What would you think about an organization that intentionally mislead its potential clients?

– That advertised itself as providing a range of products or services, when in fact it only offered one?

– That presented itself as being here to “help you”, when in reality its sole purpose is to fulfill its own mission, regardless of what you wanted for yourself?

There are many ways that organizations end up being very different from what you’d expect. Sometimes the gap between how they present themselves and what they do is a result of overreaching (e.g., Comcast), or the result of not caring (e.g., United). Sometimes these organizations trumpet their so called values and fail to live up to them (e.g., BP), and sometimes these organizations make basic mistakes (e.g., Target). These gaps are regrettable, and the organizations that make these mistakes usually want to close these gaps.

But what about when organizations want to maintain the gap between how they present themselves and who they really are?

These organizations are built to deceive.

When an organization is Built to Deceive

Marketing and Physical Appearance: Fake expectations

Organizations that are build to deceive craft themselves to look — from the outside — like a certain kind of organization.

They use marketing materials (advertisements, ‘yellow page’ listings, websites) to project an image of themselves that leads potential customers to expect a certain set of services & products. They use their physical locations to mimic how an authentic business of the same type might look (e.g., debt consolidation companies locate their offices near actual banks). Their employees dress to look the part (e. g., ‘debt consolidation services’ workers wear jackets & name badges like bank tellers).

These organizations even choose names that intentionally misrepresent who owns them, who started them, and whose interests they serve (e.g., First National Credit Services).

All of these strategies help to create a set of expectations that will never be fulfilled by the organization.

Customer Interaction: Where deceit is revealed

It’s in the actual service or product they provide, and the tactics that they use to get the customer to buy once they are in the store, that reveals the true intentions of an organization that is built to deceive. These organizations have their employees follow misleading scripts, perform fake tests and evaluations (had you personality tested recently?), offer financial terms that misrepresent costs, and even offer customers factually incorrect information.

Worse, they use pressure tactics to prey on the customers’ emotions, hopes and insecurities.

An organization that is built to deceive is like a Trojan Horse. On the outside, the organization looks like it’s offering you a gift, a rescue, a solution. On the inside, it’s filled with warriors ready to press you into submission.

Why Build to Deceive?

Organizations build to deceive:

• When they believe that their true mission is unappealing.
• When they recognize that their missions are not in the best interests of their clients.
• When they are embarrassed by the techniques they need to use to get customers to buy.
• When they think they can only get customers if they pretend to be what they are not.

Organizations that are build to deceive are not proud of their missions. They are unwilling or unable to sell their mission on it merits– they resort to deceit because they don’t believe they can appeal to truth.

Members & Employees of Organizations that are Built to Deceive

An organization that is Built to Deceive:

• Has employees who are willing to accept a lie as the premise of their organization’s identity
• Has employees who accept that their work for the company will hurt some customers
• Has employees who don’t believe that customers should be treated with respect
• Has employees that cannot be completely proud of their work
• Has employees that are willing to act unethically in order to sell their product

An Organizational Type that is Built to Deceive

You might be wondering, what kinds of organizations (or industries) are built to deceive?   Organizations that are built to deceive include payday ‘loan’ centers, ‘rent to own’ furniture stores, debt consolidation ‘services’, and any business that preys on the ignorance and desperation of potential customers.

The very worst of these are organizations known as “Crisis Pregnancy Centers”.

Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs) are one of the most common forms of intentionally inauthentic organizations. They are built to deceive the women and the communities they supposedly serve.  (Here is a list of these tactics, prepared by Public Eye.org, drawn from a commonly used CPC manual.)

CPCs advertise themselves using languages of care, hope and empowerment. They have names that suggest a full range of care options, offered in a consultative environment where the client has the opportunity to decide for herself. CPCs locate themselves next to, in the same building as, and across the street from authentic reproductive health care centers as often as they can. They attempt to look feminine, and pleasantly clinical, without any design elements that might suggest that they are not medical clinics, but are instead religious ministries.

Crisis Pregnancy Centers present themselves as being there to help the girl or woman who is in crisis. “‘Pregnant and Scared? You have options.‘” Only thing is, we won’t share them all with you, Instead, we’ll do our best to pressure you into the ‘decision’ we believe in.”

“Health Care Clinics” or “Ministries”?

CPCs claim to assist women faced with unplanned pregnancies, but they are not legitimate health clinics staffed by licensed healthcare professionals.

Unlike comprehensive health care clinics, they give women medically inaccurate information and pressure them to carry unintended pregnancies to term. These fake clinics often pose as women’s health clinics, but they do not provide abortion services or referrals, and they do not provide balanced information on family planning options like condoms or emergency contraception. For example, a Congressional report prepared for Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) in 2006 found that 87% of Crisis Pregnancy Centers provided false or misleading information, in particular making false claims about a relationship between abortion and breast cancer, infertility, or mental illness.

