CLIENT: Pratham USA
With 15 chapters around the United States to help raise money for Pratham’s educational programs in India, Pratham wanted to strengthen its image and give chapters the communication tools they needed to be more effective. Red Rooster Group developed a comprehensive brand strategy, new website, and marketing and fundraising materials to help Pratham increase donations.
Research
The process started with research to assess the organization’s strengths and weaknesses.
We conducted the following research:
Marketing Materials Assessment covering brochures, event marketing, annual reports, fundraising materials, websites and social media.
Interviews with more than 20 donors and chapter heads to assess their perceptions of the organizations and their attitudes, motivations and needs.
Competitive Review to assess how the services of organizations with similar services and how the present themselves. We reviewed the mission, services, geographic scope, audiences served, and more, for 30 organizations.
Social Media Review assessing all of Pratham’s official and unofficial social media presences including Facebook Groups and Pages, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube accounts and activity levels.
Technology Review of systems in use and recommendations for improving and integrating them.
Analysis
Our key findings were that Pratham enjoys a positive reputation among their donors, but needed to develop a more emotional appeal, improve their communications with their donors, and instill their brand with more consistency.
Message Development
To help Pratham and all the chapter heads tell their story in a compelling way to appeal to donors, we developed the following messaging tools:
- A Case for Giving that describes the problem that Pratham addresses, how Pratham helps, Pratham’s impact, and ways donors can get involved and make a difference.
- Elevator Pitch that summarizes the case for giving in a single paragraph.
- Boilerplate Copy for Email Newsletters that can be used to remind donors of Pratham’s mission and impact and urge them to donate.
Fundraising Themes
We developed a number of conceptual approaches for the fundraising, in order to present Pratham in a unique and compelling way to donors, and to highlight their strengths, particularly in relation to their competition.
- Transforming the Face of Nation One Thumbprint at a Time: This approach connects the personal plight of illiterate children who use a thumbprint for a signature, and the widespread scope of illiteracy across India.
- The Power of One Girl to Change a Nation: Plays on Pratham’s volunteer force of 60,000 trained to teach children across 21 states. Also gives emphasis to the young women trained by Pratham.
- Raise the Bar on Hope: An interactive concept for the website that would allow the user to lift a bar over the face of a child, revealing the different ways that Pratham supports the child, leading to a better future.
- Unleash Their Potential: This concept shows the future professions and prospects of the children who are able to reach their potential through education. This also ties into the potential of India as a whole to reach its full power with an educated workforce.
- Imagine a World Without Reading: This concept solicits support for Pratham’s signature program — Read India — which accelerates learning at a young age.
- School Without Walls: Creates a visual image to instill one of Pratham’s main programs of reaching rural and urban youth in their environment.
Brand Family
During the brand review, we assessed that the logo was used in a wide variety of ways in the marketing materials, creating a fractured image for the organization. And chapters were setting their names in different typefaces and colors, undermining the professionalism of the organization.
To address this problem, we developed a comprehensive brand architecture for the organization that defined the relationship of the logo and tagline, created consistency for the chapter names and their treatment in the logo, and determined how international affiliates should be styled. We then developed versions of all the logos (15 chapters plus international partners) with and without the tagline in formats for print and web use.
Brand Manual
To help all the chapters create effective communications, we developed a brand manual that specifies colors and typefaces to use, shows the templates for the newsletter and other marketing materials, and provides guidelines for using them.
Case for Support
We developed their Case for Support around what the donors need to know:
- THE PROBLEM: What is the problem that the organization is addressing? We humanized the problem of widespread illiteracy in India by telling a story about one girl’s plight. We also provided a visually demonstrated the problem by creating a graphic showing the cycle of poverty that plagues many in India.
- THE SOLUTION: What is Pratham doing about the problem? We describe Pratham’s programs to build literacy and create systemic change for education in the country.
- THE IMPACT: How effective is the organization in addressing the problem? To demonstrate Pratham’s success, we presented a chart showing the results of Pratham’s signature program, Read India II, in 21 states across India.
- THE APPEAL: How can donors support Pratham? We describe the different ways that people can support and get involved with the organization.
We designed the document to be easy to read and support Pratham’s brand, with photos that help to help people understand what Pratham does — overall a clear and compelling case for supporting Pratham.
Website
After a thorough review of their current website, we completely redesigned Pratham’s website to have a much stronger appeal to donors. Our goal was to create an interactive site that engages people in learning more about the problem of literacy in India and how Pratham addresses it. To drive people through the key information leading to a decision to donate, we created sections titled: Problem, Programs, Impact, and Get Involved.
