Nonprofit brand guidelines for volunteers and chapters

If you look after communications for a nonprofit, as staff or as a volunteer, you know where the logo trouble comes from. A chapter makes its own flyer with a logo saved off Facebook years ago, slightly stretched. The fun run committee picks "a nicer green." A corporate partner asks for your nonprofit brand guidelines by Friday. Good nonprofit brand guidelines fix all three: one short page that volunteers will actually read, a logo kit for chapters and events, and a partner page with only what partners need.

Below: what to put in each, logo rules for chapters and events, a template to copy, and how to get volunteers using it.

Why nonprofit brand guidelines look different

A company's brand guide is written for a marketing team and the agency it hires. Yours is read by a much wider, more changeable crowd:

Volunteers who make one flyer a year, on their own laptop, the night before.
Chapters and local groups with their own leaders, their own social accounts and their own favorite printer.
Event committees who want the gala or the 5K to feel special this year.
Partners and sponsors who put your logo next to theirs.
Donated designers who give you a weekend of work and then move on.
Board members who send emails, give talks and speak for you in public.

Most of them have never opened a brand guide, many change every year, and nobody is paid to check their work. So your guidelines have to be short, obvious and one click away. If there's a 40-page PDF from the last rebrand, keep it as the archive, and give everyone else the short version.

What goes in nonprofit brand guidelines?

Seven sections, a few lines each. If it doesn't fit on one or two pages, it probably belongs in the files rather than the rules.

Your name, written correctly. The full name, the short name people use, and the versions to avoid: an abbreviation nobody outside the office knows, or the old name from before a merger.
The logo. Which version goes where, which color on which background, the smallest size, and three or four don'ts. Link straight to the files.
Colors. Each one with a name, a role and its codes: HEX for screens, CMYK for print. Say which colors are safe for text, because that's where volunteers go wrong.
Fonts. Your heading and body typefaces, plus a free fallback for people who can't install yours. A volunteer on a borrowed laptop will use whatever you name here.
How you sound. Three to five tone words, each with a "this, not that". If you have a rule for how you describe the people you serve, put it here. It's the line volunteers most often get wrong, and the one that matters most.
Photos. What your photos look like, and your consent rule in one plain sentence, so nobody posts a picture of someone who didn't agree to it.
Who to ask. One name and one email for questions and approvals.

For the general version of this page, our one-page brand style guide has a filled-in example. The rest of this post is about the parts nonprofits need on top: chapters, events and partners.

Logo rules for chapters and events

Every chapter has someone handy with design software, and every event committee wants its own look. So decide, once, what stays the same everywhere and what a chapter or event can make its own.

Keep the same everywhere	Chapters and events can change
The logo itself, never redrawn	The name line under the logo
The colors and fonts	Their photos and their people
How the organization's name is written	Local contacts, dates and addresses
The voice, and how you describe the people you serve	One accent color for an event, from the palette
The mission line	Local partners and sponsors

Give every chapter a lockup

A lockup is your logo with the chapter's name set beside or beneath it, in your font, in a fixed position. Have one designer make every chapter's lockup at the same time, in full color, black and white, as SVG and PNG. Then chapters never type their own name next to the logo, which is how you end up with eight chapters and eight slightly different logos.

Picture a youth soccer league with eight chapters. Each chapter gets the league's logo with its town's name underneath, made once by one designer. Chapters choose their own team photos, their own volunteer contact and their own local sponsors. None of them gets to redraw the ball.

When a chapter needs its own address, social accounts and contacts, it's acting like a sub-brand, and it helps to treat it as one.

Events get a name treatment, not a new logo

The spring 5K or the annual gala can have its own name set in your fonts, a photo style, even an accent color from the palette. It shouldn't get a new mark that competes with yours. A good test: if someone saw only the T-shirt, would they know who it raises money for? Put your logo on everything the event makes, and keep the event's name in second place.

Say which version goes on what

Volunteers don't know a reversed logo from a wordmark, so name versions by where they go: "for dark backgrounds and photos", "for social avatars", "one color, for T-shirts". Our guide to logo variations explains the versions most brands need.

A nonprofit brand guidelines template

Copy this into any document and fill in the braces. It's written for volunteers, chapter leaders and partners, so it skips strategy and goes straight to what they need.

{ORGANIZATION} BRAND GUIDELINES
For volunteers, chapters and partners. Updated {month, year}.
Questions and approvals: {name}, {email}

OUR NAME
Write it as {full name}. Short name: {short name}.
Please don't write {abbreviations or old names}.