Instead, CPC are a deceitful type of storefront access point for religious organizations that most often have an anti-abortion, anti-sex, and anti-women emphasis. For example, in California, umbrella religious organizations, including Care Net, Heartbeat International, and National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, operate 90 percent of CPCs.

With this Trojan Horse approach, clients are promised “pregnancy counseling” writ large but instead are given information about a much narrower (and often religiously saturated) options, using deceptive ‘sales’ practices and emotional manipulation.

In a few better cases, these crisis pregnancy clinics offer prenatal medical care, adoption agency referrals, scholarship resources, and other forms of support for women who want to continue their pregnancies. While they intentionally fail to provide information about preventing pregnancy, preventing sexually-transmitted diseases, (contraception), or terminating pregnancy, they decline to pressure women.

These honest clinics are not only few and far between. Even worse, these honest pregnancy centers are also indistinguishable from fake medical centers with an intentionally deceitful agenda.

Truth In Advertising

Some municipalities have adopted or have introduced legislation designed to require CPCs to disclose the true nature of their organizations. For example, The City of Baltimore adopted legislation to require pregnancy counseling clinics that do not provide abortion counseling or services to post signs indicating that policy.  In New York City, proposed legislation would require the centers to disclose to clients that they do not provide abortion services or contraceptive devices, or make referrals to organizations that do. Centers that don’t have licensed medical providers on-site would also have to disclose this information. The legislation also would require the centers to keep clients’ personal information confidential.  (Wall Street Journal)

While some would claim that CPC’s self-promotion efforts are “free speech”, the Supreme Court has ruled that advertising is not “free speech”. These regulations focus on requiring a minimal level of accuracy in advertising. This legislation does not require that faith-based CPCs provide abortion or birth control info over their religious objections. (Change.org)

Why can’t organizations tell the truth about who they are?

There are plenty of women who, when faced with an unplanned pregnancy, would welcome some spiritual, social and medical support to continue these pregnancies, to offer their babies for adoption or to become single mothers with childcare, eduction and employment opportunities.

As one commenter noted (on a NARAL site who’s address I can’t find):

You would think that most of these clinics would proudly trumpet the fact that they are not abortion providers. The fact that they are so resistant to this disclosure speaks volumes about their willingness to deceive their patients for their own ideological purposes.

If these organizations truly believed in their missions, and believed in the righteousness of their missions, they would not need to hide their missions from their potential customers. Instead, they would advertise their missions and their values to draw customers to them honestly.

Claiming their true and honest identity might inspire these organizations to serve women and communities in new and more transparent ways that would make their missions more powerful.

To my mind, an organization can’t claim to be promoting a high moral purpose when it has to use deceit to do it. I’d like to rename the entire organizational type. Instead of calling them “Crisis Pregnancy Centers” we could call them “Maternal Ministries“.

If Maternal Ministries lived up to this more aspirational, more accurate name for who they are or could be, they might be inspired to share their religious missions in an honest, confident, compelling way. Women would feel invited to consider their own moral and/or spiritual beliefs when confronted with reproductive health care concerns. And, women could be in charge of their lives using accurate information, professional health care services, and supportive personal guidance.

Organizations that are Build to Deceive are hiding a fundamental truth about themselves. Their commitment to sustaining these lies keeps them from exploring how they can more fully and more authentically serve what they claim are their missions. In the end, who they really deceive are themselves.

See also:
Faking an Identity: How Inauthentic Organizations Dress Up
Use Real Authenticity to Establish Fake Authenticity: Sarah Palin shows organizations how
Trojan Horse image from PlayingMantis.com

It’s not often that I get to follow up a post about an organization’s disappointing actions with a post celebrating that very organization’s next step. Given how easy it is to pay attention to and be outraged by the bad actions, it is all the more important to devote some energy to positive resolutions– so share this post!

Have you seen these headlines?

M·A·C to Donate its Global Profits from the M·A·C Rodarte Makeup Collection to Benefit Newly Created Women and Girls of Juarez Initiative

M·A·C and Rodarte apologize to the victims and their families in Juarez, the people of Mexico, the Mexican Government and concerned global citizens

MAC Cosmetics, the company that generated so much ill will with its thoughtless choice to name a cosmetics collection after the epicenter of femicide, Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, has made a full apology.

MAC’s ultimate response addresses all five of the key components of successful apology (as outlined by John Kador, and summarized here):

• Recognize the offense
• Take responsibility
• Show remorse
• Make restitution
• Prevent repetition

MAC’s apology is effective because it contains all five of these components. But MAC’s apology goes even further:   MAC’s apology is authentic.

