Grow Your Faith Organization with Branding

Text and images by Rick McVicar             

     After taking some course work on marketing, I want to share my thoughts on how a faith organization may grow in numbers. 

  To be engaged in the world, which includes attracting people to worship, a faith organization needs to be aware of how its brand is perceived by the public.            

     Brands have developed into being a vital part of our American consumer culture. People now use brands as markers for their identities, replacing traditional means of forming a personal identity, according to Michael Beverland and Pinar Cankurtaran in Brand Management: Co-creating Meaningful Brands. Brands are now treated as relatable personas by many people. 

     Branding applies to places of worship, even though faith organizations do not often think of themselves as brands. That is because branding can come without intention or design. As soon as a faith organization opens the doors to a visible building with a sign in front, branding begins. A building is probably the most noticeable image of a religion’s brand. If a faith organization were a product, its building would be its package. Packaging is key to branding. Any congregational renewal needs to include the building.    

     Branding also occurs 24/7, not just on the days of worship. Public perception of a welcoming faith organization does not just occur when guests are greeted for worship. It occurs during the week as well when someone calls the organization during business hours. Do emails and calls left on a messaging system receive prompt replies? If not, your faith organization is being branded as an unwelcoming place of worship. 

     To be effective, a brand must be authentic. Beverland and Pinar Cankurtaran describe “the focus of authenticity: consistency, conformity and connection” (p. 57). That is, every aspect of the brand must consistently conform to the brand’s mission and values to make connections with the brand’s users. Brands are created from inside an organization before being directed outward. They are then co-created with consumers, who attach their own meanings to their favorite brands (Beverland and Cankurtaran). A brand is centered on its mission statement and values, which need to be expressed by the brand’s product and the culture of the brand’s organization. 

     While my background and perspective is Christian, my ideas could be used by synagogues, mosques and temples. I want to encourage the growth of all faiths, because our society faces mounting spiritual needs with an ongoing mental health crisis. I believe much of the crisis is brought on by cell phones and social media, which often turn out to be anti-social. Texting and social media have often diminished people’s abilities to interact in-person and form meaningful relationships. Loneliness is the result, along with depression and anxiety.      

     A key mission of almost all religion is to bring people together for them to form meaningful relationships. Our society needs the communal encouragement that religion provides. That being said, I will be writing from the perspective of a Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) minister. My openness to all religion is in line with the Disciples tradition. The denomination has been engaged historically with ecumenical and interfaith organizations.