Choosing an appropriate name for your nonprofit organization is extremely important. In this regard, you need to decide whether the name will reflect the work of your organization or if it will be a made-up word with no meaning or a boring name.

Many organizations spend thousands of dollars on research to determine the right name that aligns with their direction; they sometimes hire expensive consultants who, at times, are unable to understand the interests of the audience concerned with the organization's activities or even its message. In contrast, any group of people can exchange ideas among themselves and come up with names that align with the direction of the nonprofit organization.

During the 1960s and 1970s, a group of government officials were able to create names for new federal agencies and programs simply by suggesting and discussing appropriate and powerful words for naming organizations. At that time, none of them thought of hiring a branding agency, and the result of this experience was names such as “Peace Corps,” Environmental Protection Agency, and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

These names share a number of aspects, particularly reflecting the mission and direction of the organization's program, like the word “peace” in Peace Corps and “environmental protection” in the Environmental Protection Agency. These organizations also adopted brief, strong, and descriptive terms that are easy to remember and pronounce, and it is preferable for the name abbreviations to be easy to remember, which has made some nonprofit names strong and influential to the extent that their abbreviations have become globally recognized.

Sometimes, the full name of the organization is abandoned in favor of an abbreviation due to its popularity. This common abbreviation has helped to rebrand the organization and drop the word “retired,” which previously carried negative connotations.

The first step in naming your nonprofit organization or one of the programs you provide is to rely on the organization's message. If your message is not short and memorable, revise it. Once you have an expressive message, start searching for the right name.

Follow these tips:

  • What should you do? Use action verbs like protect, lead, and assist, among others.
  • Who will you help? Use short words to describe the group you are serving, like children, the poor, and the homeless.
  • Who is responsible for providing this assistance? Sometimes it is important to mention the assisting group, for example, “doctors” like Doctors Without Borders, and “mothers” in some other organizations.
  • Propose ideas, values, solutions, and issues that most people are concerned about, such as peace, poverty, the environment, and wildlife.
  • Adopt tangible names and avoid abstract ones, or make abstract phrases tangible. For example, “love” alone is an abstract word, but “love your neighbor” is a tangible term.
  • Make sure to design your organization’s name in a way that makes using an abbreviation for it easy later on, and the abbreviation can become your brand name as it is used frequently. The abbreviation can also be smartly designed to reflect the essence of your message.
  • Avoid using the name of a person, such as the founder or a celebrity, when naming your organization to avoid what happened with the Lance Armstrong Foundation, which had to change its name to Livestrong after a major scandal. Such cases can occur if the founder leaves the organization or passes away.

There are no limits to possibilities, and although there are many names and titles, you can still find an appropriate and attractive name for your nonprofit organization. In this regard, here are some of the most famous names: Feed the Children, Doctors Without Borders, Save the Whales, and the World Wildlife Fund, among others.

Source: The Balance

Author: Joan Fritz