MAC’s Authentic Apology for the Ciudad Juarez Collection

MAC’s apology is authentic because MAC took went two steps beyond what’s “effective”:

1. MAC linked their apology to their collective identity and purpose, and

2. MAC designed into their organization an ongoing process of attention to and restitution for their offense.

Look at this excerpt from MAC’s apology:

“We are deeply sorry and apologize to everyone we offended, especially the victims, the women and girls of Juarez and their families. We have heard the response of concerned global citizens loud and clear and are doing our very best to right our wrong. The essence of M·A·C is to give back and care for the community and our initial handling of this makeup collection was not reflective of M·A·C’s values. M·A·C and Rodarte are committed to using these learnings to raise awareness on this important issue and to leverage our unique platform to help the women and girls of Juarez,” said M·A·C President John Demsey.

MAC’s Authentic Apology is linked to the organization’s identity

MAC’s official statement uses phrases like these to show a link to “who they are” as a company:

• The essence of MAC is to give back and care for the community
• Our initial handling … was not reflective of MAC’s values
• (We are) Committed to leverage our unique platform

Statements like these demonstrate that MAC understands that their offensive action was not only offensive in general, but also was offensive because it contradicted who MAC claims and wants to be as an organization.

MAC’s statements show that MAC is also apologizing for being inauthentic, and for damaging their stakeholders’ trust in them as an organization.

MAC’s Authentic Apology is built into the organization itself.

MAC has designed into its organization an ongoing process of awareness of and restitution for their offense.

Many blog posts and tweets about MAC’s Juarez Apology focus on just one component of MAC’s apology– their decision to donate all of the profits from the collection to initiatives to reduce violence against women in Ciudad Juarez. This is an important decision, but not as important as the way that MAC is implementing this decision.

MAC is building their restitution into MAC’s existing systems, relationships, and capabilities.

MAC is going to use the same process, the same stakeholder connections and the same expertise that they use to deliver their support for their well-regarded HIV/AIDS initiatives to deliver ongoing support to The Women and Girls of Juarez Initiative.

As the Facebook statement explains:

M·A·C has a longstanding tradition of service in Mexico, supporting important social causes in the country such as HIV prevention and treatment. Since 2002, the M·A·C AIDS Fund has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to local entities, including Fundación Eudes, La Casa de la Sal, A.C., Ser Humano, A.C., Mesón de la Misericordia Divina A.C., Pirana Studio, and Fundación Unidos por un México Vivo.

By building their support for the Women of Juarez into the organization itself, MAC accomplishes two things:

1. MAC makes sure that as an organization, it has a process for staying aware of issues related to violence against women, and

2. MAC makes their support ongoing (rather than just a one shot deal).

These actions demonstrate that MAC actually does care, and has made a commitment to continue to care, about violence against women.

You can expect that MAC’s apology is not superficial, because they themselves have connected their apology and their method of restitution to their core identity. MAC has reflected on its values, acknowledges that it has acted inauthentically with regard to its values, and demonstrated a renewed commitment to these values in their apology process and outcomes.

Let’s celebrate MAC’s authentic apology.

It is shameful that MAC didn’t catch this problem before it happened; it is admirable that they are working towards an authentic apology. An apology that is linked to MAC’s identity and built into MAC’s system is real, and it will make a real difference.

For more of the story of how beauty bloggers pushed MAC to apologize, see Healing Beauty’s posts, starting with  Success! MAC Rodarte to Donate ALL Profits to the Women of Juarez.

They are all damaging some organization’s reputation, by causing "collateral reputation damage ® ".

Sarah Palin is causing collateral reputation damage to Palin Wine.

Bill Marriott is causing collateral reputation damage to The Marriott Hotels & Resorts Corporation.

John Templeton Jr., MD, is causing collateral reputation damage to the John Templeton Foundation .

Palin, Marriott and Templeton — perhaps unintentionally yet certainly unavoidably — are all causing damage to organizations with which they are associated. These associations range from the spurious to the serious, but in each case, the associations are leading the organizations’ public stakeholders to downgrade the organizations’ reputations.

What is Collateral Reputation Damage ® ?

Collateral reputation damage is damage done to an organization’s reputation when advocacy by individuals or groups who may or may not be associated with the organization is interpreted by stakeholders as being action by the organization itself. It is collateral damage, not intentional damage, because the folks taking action don’t intend to damage the organization’s reputation. Instead, the damage occurs through"guilt by association".

Three Cases, Three pathways to damage

In all three cases:

1. The organization and the individual share the same distinctive name.
2. The organizations & their products have lost public support.
3. The organizations themselves are innocent.

Although the cases of Palin, Marriott and Templeton share these three features, each one has some distinctive elements worth examining in more detail. With this post, I’ll explain the concept of collateral reputation damage and illustrate it with the simplest case, that of Sarah Palin and Palin Wine. In subsequent posts, I’ll unpack what makes the Marriott and Templeton cases so interesting. …

Tarred by the same-name brush

The easiest way for collateral damage to occur is when the organization (or product) and an individual share the same name. This is what’s happening in the case of Palin Wines– especially with their Syrah.