The site encourages people to find their local chapters, attend events, and  most of all, donate to the organization. We used a chalkboard theme to reinforce the concept of education, and 3 different rollover maps showing the programs in India, the chapters in the U.S., and partners around the world. Emotional impact is achieved through an abundance of photos, stories of the children, and visitor reports.
Website Features:
- A homepage feature that provides a quick overview of the Problem and Pratham’s impact.
- 3 Interactive maps featuring program information, U.S. chapters and international partners.
- Descriptions of all the programs.
- Individual chapter pages with a main chapter gateway page with descriptions for all chapters.
- Ability to filter news and events by chapter.
- A Content Management System (CMS) in Drupal that allows staff to update the site on their own.
- An Event Management System (EMS) that allows staff to create events with different types of ticketing.
- A different photo on every single page of the site.
- Sidebar blocks featuring statistics, videos, testimonials, and other elements.
- A Sponsorship tool to manage sponsor logos and promote them to the homepage.
Email Newsletter
Email newsletters are a key communication tool for the organization, keeping donors updated on news and events, increasing visibility for the organization, and driving traffic to the website. However, Pratham’s newsletters lacked a professional and consistent look, and a steady stream of good information. To address these needs, we:
- Developed a format showing the treatment for stories, boilerplate information, and action links.
- Established a uniform look for all the newsletters that complements the organization’s other marketing materials.
- Established templates in Constant Contact for all 15 chapters.
Fundraising Email Appeal
The first communications piece we created was a fundraising solicitation. We used the theme “Raise the Bar on Hope†to connect Pratham’s mission of creating providing hope for individual children with the larger picture of a stronger India. A personal story carried the emotional impact, and the graphics introduced Pratham’s bold, new look. The email also included the Pratham email boilerplate message and various action links.
Event Promotion
When it came to the fundraising galas, each chapter created their own invitations, with different themes and designs. We thought it was important help Pratham build brand recognition and to connect the event with their mission so that donors would know what they are supporting. We created designs help donors recognize Pratham and that work alone and in context of the website.
Brochure
For Pratham fundraising brochure, we wanted to avoid merely describing their services — this was an opportunity to dramatize the problem and Pratham’s solution. We used a thumbprint — the only way that millions sign their name — to personalize illiteracy, and then showed how Pratham was addressing the problem through a range of effective programs. The brochure concludes with an appeal to get involved with the organization.
Presentation
A key way of telling Pratham’s story to potential donors is through presentations at house gatherings. In order to improve the effectiveness of these presentations, we completely redesigned the presentation to have a better flow, a stronger visual impact, and more emotional appeal. Now, instead of screens filled with bullet points of text, viewers are moved by full screen images showing the programs, with short captions conveying the program’s scope and impact. The presentation provides a quick overview of Pratham’s scalable programs, and encourages people to get involved in the cause. The presentation was designed to be used in person, as well as for emailing.
Annual Report
Aimed primarily at Pratham’s larger donors, we gave the 2010 Annual Report a more professional and dignified look. To emphasize the impact of the programs, we paired large photos showing educational issues in India with quotes about education.
Providing the Organization with Tools to Communicate with Donors
Instilling Brand Confidence
This full brand development program improves Pratham’s ability to communicate with their donors in a number of ways. It strengthens their brand by providing the basic building blocks of communications:
- A unified visual identity and family of consistent chapter and affiliate logos creates a professional image and instills confidence in donors that the organization is mature and well run.
- Core messages provide a consistent way to describe Pratham’s programs and impact.
- Fundraising messages provide a stronger framework for appealing to donors.
- A robust website engages donors with Pratham’s mission, while integrated back-end technology efficiently manages donations and events.
- Social media guidelines help manage their online presence.
Communicating Easily and Effectively
When it comes to empowering the chapter heads to engage donors locally, they now that the tools to do so easily:
- The ability to add content and events to their chapter’s section on the website.
- A professional PowerPoint presentation to tell Pratham’s story in a compelling way (with the ability to add custom slides).
- Email templates with content from the national organization to facilitate communications with their donors.
With these new marketing tools now in place, Pratham is set to become an efficient fundraising machine.
Results
- Website traffic increased 50% in the first quarter the site was launched compared to the same quarter the prior year.
- The website brought in more than $130,000 in online donations in the first 4 months the site was launched.
Links
- See the Pratham website case study.
- See other nonprofit branding case studies.
- Contact Red Rooster Group for help with your marketing.
Red Rooster Group is a New York based graphic design firm that creates effective brands, websites, and marketing campaigns to increase your visibility, fundraising, and communications effectiveness. Contact us at info@redroostergroup.com.