LOGO
Main logo: {where it goes}. Icon: social avatars, small spaces.
On dark backgrounds or photos: the white version.
Smallest size: {width} in print, {pixels} on screens.
Chapters: use your chapter lockup. Don't add your own text.
Get the files: {link}

COLORS (3 to 5)
{Color name}: {HEX} on screens, {CMYK} in print. Use for {role}.
Safe for text: {colors}.

FONTS
Headings: {font}. Body: {font}.
Can't install them? Use {free fallback}.

HOW WE SOUND
{word}, not {word}. (Three of these.)
How we describe the people we serve: {your rule}.
Our one-line description: {one sentence}.

PHOTOS
What they look like: {light, subjects, feeling}.
Consent: {your rule, in one sentence}.

PLEASE DON'T
{Up to five things you've actually seen go wrong.}

What to send partners and sponsors

Partners don't need your whole guide. They need enough to put your name and logo next to theirs without embarrassing either of you. Send them a short partner page, before they ask:

Logo files: SVG or EPS for print and signs, PNG with a transparent background for websites and slides, and a one-color version for T-shirts.
How to write your name, and the one-line description they should use. A short boilerplate saves them writing one for you.
Co-branding rules: how much space to leave around your logo, which version goes on which background, and that neither logo gets recolored to match the other. Our guide to co-branding guidelines goes deeper.
Who approves, and how fast. "Send proofs to {name}; we reply within two working days" stops a sponsor printing banners without asking.

How do you get volunteers to use brand guidelines?

Writing the guide is the easy half. Getting a rotating cast of volunteers to use it takes a few habits:

Put one link everywhere people start. The volunteer welcome email, the chapter leader handbook, the top of the shared drive, the first agenda of every event committee.
Clean out the old logos. If the shared drive still holds every logo since the founding, volunteers will keep picking the wrong one. Move the old ones somewhere clearly marked, or delete them.
Make templates for what they make most: a flyer, a social post, an email header. A template does more for consistency than any rule. (Here's how marketing teams keep everyone on brand without becoming the brand police.)
Be kind when something goes wrong. Send the right file with a thank-you. People who feel told off stop asking, and then you never see their flyers before they print.
Check it each year when chapter leaders change, and send the link to every new one.

Building your nonprofit brand guidelines in BrandTab

Most nonprofits have a shared folder called something like "Logos (USE THESE)", with files from three designers and two rebrands. In BrandTab, you can hand that folder to Tabitha, BrandTab's assistant. She looks through up to 300 files at a time, sets aside the screenshots and system files, and groups every version of your main logo into one. She keeps the sharpest: the vector file beats the PNG someone exported from a slide, and a transparent background beats a white box. Then she names each one (Primary logo, Wordmark, Icon, Reversed logo), builds the palette from the logos' colors, reads the font names inside any font files, and reads the first 20 pages of one brand guide PDF, like the one your donated designer left behind, for colors, typefaces and voice.

The old versions wait in a "Left out" group, so nothing is lost. You tick what's right, and only the files you tick are uploaded. An evening of squinting at file names becomes a few minutes of ticking boxes. If your website is in better shape than your folder, give her the address instead: she reads up to eight public pages and suggests your logos, colors, fonts, tagline, tone words and contact details for you to review.

From there:

Free, for good: one brand, with every section, Quick copy (⌘K on Mac, Ctrl+K on Windows) and BrandTab for Mac. Each logo carries a usage note, like "for dark backgrounds only", and the brand sheet (logos, colors, type and voice) saves as a PDF you can send volunteers.
Chapters as sub-brands, each with its own lockup, contacts and photos, need Creative or Studio. Creative holds 20 brands, and each chapter counts as one. Studio has no limit. See pricing.
Share links come with Creative and Studio too. The brand sheet becomes a live page that always shows the current logo, and a brand package hands a partner every logo with one "Download everything" button. Every share page starts switched off, and switching it off takes it down straight away.

Questions people ask

What should nonprofit brand guidelines include?

Your name and how to write it, which logo goes where, your colors with HEX and CMYK codes, your fonts with a free fallback, three to five tone words, a photo consent rule, and one person to ask. For chapters and partners, add lockup rules and co-branding rules.

Do nonprofit chapters need their own logo?

Usually not. A lockup (the main logo with the chapter's name beside or beneath it) keeps every chapter recognizable as part of the whole. Make every lockup at once, with one designer, so they match.

How long should nonprofit brand guidelines be?

One or two pages for volunteers and partners. Keep a longer guide for designers if you have one, but don't make volunteers read it.

How do we stop volunteers using old logos?

Remove the old files from wherever volunteers look, give everyone one link to the current ones, and make templates for the things they make most. When an old logo turns up, send the right file with a thank-you.

Nonprofit brand guidelines: keeping volunteers, chapters and partners on brand