There is absolutely no relationship between the organization that produces Palin Wines and the politician Sarah Palin. The association between Palin Syrah and Palin (Sarah) is clearly coincidental; everyone knows that Sarah Palin lives in Alaska, an area not known for its vineyards. And Sarah Palin is more interested in the war on terror than the preservation of terroir.

Yet, the name "Palin" conjures up a certain set of values, which get transferred from one Palin to the other, through the cognitive processes of attribute transfer. People who do not support what Palin does or what she stands for establish a negative assessment of the Palin wine. When they think of Palin Wine, they think less of it, because they associate it with a person whose actions, etc. they disagree with.

Association leads to loss of public support…

Even though only a name is shared between Palin and Palin , liberal consumers have responded negatively to the wine. Maybe they are unconsciously acting on their distaste for what the Governor advocates, maybe they are jokingly demonstrating that they can’t swallow a ‘conservative’ perspective.

Whatever it is, some liberal customers are (either jokingly or unconsciously) rejecting the Palin Wine as a way to demonstrate that they reject what it stands for in their minds. They have chosen not to order this wine in restaurants or to purchase it at wine stores, and this has lead to a steep decline in sales of Palin Wines. (It’s not clear whether right-wing wine consumers have increased their consumption of Palin Syrah.)

… Even though the organization is innocent.

Down in Chile, Viñedos Organicos Emiliana, lead by winemaker Alvaro Espinoza (the winemaker who introduced biodynamic viticulture into South America) works hard to produce their organic wines. Over at North Berkeley Imports, they "look for independent growers who… ideally farm their land naturally (often organically or biodynamically)" and who share their vision.

Even though their organizations have no relationship at all to Sarah Palin or to right-wing politics, these organizations are being penalized. Their reputations have been damaged, through no fault of their own.

And the irony is —

Both the winemaker and wine importer are organizations that are committed to values that many liberals (the same folks dismissing the wine) would otherwise embrace.

Special Halloween Edition

In the spirit of Halloween, a time of costumes, treats and tricks, I’m inspired to start a list of ways that organizations dress themselves up so that they appear to be what they are not. Some of these terms and concepts are familiar. Some terms I’ve invented (4, 5, 6) and two need better names (7 & 8).

1. Astroturfing: Pretending to be a grassroots organization when you are not, so that the organization looks like an authentic representation of citizens’ or consumers’ self-defined interests.. Examples include the Center for Consumer Freedom and Working Families for Wal-Mart .

2. Good-coating : Claiming that your products or services are socially-responsible or benefit society, when they don’t. A deceptive or misleading use of cause marketing.

3. Greenwashing : Misleading the public about the organization’s environmental practices or history, and/or misleading the public about the environmental benefits of your organization’s product or service. Similarly, the term green sheen describes when organizations attempt to appear that they are adopting practices beneficial to the environment.

4. Potemkins : Presenting your organization as being larger, more impressive, more positive etc. than it is (often through communication practices such as online presence, business address, promotional materials, etc.) The intent of the organization’s presentation not to convey truth but instead to misleadingly impress outsiders.

5. Reputation squatting ®: When a smaller or newer organization takes on some or all of the name of an older, larger and well-known organization that also has a positive reputation, when there is no relationship between the organizations. The intent is to free-ride on the benefits of the famous organization’s reputation. Examples include: Princeton Ski Shops, Princeton Driving School, and the Princeton Review college-preparation business . None of these organizations has any connection to Princeton University, but they all benefit from the positive halo of the Princeton name. An accidental example of negative reputation-squatting? Palin Syrah.

6. Trojan Horses: When the organization takes a name and a public profile designed to appeal to a certain values set, which covers its actual intentional antagonism to that value set. Examples include the American Pregnancy Association , TeenBrakes, and Care Net. A special type of Trojan Horse is the GONGO.

GONGO: Government-organized (GO) non-governmental organizations (+NGOs ) created by a government or by government officials, their relatives and friends, that support the government, often by using money intended for the civil society. [note: These are such an absurd contradiction that they'd be funny, if they were not so destructive of the concept of government for the people.]

7. “We just made it up, and we like it”: When an organization creates a fake name, fake history, fake founders, fake heritage, etc. (often for marketing proposes) and then adopts this to help define the organization. Examples include Thornberg & Forester, Gilly Hicks, and The Heartland Foods Corporation.

8. Values Portfolio Contradiction: When an organization uses tactics that contradict their values, such as when PETA uses sexism & misogyny to promote animal rights.

More Kinds of Faking? What should be added to this list? Any good examples, or new types? Give us some good ideas, and I’ll send you some Snickers bars.

Happy Halloween!

