It’s Not Me, It’s You: When Good Charities Deserve Better Brands

Valentine’s Day. The day we celebrate love, commitment and those relationships that make life better.

But let’s be honest - not every relationship deserves a box of chocolates and a soppy card. Some relationships? They’re holding you back. And if we’re talking about your charity’s brand, staying in the wrong one might be costing you more than you think.

Most charities don’t set out to have an average brand. You probably started with something that felt “good enough for now” - a logo pulled together quickly by a well-meaning volunteer, a website built on a shoestring, some colours picked because, well, someone had to pick something.

And for a while, it worked. You were scrappy, authentic, getting on with the actual work.

But somewhere along the line, things changed. Your charity grew, your ambitions expanded, and suddenly that brand you’ve been lugging around feels less like a helpful partner and more like dead weight. You find yourself making excuses for it. “Yeah, we know the website’s a bit dated...” or “The logo’s not great, but people know us anyway, right?”

Wrong.

Your brand isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s the first impression, the lasting memory, and often the deciding factor between someone choosing to support you or scrolling straight past. And if your brand isn’t pulling its weight? It might be time to have that difficult conversation.

So here are five relationship red flags (let's call them the five P’s) that your charity’s in a relationship with a brand that’s just not good enough anymore.

Position

You’ve Outgrown Each Other

Remember when you first got together? Your charity was small, local, doing one thing really well. Your brand reflected that: simple, straightforward, nothing fancy.

But now? You’ve expanded your services. You’re working across multiple regions. You’re going after bigger funding pots and partnering with organisations that have their act together. And when you rock up with a brand that still screams “village fair raffle stand”, it doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

The consequence? You're losing out on opportunities before you even get started.

Funders scroll past your grant application because it doesn't look credible. Potential partners hesitate because they're not sure you're operating at the scale you claim. Your brilliant work gets overlooked because your brand makes you look smaller and less capable than you actually are.

You’ve changed. Your brand hasn't. And that gap? It's costing you growth, funding and impact.

Purpose

You're Not on the Same Page Anymore

Here’s a painful one: your charity's mission has evolved, but your brand is still banging on about what you used to do three years ago.

Maybe you’ve pivoted from direct service delivery to systemic change. Maybe you’ve narrowed your focus to do one thing exceptionally well instead of spreading yourself thin. Maybe you’ve merged with another organisation and now you're something entirely new. Whatever the shift, your brand should be reflecting it - and if it’s not, you’ve got a problem.

Because when your brand tells one story and your actual work tells another, people get confused. Donors think they’re supporting something you’re no longer doing. Beneficiaries don't realise you can help them. Your team struggles to explain what you’re about because the brand keeps contradicting them.

Cat Ross from Baby Basics UK knows what this feels like. After updating their brand to properly reflect who they’d become, they raised £3,500 in less than a month and secured interest from a major new partner. That’s what happens when your brand finally catches up with your purpose.

But until you make that change? You’re stuck explaining the mismatch, apologising for the confusion, and watching opportunities slip away because nobody quite gets what you’re trying to do.

Perception

They Think You're Someone You're Not

This is the killer. You know your charity is professional, impactful and worth supporting. But when people land on your website or see your social posts, they think you're... well, not that.

Maybe they assume you’re amateurish because your designs looks like they were made in Microsoft Word. Maybe they think you’re old-fashioned because your imagery is stuck in 2010. Maybe they scroll straight past your content because it blends into the background with every other charity doing similar work.

The gap between who you are and how you’re perceived? That's a brand problem. And it's expensive.

You lose potential supporters before they even give you a chance. You haemorrhage credibility in meetings because your materials don't match the quality of your work. You watch less effective charities get more attention simply because they look the part.

Ian Hudson-Murt from Voscur puts it perfectly:

“People finally understand who we are. We love the brand because it properly represents us and we feel so much more confident talking to our external partners.”

That confidence matters. And if your current brand makes you feel like you’re constantly swimming upstream, trying to convince people you’re better than you look? That's exhausting. And unnecessary.

Pride

You're Just Not That Into Them Anymore

Be brutally honest for a second. When someone asks for your website address, do you send it with excitement or with a quiet sense of dread?

When you post something on social media, are you proud of how it looks, or are you just relieved to have ticked “content” off the to-do list? When your team talks about your charity, do they beam with pride, or do they quickly change the subject before anyone asks about the logo?

If your brand makes you feel embarrassed instead of energised, that’s a problem. Because your team and supporters can’t be effective advocates for your work if they’re secretly cringing at the materials they’re sharing.

And here’s what happens: your fundraising suffers because nobody wants to promote something they’re not proud of. Your recruitment struggles because talented people want to work somewhere that looks like it has its act together. Your internal morale dips because it’s hard to feel motivated when your charity’s public face doesn’t reflect the quality of work happening behind the scenes.

A brand you’re proud of changes everything.

It gives your team confidence, makes asking for support feel natural, and attracts the kind of people and partners who want to be associated with something excellent.

Problems

There’s Baggage You Can’t Shake

Sometimes a brand isn't just underperforming - it’s actively causing problems.

Maybe your name is confusing and people constantly misunderstand what you do. Maybe your imagery has aged badly or your logo is hard to read. Maybe you went through a difficult period (a leadership scandal, a funding crisis, a PR nightmare) and your brand is forever tied to that low point in people’s minds.

You can do incredible work, but if your brand is dragging around baggage from the past, it’s like trying to run a fundraising marathon in a giant mascot costume. Every conversation starts from a position of defensiveness. Every piece of communication has to work twice as hard to overcome existing perceptions.

A rebrand offers a reset. Not as a way of hiding from problems, but as a way of drawing a clear line and saying: “We've learned, we’ve changed, and this is who we are now.”

The alternative? Spending years trying to outrun a brand that keeps pulling you backwards.

Time for the Conversation

So here we are. Valentine's Day. And if reading this has made you realise your charity is stuck in a relationship with a brand that’s holding you back, well... it might be time to have that chat.

Breaking up is never easy. But staying in the wrong relationship? That’s harder. And far more costly in the long run.

At Bara, we work with charities and organisations to create brands that actually work with them and not against them - brands that open doors instead of closing them, that energise teams instead of embarrassing them, and that reflect the incredible impact they’re having in the world.

If you're ready to move forward with a brand that deserves you, let's talk.

Explore our rebranding process here, or drop us a message. We promise to make it enjoyable (and nowhere near as awkward as an actual breakup).

Because your charity’s doing work that matters. It's time your brand started pulling its weight.