Nonprofit Finance Fund

August 17, 2009

Itself a nonprofit, NFF serves other nonprofits as a "philanthropic bank." As a financial advisor and occasional lender, NFF has helped thousands of American nonprofit organizations strengthen their financial health and improve their capacity to serve. Originally a spinout of the New York Community Trust, for twenty-five years it has expanded application of the best from the world of finance (tools, people) to the best in needed services. Any nation that values private philanthropy should have a Nonprofit Financial Fund.

C&G Partners' initial assignment (according to planner Leslie Sherr) was merely to evaluate NFF's PowerPoint presentation graphics. But when C&G kept hearing concerns with the brand itself, concerns focused on the seeming contradiction of "nonprofit" and "finance" and the negative opener "non," a rebranding conversation soon was added to the assignment mix.

C&G's core recommendation:  "Don't change the name (in fact, stop hiding the name behind initials). Instead, use design to recognize, embrace and celebrate the duality of 'finance' and 'nonprofit,' a duality which is the creative engine that drives your mission and also defines your brand."

Geissbuhler's team achieved this, first, with a Univers wordmark that splits and stacks the name, encouraging us to think about its duality (and incidentally, by flushing right, demoting the prominence of 'non') -- and second, by creating a dual-personality symbol that combines a solid, hard-edged foundation of finance (a bar chart too?) with the softer, more spirited flame of a service mission.

To leave no doubt, the tagline "Where Money Meets Mission" confirms the symbol's message.

The symbol's graphic elements have also been used aggressively, as supergraphics,  adding excitement as well as brand presence  to NFF's new visual system:

Credits:
CEO:  Clara Miller, founder and  President
COO: Liz Ortiz
CMO: Jennifer Talansky, VP Marketing & Communications
Planning and design: 
C&G Partners;  Steff Geissbuhler, Brand Identity Practice leader

First impressions:
Strategy: Accept it: not all names are perfect, and sometimes our task is to maximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses -- to make them work. Initials are rarely the answer; they simply add dilution. (Granted: we'll all still use "NFF," as I have in this review, and that's okay. But it's not okay for NFF to impose these initials on us with the presumption that we own them too.)

Design: Try this, students: design a symbol that marries "Discipline" and "Passion."  No matter how good you are, your result is likely to be (1) labored, (2) not in itself a thing of beauty. Well, you can't have everything -- not even if you're Steff.  But if you are Steff, your mark will nevertheless be dynamic, engaging and undeniably communicative.