Justifying the Investment in Brand Building

This article is a summary of our Designing Tomorrow podcast, Season 2 - Episode 10. Season 2 episodes are conversations between Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center, and Cosmic’s Creative Director, Eric Ressler. 
 

For leaders in social impact organizations, making the case for a major investment in brand building and strategic marketing can feel daunting. Whether you’re advocating to a CEO, CFO, or board, the justification must be clear, practical, and aligned with organizational goals. Here’s a way to frame the conversation in a way that speaks to decision-makers and builds a strong case for brand investment.

Empathize with Decision-Makers

To justify the spend on branding or marketing, the first and arguably most important step is to empathize with the decision maker who will approve the investment. That means understanding:

• What success looks like to them
• What their current priorities are
• How brand building can make their job easier, better, or more effective

Whether it's a CEO focused on strategic growth or a CFO concerned about financial efficiency, the pitch needs to be tailored to their specific motivations. 

Then connect the dots — authentically and strategically — between brand investment and the outcomes that they resonate with and that's empathetic to their priorities. 

Connect Brand Building to Financial Health

To move the conversation from the abstract to the concrete, link brand building directly to the financial health of your organization. Executives typically think in terms of two key outcomes:

• Will this help us attract funders, donors, supporters, and advocates?
• Will this help us save money?

The timescale of return may vary — from a quick win to a multi-year ramp-up — but the need for clarity is constant. A simple framework can help:

If we’re spending $100,000 on marketing now and feeding 100,000 families (for example), what might we achieve if we spent $200,000?

The goal isn’t to claim guaranteed outcomes but to offer projections — best case, worst case, and most likely — that illustrate the potential return on investment. Historical data can help, but even proportional estimates rooted in current metrics can make a compelling case.

Connect Brand Building to Mission and Impact

In the social impact space, every investment must tie back to both financial and mission-based outcomes. For a brand building to gain traction, it must:

• Clearly demonstrate how it will increase or deepen impact
• Stay in alignment with organizational mission and values
• Ensure that existing beneficiaries aren’t deprioritized in the process

As a social impact leader, you're looking to see a solid line — not a dotted one — between brand building and mission fulfillment. You also want to know that current services and impact won't suffer as a result of any shift in focus.

De-Risk the Investment

Brand building is inherently risky, and risk tolerance varies widely among social impact leaders. One way to mitigate concern is to propose a low-risk pilot project with narrowly defined, measurable outcomes that lowers the barrier to entry.

Another option is to roll out the brand work in three phases:

1. Start with a small discovery or strategy phase
2. Follow with creative execution or implementation
3. Use early wins to build confidence and momentum, refocus priorities, and expand your brand building efforts based on data from your early learnings

Not every aspect of a brand initiative can be scaled down, so be strategic about where to start. Ironically, risk-averse marketing often fails not because it’s too risky, but because it’s not bold enough to make a meaningful impact. A calculated, well-planned risk is often more effective than overly cautious investment.

Know What to Prioritize and De-Prioritize

Effective social impact leaders want to know what their organization is going to stop doing in order to do brand building well. If you’re prioritizing brand building, you may need to de-prioritize other things.

Making a real investment in brand building and growing awareness requires time, focus, and capacity. To justify the investment:

• As part of your brand building strategy, determine what current work might be deprioritized
• Acknowledge the effort required and show awareness of tradeoffs

Show how the proposed work aligns with the priorities of leadership

Propose the Right Project Team

Propose who is going to be on the internal brand building team. If staff and other stakeholders are already on board and have committed a portion of their time to the work, this preparation will go a long way in winning confidence among leadership and your entire team.

A high-functioning internal team is critical for success. Consider the ideal team size for decision-making and agility, who should be involved and why, and how to ensure continuity from the start and over time. 

In our experience, having leadership involved — especially CEOs or Executive Directors — improves outcomes. We’ve seen projects falter when top leadership isn’t engaged. The right-sized, committed team can be the difference between successful brand building and efforts that never quite land and produce the ROI you want.

Six Keys to Making the Case

When building the case for a brand investment, focus on these six principles:

1. Empathize with decision-makers and understand their priorities.
2. Connect the work to your organization’s financial health.
3. Tie brand building to impact and mission alignment.
4. De-risk the investment with a pilot or phased approach.
5. Prioritize to create capacity for the work.
6. Propose the internal team that will lead the work over time.

Done well, these six steps form a powerful justification for brand investment — grounded in empathy, aligned with organizational priorities, and clear about expected outcomes.

Check out the full conversation on our Designing Tomorrow podcast.