Is this organization being authentic by giving itself
a fake name?

photofrom digitalcontnentproducer.com

There’s a funny little news tidbit in Sunday’s New York Times Business section, right below Tommy Hilfiger’s engagement announcement (as if that’s business news?). It’s a paragraph about a design & communications firm, Thornberg & Forester . Neither Thornberg nor Forester exist or ever existed as real people. Thornberg & Forester is an advertising agency with a fake name .

Is there any way that giving your organization a fake name is a good idea?

Sometimes, fake names can work.

There are lots of organizations with fake business names, names that don’t refer to any real person or place. Often, these fake names are retail brands (e.g., Hollister, Victoria’s Secret, Gilly-Hicks). While it sometimes does bother me that these brands have fake origins, they can be effective when the names are used by the people within the organization to craft the organization’s products. The fake name is supposed to keep organization members aligned around the aspirational brand identity that the name evokes.

The name ‘Thornberg & Forester" is supposed to sound stodgy. The name follows a naming convention that, in advertising as well as other industries, is intended to establish the credibility of the organization on the basis of the reputations of the founders (e.g., Saatchi & Saatchi ).

If Thornberg & Forester was trying to present itself as something it was not, by choosing a name that conjures up images of a white shoe law firm (like a Sidley & Austin ), we’d think of is as a poseur. We would fault it for pretending to be something it is not– a sure definition of being inauthentic .

But Thornberg & Forester isn’t trying to fool us by presenting itself as it wishes to be seen. Instead, Thornberg & Forester present itself as being the opposite of who it wants to be .

Why the fake name?

Supposedly, the organization chose their fake name as a way to get attention for the organization (which is small and new) by helping it stand out. The firm’s founders argue that this name makes the organization distinctive.

Tim Leberecht , writing over at cnet news.com/Matter/Anti-Matter and his company’s frogblog, explains it as:

…the fake name that promises one thing and delivers another , a situationist way of manipulating the public perception."

Leberecht applauds Thornberg & Forester for this organizational-branding strategy, concluding:

Nowadays, you must meta-tag your brand if you want to stand out from the crowd. You must generate attention by distraction. Your brand story is the story of your brand.

But does this fake name really work for Thornberg & Forester?

Beyond getting them attention (e.g., the NYT mentions, a few blog posts ) what does this fake name do for them?

– The fake name demonstrates the organization’s cleverness. The name is a "joke" If you are in on the joke, Thornberg & Forester looks like & itself to be (maybe) lighthearted, playful, unconventional, and so on.

But for how long does the name get read as a joke? People get tired of hoaxes and jokes . At what point does the fake name work against them, by not supporting the identity that they really claim or want?

– The fake name might be an effective tool for sorting out potential clients. On the plus side, clients who are in on the joke might be attracted by the organization’s sense of humor. The name might help Thornberg & Forester attract clients with a soupcon of rebelliousness or a comparably lighthearted approach to parts of the business. Maybe clients who are in on the joke are more inclined to appreciate the kind of creativity that characterizes Thornberg & Forester’s work.

On the negative side, clients may approach the organization expecting the firm to be like its name… those who are attracted initially by the the surface symbolism of the firm’s name may be disappointed, if not annoyed, to be mislead in this way. As PR guru Ed Moed explains, Thornberg & Forester’s fake name is, at best, confusing.

Thornberg & Forester’s use of a fake name also raises some important authenticity questions:

1. Why didn’t the three founders use their own names? (Was "Thornberg & Forester" just a way to around fighting over who got first billing?) What’s so wrong about being Keihner, Matz, & Meredith ?

2. If you listen to Thornberg & Forester, it says that the firm

… believes all projects and campaigns must start with a powerful
message coupled with the right medium to communicate it. The team
brings together innovative people who deliver bold ideas by generating
creative with a strategic backbone.

But, what exactly is the ‘powerful message’ from Thornberg & Forester that starts their relationships with potential clients? Can effective corporate communications, and relationships, start with an intentional misrepresentation?

Is this organization being authentic by giving itself a fake name?

What do you think?

Share your comments, below. And, if you enjoyed this post, use the ‘share this’ link to email it to a friend.

Originally posted  June 16

Technorati Tags: brand building , image , corporate names , Thornberg & Forester , authenticity , authentic , identity

“You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.”

Would this advice make any sense if, instead, it was:

“You catch more flies with bee vomit than vinegar”?

Heck no. That’s why it makes a difference when organizations have positive, attractive, and descriptive names.

Names matter

Names convey identity. They can be crafted to emphasize one particular organizational quality or another, and they can highlight the positive or the negative. Because a name can reflect any facet of the organization, it matters what part of an organization’s identity its name conveys.

