You are what you are or are you?(NAME GAME)

While some nonprofits go for a complete overhaul of name and brand, others realize they only need a few nips and tucks.

One of the first things Sharon Saxelby did when she became president and CEO at Friends of the Orphans was start updating the logo and brand. The Arlington Heights, IIl.-based nonprofit also added a tagline ("Raising children. Transforming lives.") to sharpen focus on mission.

The new brand and logo kicked off in April after a research effort that started this past summer.

Friends of the Orphans raises money for a network of nine Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos (NPH), which translates to "Our Little Brothers and Sisters," and cares for more than 3,300 children in nine countries. It has 40 employees with an annual budget of almost $13 million.

Surveying and focus groups resulted in the nonprofit keeping its name, Friends of the Orphans. "Friends of NPH didn't mean anything more than Friends of Orphans, which instilled a sense of compassion," Saxelby said. "When focus groups said, 'That's an envelope I'd open,' I thought, that's key," she said.

The old logo for Friends of the Orphans had a child with a crutch and a man, representing Father William Wasson, who founded the nonprofit in 1954. Saxelby wanted to keep the nonprofit's heritage but a child with a crutch no longer represented the organization since half of the kids are not disabled. The new logo features a man leading three children over an arch. The children represent the journey that the children served by Friends are on, while the man "represents all of us who are on this journey," Saxelby said.

Saxelby estimates that $60,000 has been spent on the branding process so far, and expects to keep the cost less than $100,000. She also will take the opportunity to reduce brochures and consolidate them into a common look.

Friends also is using the rebranding effort as a cornerstone to kick off Internet marketing initiatives, sending links to its donors to place on its social networking pages.

A tagline can make a nonprofit's name more clear to constituents, and potential donors. The Harvard NeuroDiscovery Center was known as the Harvard Center for Neurodegeneration and Repair until last year.

There was a sense already within the organization to change the name when Patti Stoll arrived as deputy director three years ago. "The name itself was a mouthful," Stoll said. "There were terms as a layperson I didn't understand. For us to be effective, and compete effectively in the marketplace, we really needed a zippier name," she said.

About a half-dozen names were considered and evaluated based on different criteria before the name change and rebranding took effect last year.

The tagline helps individuals quickly interpret the meaning, with the phrase, Collaborating to Cure Neurodegenerative Disease. It provides a little more information while getting the word neurodegeneration out of the name and into the tagline.

Among the goals of rebranding was to "reposition our message to include laypeople," Stoll said. The center had a terrific reputation within the science community she said, but hadn't focused on laypeople.

Stoll reported positive anecdotal feedback from prospective donors, but also has noticed that the organization's nine board members seem more engaged. "They've become more effective ambassadors for the organization," she said, and better able to understand the goals and enthusiasm. "Most important, we're getting referrals for potential donors and getting into the door better, talking to prospective donors," Stoll said.

If one thinks of an organization as a person, with communication as their clothes, incremental brand shifts and visual design are like changing outfits, said Eric Norman, a strategist with Sametz Blacksone Associates, a Boston-based consulting firm that worked with the center. Changing a name, however, is like having surgery. "It's a very invasive change, very disruptive," he said, so it should be for the right reasons, done in the right way, with the right long-term commitment in mind.

"Very often if your name is your problem, think again. You can manage your brand to mean something. If you find that your brand and name have reached a dead-end, that's a serious undertaking," said Norman.

The New England Wild Flower Society was convinced they weren't reaching the audiences they needed to because the name was wrong. They feared New England was too parochial and wild flower too focused, according to Norman.

After intense study with members and prospective members, it was determined not only would the cost be prohibitive, a name change simply was wrong, Norman said. "The meaning around the name needed to be managed better," he said, so they embarked on a redesign of their logo and type. "We found a new way to execute the name that was the right meaning," Norman said.

The American Symphony Orchestra League talked about changing its name for 20 years. Forget the unflattering acronym for a moment, imagine the difficulty in calling a donor and having to get through the clunky introduction.

The American Symphony Orchestra League became the League of American Orchestras after completing a new strategic plan several years ago. While subtle, the switch incorporated the word 'league,' which is how it came to be known over the years, keeping the name's equity, said Roger Sametz, president and founder of Sametz Blackstone Associates.

The nonprofit also had some fun with it. At their next conference, members wore buttons proclaiming, "We're not ASOLs anymore." Said Sametz: "For a very buttoned up organization, it was a huge morale uptick."