Here's an incredibly refreshing and unusual story: A nonprofit organization re-brands, and they don't screw it up!
I'm flabbergasted.
Here's the story in Civil Society: St Dunstan's rebrands to Blind Veterans UK.
St Dunstan's, a century-old UK charity that helps veterans who've suffered sight-loss, changed its name to Blind Veterans UK.
You can probably see what their problem was. "St Dunstans" sounds more like a church than what they are. The legacy logo (see below) didn't help. Without massive mindshare, which they didn't have, they were saddled with a puzzling, abstract name that gave no hint of what they were about.
Most branding experts would have attacked this problem by creating a name that was even more abstract than St Dunstan's. Something about light or hope or empowerment or transformation. Vague, aspirational concepts.
Blind Veterans UK went literal.
You can actually discern what they do. And where they are. And the logo uses the flag to evoke national pride -- something that can't go wrong with veterans' charities.
The whole thing is clear and obvious. It's as if they actually want donors to support them!
Most of the time, a re-brand becomes a disastrous exercise in abstraction, navel-gazing, and leaving donors as far behind as possible. World Emergency Relief becomes Emerge Poverty Free; Cascade Land Conservancy becomes Forterra.
That's why this is newsworthy.
It's a man-bites-dog story.
So a tip of the hat to Blind Veterans UK and their branding consultants. It's wonderful to see something go right in this department. You can learn more about the rebranding here.
Thanks to alert reader Edward Tait for the tip.
