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Writer's pictureNicole Shaia

Living By Your Brand








 

I’m on a new journey in my business, and like all new journeys, it’s uncomfortable. But in the spirit of living by my own brand, I am challenging myself to push my boundaries and own my new path.


What does it mean to live out your own brand anyway?


To explain this a bit more, I want to share a bit of my story with you. I started out consulting to help make more of an impact and empower people to win more funding so that they could fuel their mission. I never set out to be a fundraiser and I most certainly never set out to be a brand strategist. I know that I love the nonprofit sector. My career journey has honestly been rocky, filled with lots of highs and lots of lows, but it has provided me with a platform for so much healing and personal growth that I could have never imagined. So, I would say, it’s been worth it.


As I began my career, I loved creating strategies to engage people and enroll them in an impactful vision through outreach and communication. The relationships and partnerships I developed were authentic, so naturally, more opportunities grew from there and eventually led to funding. Early on in my career, I experienced firsthand the challenges and limitations around funding. I saw people in need of critical services and money as the obstacle to help reach them. So I hustled. And with a fire in my belly, I raised more money and created more revenue opportunities to help reach more people.


I didn’t just do it haphazardly. I did it with intention. More importantly, I did it by leveraging the brand of an organization and integrating it into my process so authentically that it resonated with people in an undeniable way.


I never thought about my work that way and it’s taken me about 15 years to own what was so special about my process. Better late than never, I guess! I always started with identifying the Mission, Vision, Values, and Benefit Statement of each organization. I would read every annual report and conduct independent research to learn about the social problems we were trying to solve. I immersed myself completely and became a full on brand ambassador for each and every organization that I worked for. I would even discover new and exciting ways to reframe old language and refresh it with messaging that resonated with people.


And a lot of the time, even for larger and more established organizations, these elements were not clear or were siloed. So, like any innovator, I blazed my own trail and found a way to take what I was given and transform it into something different. As luck would have it, that “something different” would often mean positive revenue results and growth.


When it happens and you are able to see a brand come to life and fully integrated, it’s electric. People get motivated and supporters quickly become loyal partners. It’s a ripple effect that makes some incredible waves.


Sounds amazing, right? It is amazing, but also, it’s really freaking hard! It’s easy to operate within the status quo. Most of the time, the right leaders and/or talent may not be in place to help nurture this transformation. Or asking the tough questions isn’t empowered because of internal politics. Throughout my career, I constantly felt like an outsider.


It’s difficult to integrate a brand into all aspects of an organization. I was able to carve out my own branding techniques within my fundraising marketing, messaging, and communications. But that often meant experiencing resistance in various areas simply because, as a whole, the organization wasn’t fully living by its brand.


Embracing your brand and honoring its authenticity at all levels will allow you and others around you to reach new heights when it comes to funding and building momentum. That’s why I have been able to excel at revamping funding programs or establishing them from the ground up.


Look, change doesn’t happen overnight, but there are other ways to start small. Truly living by your brand means that you are committed to nurturing the authenticity of what you stand for and the purpose behind your brand. When you are able to connect your brand to your everyday life or business, that is where you find your full growth potential.


Now, I'm on a journey to explore how I can live by my own brand even more authentically. I'm not going to lie, it is HARD. But I am committed to growth and excited for what's next!


Are you living by your brand to the fullest? Take a quick brand quiz today to find out.

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