That’s why, while thinking about problems related to putting brand names on nonprofit organizations, I was once again annoyed by the label we use to mark this category of organizations. We use a negative label – they are not -for-profit – that tells us not what these organizations are, but what they are not. This whole category of marvelous organizations, dedicated to doing good things, is given a label that describes them as being somehow deficient.

Negative or Positive?

The nonprofit label also describes this whole type of organization as an exception to the norm of organizations, rather than a form of organizations that is sui generis. By labeling them nonprofits, we treat for-profit, moneymaking organizations as the universal standard, the normal, the desirable. By comparison, both literally and figuratively, nonprofit organizations are labeled as though they don’t even merit a category of their own.

Subordinate or of Equal Value?

In critical literary theory, the subtype of a larger more prominent category is called the “marked” category. Marked categories require an extra adjective to explain their place within the larger category. Marked categories require modification because they somehow don’t live up to the universal label. Common marked categories are female doctor, African American, male dancer, hybrid car, and so on. By marking a category of organizations as nonprofit, we are saying semantically that the whole lot of them is abnormal!

Critical literary theory also reminds us that where terms are paired together, the pairing is usually hierarchical. The universal category is more important and more valuable than the marked category. Therefore, a nonprofit is not only missing something (a profit orientation)and also abnormal, it is even not quite as good as a for-profit organization.

Well, I’ve decided that I’m tired of all of these important, noble, necessary organizations being labeled as though they are missing something critical. And, rather than complaining about it, I’m proposing a solution:

Let’s call these organizations “for-purpose” organizations.

After all, what is really important to distinguishing these organizations, the idea that they are not about money, or the idea that they are about their mission?

Focus on what these organizations are, not what they aren’t.

“For-purpose organizations” can exist alongside “for-profit organizations”, using symmetrical category labels rather than dominant and subordinate labels. We can take a tip from “pro-life” and “pro-choice activist” (a.k.a. anti-choice and anti-life activists, respectively) and label both types of organizations by what is most important to them: purpose or profit. Both types then have labels that are accurate and positive.

Calling one category of organizations “for-purpose organizations” doesn’t mean that “for-profit organizations” don’t have a purpose. Many for-profit organizations do have a purpose in addition to making money, and many are admirable because of the fervor with which they pursue their non-financial purpose. But when it’s all said and done, “success” or “failure” for these organizations always comes down to the bottom line.

Organizational scholars and activists can talk for as long as we want about the “balanced scorecard ” or the “double or triple bottom line ” approachs to accounting for a for-profit organization’s success or failure, but none of these evaluation strategies does away with or even puts as secondary the pursuit of profits.

What really matters?

There is an intriguing article in the New York Times that talks about the effect of announcing a ‘green strategy’ – a non-financial purpose – on a for-profit organization’s stock price. Research by Karin Thorburn and Karen Fisher-Vanden of the Tuck Graduate School of Business has shown how, when an organization announces that they have made a commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, its stock price goes down. Not only that, but the more aggressive the goal, the larger the drop in stock price. The stock price goes down because the market is reacting to a concern that if an organization commits to pursuing a (non-financial) purpose, its profits will suffer. Even if this reaction is short-term and short sighted, it demonstrates that investors emphasize the financial goals of for-profit organizations, regardless of how noble the for-profit organizations’ other purposes might be.

For-purpose organizations, for their part, can’t be evaluated on whether or not they achieve their ultimate goals, because their goals are usually too complex, too intractable, and too universal to be achieved by one organization. It can be hard to show discernible progress every 13 weeks, when you are fighting global warming, ending sex slavery, or eliminating hunger. Instead, for-profit organizations can be evaluated by how hard they are trying, by where they are making a difference, by small wins rather than windfalls, by the motivation of their members, by the gratitude of their stakeholders, and by their authenticity.

If we get more flies with honey than with vinegar, we’re going to get more respect with the label “for-purpose” rather than “nonprofit”.

Some people will argue that honey can be more accurately described as bee “regurgitation”. Regurgitation is a nicer name, but it’s still gross not exactly positive. Let’s label it the way we want to see it – - honey is honey, simple and sweet.

This advice also applies to how we label organizations. Let’s change how we think of organizations that focus on things other than money.

These organizations aren’t against money, they are for a purpose.

For-purpose organizations don’t ignore the value of money; instead, they focus on something ultimately more important.

(photo from TheConsumerist)

In an earlier post we considered how the new name of the Abercrombie & Fitch Trauma Center might affect the Center’s employees. Here, let’s consider why a partnership between Abercrombie & Fitch and the Columbus Children’s Hospital is inauthentic. And, let’s consider what criteria should be used to evaluate whether a partnership would support the Trauma Center’s authenticity.

Authentic organizational partnerships reinforce who the organization is, how it presents itself, and the actions it takes. They also support a dynamic fidelity between these elements.

In authentic, co-branded partnerships, the nonprofit organization adopts the name of a commercial entity, and this new name conveys who the organization is what it stands for and what it does as effectively (if not more effectively) than its former name.

