What a gem of a book. I just loved it. While it is clearly written for executive directors, development directors, and board members of nonprofits to read to learn about branding their nonprofit organizations, I think the book is just as applicable to small and large for-profits. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has a nonprofit or business and needs to have a brand identity that potential users, members, donors, customers, or clients can embrace. The book has the following 12 chapters:
1. What's that branding buzz I hear?
2. Anatomy of a Design Brief
3. The roles and responsibilities of the branding team
4. Getting the team ready to birth the brand
5. What designers do and how they do it
6. The design process
7. Arriving at a new brand identiy that everyone can embrace
8. From inspiration to implementation
9. Implementing your new brand
10. Storytelling and the brand
11. Management, staff, and branding
12. On the evolution of branding
This book is very well written and so well organized. It was an incredibly easy read and jam-packed with so much wonderful information. In the Appendix there is a sample branding guide, a sample graphic standards guide, and two sample PPT presentations on branding. They significantly add to the value of the book. And there is also a "Brand Glossary" included.
What I got from this book is that you can put together a sound business plan, and you can provide a wonderful service or product, but you also must seriously think about packaging your nonprofit or business so it can be effectively marketed. And if you follow the steps in this book to brand your nonprofit or business and find you can't create a masterpiece of a brand, then you will discover that you probably don't have a sound business plan or that you don't really provide a wonderful service or product. If you understand what I am saying here, then you will understand how simply marvelous this book is and how helpful it can be to tweeking your idea for an enitity or improving upon your existing going concern. 5 stars!