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September 15, 2008

What's In a Name? A Hunger-Relief Group is About to Find Out

This month’s decision by America’s Second Harvest to change its name to Feeding America strikes some fund raisers as risky business. The charity represents 200 food banks, many of which are already facing a tough fund-raising time because of the bad economy.

Other charities that have changed their names have faced trouble.

Gifts to Handgun Control, the advocacy organization, dropped after it changed its name to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence in 2001.

“Seven years later, we still use the old name on the outer envelope of our mailings because responses drop when we don’t,” said Mary Ester, the Brady Campaign’s director of development.

Feeding America dropped the Second Harvest label because it “was a barrier to our mission,” said Wendy MacGregor, the organization’s chief marketing officer. Not only was the name too long, she says, but it was not recognized by many Americans and did not clearly convey what the organization does.

But the charity’s name may not change that — particularly when many of the charity’s member food bank still use Second Harvest in their names and do not plan to drop it.

The charity may also run into trouble when people look for it online. Type “Feeding America” into a search box on Google and you’ll be sent to an online recipe and a cookbook. After that, the search turns up Feeding America’s Hungry Children, a completely different organization, followed by a food drive conducted by CBS.

What’s been your experience with the effect of name changes on charities’ ability to raise money?

— Holly Hall

Monday September 15, 2008 | Permalink

Comments

1. To see a variety of real-world name change success stories, go to www.maguireinc.com and click on Success Stories.

   — The Untied Way    Sep 16, 02:35 PM    #

2. I think the name change is a bad move. “America’s Second Harvest” had a warm feel to it. “Feeding America” sound like some kind of welfare entitlement program. What on earth got into them?

   — Maria Puente-Duany    Sep 16, 02:36 PM    #

3. My organization went through both a reorganization and a name change. On the plus side, we have built new funding relationships under the new name. But on the minus side we field many ongoing queries – more than 18 months after the renaming – that indicate that our longest-running donor relationships are still muddled due to confusion on the organization’s structure and name. The brand will take a long time to build. I’m sure that “Feeding America” will invest heavily in building its new brand, and my organization’s been unwilling to invest much in the way of funds in building its brand equity.

   — Michael    Sep 16, 02:37 PM    #

4. I like the new name, I think it says exactly what they do. I couldn’t disagree more with Maria. Dude, what are you thinking with that comment?

   — Gideon Tobin    Sep 16, 02:52 PM    #

5. When my team led the name-change and rebranding efforts for an international organization, we involved our constituent base in the decision and name selection process. Six month before the new name was chosen, we began informing donors and partners that we were going to change the name, and kept them updated along the way. For 12 months after the name was chosen and everything was re-branded, in every communication we reminded our constituents of what our name had been. After this procedure was followed, donations increased.

   — Kevin Feldman    Sep 16, 05:53 PM    #

6. I worked for a nonprofit that merged with another and created a new name. This was eight years ago, and sometimes even employees still have trouble with the correct, full name of the organization. If renaming is to be successful for a nonprofit, clear communication with all groups is integral to the organization’s continued success.

   — Amelia Brandt    Sep 19, 12:48 PM    #

7. I work overseas, while the bulk of our communications are through mobile phone text messaging – the rest of the communicating would be done by teletype if we would let them. So changing a name that becomes so familiar does not make sense. We have been careful to choose names that left open the scope and simple enough that it rolled off the tongue- in our case words that people of other languages felt comfortable using and understanding.

   As for Second Harvest I am not so sure Feeding America was the best move.

   — Doug McKay    Sep 20, 09:45 AM    #

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