The recent co-branding partnership between the Columbus Children’s Hospital Trauma Center and the teen apparel marketer Abercrombie & Fitch is a great example of an inauthentic co-branded partnership.

The Co-Branding Controversy

The Columbus Children’s Hospital recently announced that it would attach the Abercrombie & Fitch brand name to its Trauma Center in recognition for a $10 million contribution from A&F. The controversy around this announcement has focused on whether a commercial entity (rather than an individual philanthropist) should be able to impose its name on a nonprofit organization and whether the Trauma Center’s new name — and the organizational partnership that the name represents — is appropriate for a children’s medical center.

Changing Names, Changing Meaning

In the past, the accepted, conventional practice has been for a nonprofit organization to adopt an individual philanthropist’s name as a way to honor that individual for his financial “gift”. Within this convention, it’s understood that attaching the philanthropist’s name to the organization is more about the donor’s need to be recognized than it is about the organization’s need to reflect its own defining characteristics in its name. This is a kind of “co-branding” that attaches little new meaning to the organization, and has little effect on the organization’s authenticity.

However, when a nonprofit organization adopts the name of a commercial entity (be that a for-profit organization or one of its brands) the exchange is not as straightforward.

Co-branding a nonprofit organization with a commercial entity’s brand name causes problems because it blurs the line between ‘recognizing’ the donor and ‘branding’ the nonprofit organization. When a nonprofit organization adopts the name of a commercial entity in exchange for cash, what gets exchanged between the organization and the commercial entity is not just cash, but also meaning.

Because an organization’s name captures and conveys the organization’s identity and image, adopting a new name means adopting a new meaning, a new image and maybe even a new identity. When a nonprofit organization adopts a brand name, it also adopts all the meanings attached to that brand name. Co-branding itself with a commercial name changes the way the nonprofit presents itself and how it is perceived.

Brand names, by their very definition, convey a lot of meaning. Much of this meaning is inappropriate to attach to a nonprofit organization. Because this meaning has been crafted to help sell products, it’s not likely that the meanings associated with a brand are adequate for conveying the identity of an organization, particularly a nonprofit organization that is otherwise unrelated to the brand. In general, a brand name will not easily capture and convey the identity and image of another organization.

In the specific case of the Abercrombie & Fitch Trauma Center, the Columbus Children’s Hospital had already agreed to partner with a commercial brand. And, they had already agreed to make this partnership visible through co-branding and re-naming their organization. Once having made these decisions, the leadership at the Columbus Children’s Hospital should have spent more time on their third decision — which brand name to take on as a partner.

They appear not to have considered whether the new, co-branded name would ‘fit’ the image and identity of the Trauma Center. If a co-branded name fits, there will be little impact on the Trauma Center’s authenticity. But if a new name doesn’t fit, it will interfere with the Trauma Center’s ability to sustain a positive congruence between its identity, its public image and its actions.

Any time an organization chooses to adopt someone else’s brand name, they are also implicitly attaching to themselves the meanings conveyed by that brand name. Because the meanings attached to the Abercrombie & Fitch brand name contradict the values, norms, and defining characteristics of the Children’s Hospital, the name no longer fits. Adopting the A&F brand name distorts the Trauma Center’s image and interferes with its ability to sustain authenticity.

Names that don’t fit are inauthentic

When an organization’s name no longer conveys what employees think defines their organization, there are some serious implications. Organization members have to put some effort into managing the gap between the meanings conveyed by the name and the attributes of their organization. Employees can either ignore the brand’s attributes, distance themselves from the brand’s attributes, or assertively try to counteract these newly-attached and ill-fitting qualities. While it’s good for employees to be paying attention to how their organization is presented, who wants their organization’s members to be “ignoring”, “distancing” or “counteracting” the organization’s identity?

At the organizational level, the Trauma Center’s leadership has to manage away the negative effects of their new, inauthentic name. The administrators and employees of the Children’s Hospital are currently busy trying to counteract the negative press of their new co-branded name. They have a public relations problem (fanned by the tenacious Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood) that will require lots of leadership time, energy, financial resources, and community goodwill to manage. All of this is taking leadership time, effort, and energy away from providing the best emergency trauma care to the children of Columbus, Ohio.

A missed opportunity

The Columbus Children’s Hospital leadership missed the opportunity to use co-branding as a leadership tool. They could have used their willingness to adopt a new organizational name as a tool for focusing and motivating their organization and its members towards the Hospital’s medical purpose, but they did not. They did not pay attention to the way that adapting, tinkering with, or changing organization’s name changes the meanings that are automatically associated with an organization. They failed to realize how their co-branding could damage their organization’s overall authenticity.

