, like it or not, the weather will be
  your collaborator in all undertakings. Art
  Farm
• It is our hope that these explorations will
  build one on top of the other, ever raising the
  standards in the execution and the content of
  work in the medium of kiln glass, and that in so
  doing, will create a platform from which future
  artists will be able to work. It is often artists
  from outside of the medium of glass that break
  significant ground in both respects, and we
  encourage these artists to apply. Bullseye

33
Directors Quotes Unique!

• There are many opportunities for established
  companies to have residencies, but The Yards
  Bessie Schonberg Residency is the only program of
  its kind that provides young choreographers with
  a company, studios, and production support for a
  month each summer. It is an important rung in the
  career ladder for emerging choreographers.
• A residency at Snug Harbor Cultural Center
  balances exposure to New York Citys contemporary
  art scene with a retreat from its intensity.

34
Kitchen Table Test

• Toss all of your communications materials, and
  all of your competitions, and look for
  
• Ability to speak to the heart
• Who are they targeting
• Consistent image
• Does it stand out?

35
Step 3 Core Competency

• AKA What is your Uniqueness?
• What is your image now?
• What is unique versus the competition?
• Are you vulnerable?
• What do customers need to know about you to buy?

36
Getting to your Uniqueness

• List 10 things your group, and only your group,
  does.
  
• Focus on benefits, not facts.
• If you move to another city, what do they have to
  fear?
  
• If your organization died tomorrow, how would it
  be eulogized?