are you ready to start a non-profit but
you're struggling to pick a great name
for your organization
picking the right name can make a bigger
difference than you might
think in this video i'm going to share
some of the early mistakes i made
picking a name for the non-profit
organization
i started and also some strategies for
making sure that your name
aligns with the brand and mission that
you are setting out to achieve
welcome back my name once again is amber
melanie smith and i make these videos
here on youtube to help aspiring change
makers
with tips and strategies to help you
change the world and live a life of
impact
and purpose so when i first started a
non-profit many years ago
we literally picked our name by
searching through a thesaurus
and choosing some words that seemed like
they embodied what we
were all about and then making an
acronym out of it
that name me3 it stood for motivate
educate empower and engage and it was
supposed to
embody our mission of inspiring people
to get involved
in their communities but we soon
realized every time we talked to someone
they were saying it wrong
spelling it wrong the news was getting
it wrong people couldn't remember what
all those letters stood
for and when they looked at our name
they didn't really understand
what we did as an organization and it
might seem like a small
deal but the fact is that name choice
had a ripple effect across
everything else we were trying to
accomplish not understanding us quickly
and easily meant
that we were having a hard time rallying
the support that we needed to push our
mission
forward so like i said picking a great
name for your organization
is possibly more important than you
realized
so in this video first i'm going to
share a process
that me and my team used to come up with
a new name for the organization and i'll
share a little bit about what that new
name
is later on in this video if you're
curious
i'll share about this process why i
think it was effective for us and could
work for you
and then second i will talk through a
checklist of things you want to make
sure that your nonprofit name
has going for it to maximize public
understanding and support
so when we finally some years later got
around to
changing our organization's name we did
it through a special process
and we finally landed on a name that
we still use today and that people
really
tell us that they love they get what
we're about they love the energy around
the name
and it really captures our brand
personality
so here's what we did when my board and
i decided it was time to come up with a
new name because our old name just was
not serving our mission as effectively
as we would have liked it to
we sat down together and every board
member was charged with coming up with a
list
of five to ten ideas for a new name that
they felt embodied what we were all
about
based on their experiences with our
mission and their work
then we tested out these new names with
our friends with our community partners
and got feedback on our ideas
finally we all came back together as a
team crossed off the ones
that were not going to work for us on
everyone's list and came up with a short
list
of names that we thought could be great
candidates for our new brand
picked a name and went with it and had
much more success after that the simple
act
changing our name quickly had an impact
on our operations people understood what
we were about
and they were excited to support us not
only do i think this process was
effective
because it brought a lot of different
ideas to the table for a new name and
brought a bunch of perspectives
through our board members but it also
allowed
a whole team to be engaged in the
process of picking our new name which
was really inspiring to everyone and
motivated them
to continue our work even more so now
that i've talked through
the process we went through to rebrand
our organization i'm gonna get into part
two of this video which is a checklist
for all of the things a great non-profit
name
has going for it
first on this list is a technical issue
you want to make sure that your name is
not taken by another organization
especially one in your area or with a
similar mission
there's legal reasons to not have
someone else's
copyrighted name and there's also
ethical and marketing reasons not to do
this
the second tip is to avoid using an
actual person's name in the name of the
organization
you do see some organizations named
after celebrities or
past policy makers etc
and the obvious reason is you want to
maintain their legacy through the name
of this organization but the downside of
it would be
one if someone does not know who that is
um it could lead to some confusion about
what the organization does and
two heaven forbid something
happens with that person maybe there's a
scandal attached to their name
there are some cases and nonprofits that
are like this
then you have this position where your
mission is attached to a scandal and
that's just no good
third you want to make sure that the
name is not too long
and this is for obvious reasons you want
it to be easy to remember
and being easy to remember is actually
checklist item number four if you're not
sure if a name
idea that you have is easy to remember
try putting it out there
ask your friends for feedback and then
ask them
in another week if they remember the
name checklist item number five
is to avoid acronyms and
some older non-profits in especially in
the us get away with this because
at this point they're well established
they've been around a long time they
might be a household name
so people know who they are the acronym
isn't hurting them much but if you're a
new non-profit
then an acronym is just another barrier
to people understanding
what you are about um and what you do
now an exception might be if you have a
really super cool acronym
that also spells out a word that also
embodies what your organization is all
about
then you might have some cool branding
things you can do there number six
is that your name is easy to spell and
say this was one of the big issues
with my organization's old name me3
it was not actually as intuitively easy
to spell as you think
because on top of having this name
we also decided that we needed the three
to be um a superscript so it was like
m e cubed and so then do you even know
how to find
the cubed symbol on a keyboard i i can't
remember
uh if there was some way to do it but it
was just the biggest pain and so
we inflicted that upon others trying to
get them to write our name correctly it
was just not good
tip number seven the web domain
of the exact spelling that you were
trying to use for the name of your
organization
is available that's something you want
to check before you decide on a name
having your web domain match your name
of the organization
just adds to its memorability so it's
really easy to find you
if i know that your organization's name
is crafts for kids
and i type in craftsforkids.org and i
find you
that's a good thing you want to be easy
to find now if you change
the four and crafts for kids to the
number four
then you're just adding another slight
barrier to people finding you and
remembering how to
uh locate you online number eight is
related to number seven and that is that
you also want to make sure that your
social media handles
ideally with the same spelling as your
organization are available
and that you can get those before you
finalize
the name for your organization for the
same reasons that it's important to have
a web domain that matches
your name and the organization spelling
of the name and that is
easy to find easy to remember the ninth
item on the checklist which is a really
great tip
is that your name can help you think of
some creative branding opportunities
around the name itself ideally using
some kind of
symbolism that is not trademarked
elsewhere and the tenth
most important factor for deciding your
new name as an organization
is that the name aligns with or at least
alludes to the mission of your
organization
whether it's what you do or who you help
there are some great
examples out there one of them is donors
choose
this is an organization that lets their
donors choose
where to donate money to classrooms and
schools around the country to help
teachers
cover their equipment and supply needs
for school another one is
doctors without borders you kind of get
what they do from the name right
they provide medical and humanitarian
aid
to countries around the world another
great example
teach for america this is an
organization that recruits teachers to
bolster public schools
also all of them are easy to say easy to
spell
and to my knowledge got the social media
handles and domain names that matched
their organization's name for you
creative types coming up with a name for
your organization
might be a really really fun exercise
and for some it might be a very
stressful organ
exercise but hopefully this video and
this checklist has helped you think
through
some of the best strategies out there
for coming up with a name that's going
to serve your cause well
and ultimately that is why you're
starting an organization
is to help people in the community to
make a difference
and to meet that mission so i want to
hear from you are you in the process of
trying to identify a great name for your
organization what are your challenges
what's exciting to you share your ideas
and your thoughts in the comments below
that's all i got for you today
don't forget to check out the rest of
the videos on my channel that are all
about
starting a non-profit running a
non-profit leadership
leadership social impact and
more please like this video share with
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keep growing this great community of
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forget to check out my facebook group
called change the world
or bust where myself and other change
makers are having some great
conversations
thank you so much see you next time