Criteria for an authentic, co-branded partnership

How can we evaluate whether adopting a commercial brand name, as a way of recognizing a corporate partnership, would nurture a nonprofit organization’s authenticity? The most important question for a nonprofit the way the potential partnership reflects on their organizational purpose. For a nonprofit organization, their purpose is their raison d’etre. Every decision they make should be evaluated for whether it advances or impedes their purpose.

When a nonprofit organization’s authenticity is important to it, what other criteria should they use? At minimum, the potential relationship between the nonprofit and the branded entity needs to be (1) congruent, (2) relevant, and (3) expansive. Each criterion is related to a component of authenticity: the organization’s identity, the organization’s image, and the organization’s actions.

Congruent

To support the authenticity of the nonprofit organization’s identity, how it defines itself, a potential partnership must be congruent. That is, the attributes, qualities, and values of the potential partner need to be congruent with the attributes, qualities, and values of the nonprofit. This doesn’t mean that the qualities of the two organizations need to be exactly the same, but only that the qualities be mutually supportive. By this criterion, the association of the animal rights group PETA with a beauty product brand that abjures animal testing makes sense.

Relevant

To support the authenticity of the nonprofit’s image, the way it presents itself, the potential partnership must be relevant to the nonprofit’s purpose. There needs to be something beyond a financial reason for the two organizations to be associated with each other. By this criterion, a potential partnership between an animal rescue center and Purina (the pet food company) would seem more authentic, while a partnership between the animal rescue center and a car manufacturer would seem irrelevant and thus not support authenticity.

Expansive

To support the authenticity of the nonprofit’s actions, a potential partnership should allow the nonprofit to expand its purpose-focused activities through non-monetary means. There should be a way that the relationship with the commercial entity “adds value” to the nonprofit’s ability to pursue its purpose. Things that might expand the organization’s purpose include enlarging the organization’s scope, improving their technical capacity, raising their public profile, developing members’ leadership skills, and inspiring and motivating members.

A Failure of association

Using the criteria of congruence, relevance, and expansiveness, the partnership between the Trauma Center and Abercrombie & Fitch corrodes the Trauma Center’s overall authenticity. There is no discernible congruence between the Trauma Center’s values, qualities, and attributes and those of Abercrombie & Fitch. Rather, there seems to be a serious contradiction between the Hospital’ s professed desire to be a place where “curing and caring go hand-in-hand”and A&F’s exploitation of teenage sexuality to sell clothing.

Beyond the obvious exchange of money for publicity, there is no relevant reason for the trauma center to attach to itself the Abercrombie & Fitch brand name. Yes, there may be a distant rationale, that A&F is part of the Columbus, Ohio community and is donating money to the hospital as a way to support the community. But an association with Abercrombie & Fitch is not relevant to the direct pursuit of the Trauma Center’s purpose.

The partnership does not expand the Trauma Center’s ability to pursue its purpose through non-monetary means. Its employees are not motivated by the new meanings pasted on the Trauma Center’s image through the Abercrombie & Fitch brand name. And, there is no way that these new qualities help the Trauma Center as an organization to focus on providing their service to the community.

The Hospital administration missed the opportunity to associate themselves with brand name that brought with it meanings that could have supported, extended and motivated them in their health care mission.

Possible exceptions, where branding a nonprofit might make sense

Although in general I’m against naming nonprofit and/or publicly funded organizations with commercial brand names, there are a few cases where this sort of the connection between a nonprofit and a commercial organization might make sense for the nonprofit. Consider, for example, the possibility of the “Lifetime Entertainment for Women Breast Cancer Clinic”.

Anyone familiar with Lifetime Entertainment — either as an entertainment brand or as an organization — knows that this organization is a long time advocate for breast cancer awareness and better regulation of mastectomy surgery. Attaching the Lifetime brand name/organization name to a nonprofit medical center devoted to women’s cancer research or cancer treatment would make a lot of sense. This relationship would support the authenticity of the nonprofit.

Both the nonprofit and their commercial entity would benefit from this association — the commercial entity would get brand recognition as well as acknowledgment for their long term support of this issue, and the medical center would get financial support. In addition, both the commercial entity and the nonprofit would benefit from knowing that they have a partnership that bridge is the for-profit and non-for-profit worlds to spread a message that supports their shared goal –to “stop breast cancer for life“.

Because authentic, co-branded partnerships are possible, nonprofits should refuse to sell themselves to the lowest bidder — that is, the brand that offers them only money. Instead, nonprofits should look for commercial partners who will elevate their game. If a nonprofit organization is going to adopt a commercial brand name and the meanings that go along with it, these meanings should be congruent with the nonprofit’s purpose, relevant to the nonprofit’s purpose, and able to expand the nonprofit’s pursuit of its purpose.

Otherwise, the new name will be in authentic and the nonprofit organization will have missed the opportunity to enhance its ability to pursue its purpose.