In the age of Trump, what’s the point of a non-profit’s brand?
The question struck me last year when the news broke that Congress had voted to strip PBS of its federal funding. As a brand strategist who has worked primarily with non-profits over the last ten years, the loss felt profound, but also shocking. Once upon a time, few non-profits could claim a brand as powerful, recognizable, or enduring as PBS. It enjoyed instant name recognition and unusually high levels of public trust. Its fifty-year-old logo—known as “the everyman”—was iconic. In 2019, the public broadcaster completed a comprehensive “revitalization” with the agency Lippincott, further extending its brand’s relevance into the digital age.
By every conventional measure, PBS had done branding ‘right.’ But it didn’t matter. On July 24, 2025, Republican lawmakers (under pressure from the Trump administration) rescinded millions in appropriations to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, PBS’s main funder. Layoffs followed soon after, and local stations threatened to fold. And while prominent media voices protested the decision, public outcry was surprisingly muted. Swiftly and efficiently, the “everyman” was put on life support.
It’s not just PBS. Other large, well-endowed organizations—the Smithsonian, USAID, Open Society Foundations, UNICEF, to name a few—that have spent considerable time and money investing in their brands have also found themselves in Trump’s crosshairs. But as it turns out, those investments have done little to deter government aggression, or to rally public support in the aftermath.
The broader field is taking notice. Instead of trumpeting their brands and proudly promoting their activities, I now see my non-profit clients doing the opposite: going quiet. Website copy is scrubbed for potentially offending words. Campaigns are scaled back, paused, or scrapped altogether. Programs come and go with nary a word of promotion about them.
I don’t blame them. This is “the proverbial rainy day,” as one prominent foundation leader recently put it, and against these darkening skies, organizations are re-evaluating everything. But this much is clear: when it mattered most, branding failed non-profits. We’re seeing the fallout from this failure today.
I believe these events represent an existential crisis for our industry. A strong brand was once considered a prized asset for any non-profit. It was something to nurture, to celebrate, to defend. But now, brand has become more of a liability: a bright red target to attract a trigger-happy government eager to wage war against any organization or individual that offends it.
This shift feels even more extraordinary when we consider just how important branding has become to non-profits’ work in recent years. Just a few decades ago, it was novel to think that a non-profit could even have a brand. After all, branding was an invention of the private sector—more suited for the cereal aisle than for an ivory tower university or a high-minded museum. Non-profits had better work to do (so the thinking went), like providing critical services, protecting the planet, or saving lives.
But then something changed. Pulling a page from their for-profit peers, non-profits began embracing the power of brand wholeheartedly. They hired “creative directors” and “chief brand officers.” They adopted identity systems, messaging frameworks, and creative platforms—and deployed these tools with increasing sophistication. They used terms like “brand equity” and “brand truth” without irony. The non-profit brand became its own typology (Rob Giampietro, the former creative director at MoMA, has written an excellent history on the topic from the perspective of museums).
These investments did much to bolster the sector’s success. But in the churn of strategy decks and overeager consultants (myself included), something fundamental was lost. The non-profit brand began to increasingly resemble its corporate cousin: slick, snappy, and easily consumed. It prized recognition instead of responsibility. It valued customers instead of coalitions. It was thin where it needed to be thick.
If branding has a role to play in securing non-profits’ futures, we need a complete reset on what successful branding looks like in this space. Let’s start here: Non-profits are not corporations. They’re not selling widgets—instead, they stand for ideas. They champion a specific vision of a future world that is in some way better than the one we live in now.
If Sotheby’s sells art, MoMA sells the idea that "art should belong to everyone."
If Evian sells water, Charity: Water sells the idea that "no child should go thirsty."
If Kaiser Permanente sells insurance, Partners In Health sells the idea that "health care is a human right."
And on and on.
One non-profit expert has called this way of thinking “affirmative promotion.” Others might describe it as narrative change. Whatever the term, the goal is the same: to spark tangible cultural influence and achieve adoption in the marketplace of ideas. For all of the strength of PBS’s brand, it seems to have failed to communicate the only perspective that mattered: that high-quality news and information were essential to a liberal democracy, and therefore worth fighting for. Its brand never fully asked its audience to see themselves as stewards of this shared public good.
The non-profit brands that are winning understand this. Some universities have been successful in quelling government intrusion by explaining in simple yet emotional terms what’s lost when research funding goes dry. The New York Times recently reported on a group of smaller Los Angeles non-profits that have found strength in numbers, mobilizing shared constituencies together. And last year, TED unveiled its new positioning, “Ideas change everything”—a clear exercise in affirmative promotion. Short, audacious, and inspiring, the positioning encapsulated a contagious point of view that everyone could rally behind. It was a manifesto for the future, no logo change required.
It’s still unclear how far Trump’s war will go. And as PBS proves, branding won’t shield non-profits from attack. But done effectively, it can give the public a reason to fight back. Right now, that may be the most essential service the sector can offer.
BIO
Phil Cox is an independent brand strategist and writer who helps organizations articulate who they are and what they stand for. He was previously an associate partner at Pentagram.
