Learning to Leverage Your Church Brand

The Power of a Branded House

Ed Young pastors Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas. It is a branded house. Every weekend, whether at the main Grapevine campus or Plano, Downtown Dallas or the new campus in Fort Worth, the power of the Fellowship Church brand is demonstrated. The people who attend Fellowship Church are loyal. The pastors and staff at Fellowship Church most likely did not have a huddle this week to discuss how to close the back door; on the contrary, they probably huddled to talk about where to plant the next campus in order to keep up with all the growth. By building a strong brand, Fellowship Church has built a strong church.

A brand is a set of associations linked to Ed Young, FellowshipChurch.com, or the logo associated with Fellowship Church. It’s not just the name. A name is not a brand. But Ed Young and Fellowship Church became a brand when people began linking the name to other things. A brand is much like a reputation.

If Fellowship Church were going to begin a capital campaign tomorrow, you can bet that they wouldn’t try to establish an independent brand for the building fund. They would leverage the Fellowship Church brand. The capital campaign is going to look and feel like everything else that is associated with the brand. That is because Ed Young and Fellowship Church have learned the power of a branded house: one ministry, one brand, one cause, and one Kingdom.

A branded house, in the simplest of terms, means that Fellowship Church is one ministry that owns a brand, which has embraced one transcendent cause, and one Kingdom purpose. Everything that Fellowship Church does – because it is a branded house – shares the same brand.

Maybe your church is about to embark on a capital campaign, and like Fellowship Church, you should take a branded house strategy. It is the simplest and most powerful approach to take. This strategy allows you to leverage your single primary brand across multiple ministries and categories, all the ministries, including the capital campaign, should be presented under a single brand name.

Steeple provides fund raising and organizational development services to faith-based and community-based organizations of the nonprofit sector. Our efforts are dedicated to putting nonprofit managers and trustees in touch with the tools and resources they need to develop their organizations and to conduct successful capital campaigns. Our work with clients is for the long-term—to build internal capacity, to create brand equity, and to attract and retain funding. Since 2007, we’ve helped nonprofit organizations like yours raise more than $14 million.

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