A recent discussion on the Twitter non-profit chat #nptalk moderated by @SocialNicole prompted the beginning of a series of posts targeted specifically to non-profit organizations. After engaging in a series of interesting discussions with a few of the chat's participants, I found that many non-profits suffer not because of budgetary reasons or staffing constraints but suffer as a result of a weak approach to branding and positioning their non-profit. Since one of the reoccurring themes in the #nptalk chat was about how to effectively brand a non-profit so that its mission, messages, and core values are well communicated to stakeholders, the next few posts will do just that- teach non-profits the importance of designing a multi-layered marketing strategy that effectively brands and positions their organization. Though targeted to non-profits, this information is useful and applicable to any type of organization whether non-profit or for-profit. Since the definition of a brand is often times blurred, we'll start this series here. What is a brand?