This week, I read a recent piece from Candid about the dreaded overhead myth titled Changing the nonprofit narrative: Debunking the overhead myth (again).
Two thoughts came to mind right away.
First, how are we still having this conversation?
At this point, the pattern is clear. Lower overhead has never been the thing that drives impact. Strong organizations do.
And strong organizations are built through investment in people, systems, leadership, and infrastructure.
The companies that last aren’t operating with the bare minimum. They’re built to sustain and grow their products and services over time. That kind of stability takes intention and investment.
Why does that logic make sense everywhere else, but falls apart when it comes to nonprofits?
(Stepping down from the soapbox… for a second.)
The second thought connects to something I’ve been pushing on for years, and it rarely shows up in the overhead conversation.
Brand. Where does it fall?
Overhead or capacity?
Where the “Ick” Starts
For many nonprofit leaders, branding lands in the same mental category as overhead.
- Extra
- Transactional
- Flashy
- Pushy
- Disconnected from the mission.
Or, more honestly… uncomfortable.
I call it the “ick factor.”
Most resistance to branding doesn’t come from a dislike of clarity. It comes from an incorrect assumption about branding is
- Logos without meaning
- Flashy ads
- Websites with all of the bells and whistles
- Taglines or jingles that get stuck in your head.
All of which are not applicable or appropriate for most mission-driven organizations.
So when someone suggests investing in brand, the uncomfortable reaction feels reasonable. Why spend limited resources on something that doesn’t move the mission forward?
That Version of Branding isn’t the Complete Picture
The logo, tagline, website and advertising is the communication of a brand, not actually the brand itself. When you assume that’s all there is to branding, you’re succumbing to yet another myth.
But when brand is grounded in the mission and applied across the organization, the work becomes clearer, easier to support, and easier to grow.
What Happens When Brand in Overlooked
This is where the overlap with the overhead conversation becomes clear.
Because underinvestment in brand shows up in similar operational ways:
- Teams describe the organization in different ways
- Programs feel loosely connected instead of part of something cohesive
- Fundraising takes more time and effort to gain traction
- Donors struggle to see the full impact of their support
- Volunteers leave unsure how their time contributed
- Partnerships stall because the value isn’t clear
None of these issues will show up neatly on a budget line, but they’ll show up in every program, every day, and in every interaction with the people who care about your mission.
They’ll show up in losses of time, effort, resources, impact, and momentum.
What This Looks Like in Practice: LSS Case Study
This dynamic becomes even more visible in larger, more complex organizations. Take my old employer, Lutheran Social Services (LSS) for example.
LSS operates more than 20 programs across 25+ counties in Ohio, with services ranging from food pantries and homeless shelters to domestic violence support, senior living, and affordable housing. It’s a $50M+ organization, supported by federal funding, donors, and earned revenue.
The work is meaningful and expansive. We impacting the lives of thousands of Ohioans every year. Yet, after years of program expansions and acquisitions, staff and leadership turnover, and donor attribution, explaining full picture felt harder than it should.
We operated each program in a silo, with it’s own policies and procedures, marketing and fundraising campaigns, and communication channels. There were 11 different websites, 4 Facebook pages, 4 direct mail streams, multiple versions of mismatched logos and little continuity in messaging.
Most donors understood one program, not the organization as a whole. Volunteers connected to a single area of work and weren’t aware of other programs. Even our employees weren’t always aware of the breadth of our services. In general, community awareness didn’t reflect the full scope of impact.
This kind of friction was limiting our ability to grow our donor base or recruit new volunteers.
The Incorrect Instinct
When fundraising results stall, the natural reaction is to increase activity.
- More campaigns.
- Extra outreach.
- Increased program-level marketing.
That approach adds volume, but it doesn’t solve the underlying issue. Without a shared foundation, more activity often creates more inconsistency.
Instead shift your focus to the structure underneath it all. Your brand foundation.
The Work That Builds Capacity
At LSS, we rebuilt the foundation that allowed the organization to show up more clearly and authentically, both internally and externally.
Here’s what we did:
- Built a master brand and sub-brand structure (LSS Network of Hope)
- Defined a central brand proposition to articulate who the organization is
- Built program and audience-specific value propositions
- Created a unified messaging platform across donors, volunteers, employees, and clients
- Developed a modern visual identity
- Replaced 11 disconnected websites with one integrated experience
- Aligned fundraising and marketing into a single, cohesive strategy
The mission and values stayed consistent throughout the process. We clarified the language and built shared understanding across the organization.
What Changed
Once that foundation was in place, the impact showed up quickly:
- More than 60% of surveyed audiences said the new structure helped them better understand the organization’s full impact
- Brand perception shifted from “well-meaning” and “traditional” to “innovative” and “effective”
- Net Promoter Score reached 67 overall and 74 among donors
- Website traffic increased by 35%, with stronger engagement across sessions
- Online donations nearly doubled over four years
LSS became more visible in the community and easier to understand and support.
Why Brand Should be a Part of the Overhead Conversation
Work like this often gets grouped into overhead but that framing misses what’s actually happening. Without clarity around your brand, your teams spend countless hours re-explaining the work, rebuilding campaigns, and trying to connect disconnected messages.
With clarity, impact messaging carries through every campaign. Supporters feel engaged in the mission. This makes alignment and loyalty happen faster. Your impact has something to build on.
That’s capacity.
And that’s where brand belongs.
Rethinking the Investment
The overhead myth pushes nonprofits to minimize anything that isn’t direct service. That mindset leaves a lot of organizations stretched thin.
A stronger approach focuses on building the foundation that supports long-term impact.
Brand Belongs in Your Foundation of Mission
Without it, teams spend more time trying to answer basic questions:
- Who are we?
- What do we do?
- Why does it matter?
- How do these pieces connect?
With it, those answers become clear and everything else has something to build on.
When Brand Stops Supporting the Work
If brand feels unclear or disconnected from your day-to-day work—or your team struggles to connect your mission to sustained support—those are signs your foundation needs strengthening.
When brand is working the way it should, it carries through everything.
- Programs
- Policies
- Procedures
- Messaging
- Fundraising
- Hiring
- Strategic planning
So, it plays a direct role in how your organization grows.
Ready to Take a Closer Look?
If you’re starting to see signs of this in your own organization—misalignment, inconsistent messaging, or campaigns that take more effort than they should—it may be time to step back and look at the foundation.
I work with nonprofit leaders to clarify their brand in a way that supports real-world execution, not just surface-level outputs.
If you want to explore what brand clarity could look like for your organization, let’s talk!
We’ll start with where things feel unclear and map out what stronger alignment could unlock for your organization.