In the age of Trump, what’s the point of a non-profit’s brand?
The question struck me last year when the news broke that Congress had voted to strip PBS of its federal funding. As a brand strategist who has worked primarily with non-profits over the last ten years, the loss felt profound, but also shocking. Once upon a time, few non-profits could claim a brand as powerful, recognizable, or enduring as PBS. It enjoyed instant name recognition and unusually high levels of public trust. Its fifty-year-old logo—known as “the everyman”—was iconic. In 2019, the public broadcaster completed a comprehensive “revitalization” with the agency Lippincott, further extending its brand’s relevance into the digital age.
By every conventional measure, PBS had done branding ‘right.’ But it didn’t matter. On July 24, 2025, Republican lawmakers (under pressure from the Trump administration) rescinded millions in appropriations to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, PBS’s main funder. Layoffs followed soon after, and local stations threatened to fold. And while prominent media voices protested the decision, public outcry was surprisingly muted. Swiftly and efficiently, the “everyman” was put on life support.
It’s not just PBS. Other large, well-endowed organizations—the Smithsonian, USAID, Open Society Foundations, UNICEF, to name a few—that have spent considerable time and money investing in their brands have also found themselves in Trump’s crosshairs. But as it turns out, those investments have done little to deter government aggression, or to rally public support in the aftermath.
The broader field is taking notice. Instead of trumpeting their brands and proudly promoting their activities, I now see my non-profit clients doing the opposite: going quiet. Website copy is scrubbed for potentially offending words. Campaigns are scaled back, paused, or scrapped altogether. Programs come and go with nary a word of promotion about them.
I don’t blame them. This is “the proverbial rainy day,” as one prominent foundation leader recently put it, and against these darkening skies, organizations are re-evaluating everything. But this much is clear: when it mattered most, branding failed non-profits. We’re seeing the fallout from this failure today.
I believe these events represent an existential crisis for our industry. A strong brand was once considered a prized asset for any non-profit. It was something to nurture, to celebrate, to defend. But now, brand has become more of a liability: a bright red target to attract a trigger-happy government eager to wage war against any organization or individual that offends it.
This shift feels even more extraordinary when we consider just how important branding has become to non-profits’ work in recent years. Just a few decades ago, it was novel to think that a non-profit could even have a brand. After all, branding was an invention of the private sector—more suited for the cereal aisle than for an ivory tower university or a high-minded museum. Non-profits had better work to do (so the thinking went), like providing critical services, protecting the planet, or saving lives.
But then something changed. Pulling a page from their for-profit peers, non-profits began embracing the power of brand wholeheartedly. They hired “creative directors” and “chief brand officers.” They adopted identity systems, messaging frameworks, and creative platforms—and deployed these tools with increasing sophistication. They used terms like “brand equity” and “brand truth” without irony. The non-profit brand became its own typology (Rob Giampietro, the former creative director at MoMA, has written an excellent history on the topic from the perspective of museums).
These investments did much to bolster the sector’s success. But in the churn of strategy decks and overeager consultants (myself included), something fundamental was lost. The non-profit brand began to increasingly resemble its corporate cousin: slick, snappy, and easily consumed. It prized recognition instead of responsibility. It valued customers instead of coalitions. It was thin where it needed to be thick.
If branding has a role to play in securing non-profits’ futures, we need a complete reset on what successful branding looks like in this space. Let’s start here: Non-profits are not corporations. They’re not selling widgets—instead, they stand for ideas. They champion a specific vision of a future world that is in some way better than the one we live in now.
If Sotheby’s sells art, MoMA sells the idea that "art should belong to everyone."
If Evian sells water, Charity: Water sells the idea that "no child should go thirsty."
If Kaiser Permanente sells insurance, Partners In Health sells the idea that "health care is a human right."
And on and on.
One non-profit expert has called this way of thinking “affirmative promotion.” Others might describe it as narrative change. Whatever the term, the goal is the same: to spark tangible cultural influence and achieve adoption in the marketplace of ideas. For all of the strength of PBS’s brand, it seems to have failed to communicate the only perspective that mattered: that high-quality news and information were essential to a liberal democracy, and therefore worth fighting for. Its brand never fully asked its audience to see themselves as stewards of this shared public good.
The non-profit brands that are winning understand this. Some universities have been successful in quelling government intrusion by explaining in simple yet emotional terms what’s lost when research funding goes dry. The New York Times recently reported on a group of smaller Los Angeles non-profits that have found strength in numbers, mobilizing shared constituencies together. And last year, TED unveiled its new positioning, “Ideas change everything”—a clear exercise in affirmative promotion. Short, audacious, and inspiring, the positioning encapsulated a contagious point of view that everyone could rally behind. It was a manifesto for the future, no logo change required.
It’s still unclear how far Trump’s war will go. And as PBS proves, branding won’t shield non-profits from attack. But done effectively, it can give the public a reason to fight back. Right now, that may be the most essential service the sector can offer.
BIO
Phil Cox is an independent brand strategist and writer who helps organizations articulate who they are and what they stand for. He was previously an associate partner at Pentagram.
Further Reading
