News You Can Use

70-Year-Old Relief Charity Adopts a New Name

The Learning Centers aren’t alone in their efforts to remake and rebrand themselves. A recent article in The Chronicle of Philanthropy recounted Christian Children Fund’s recent name change to ChildFund International. You can read the entire article here.

The similarities between ChildFund International’s efforts and our own are striking. The name Cornerstone Tutoring was chosen because it will be more easily communicated to the non-Masonic community than our current name. Similarly, Christian Children Fund chose to remove Christian from its name to help its sphere of influence reach to non-Christan countries.

The charities’ original names implied that they offered Christian programs or Masonic teaching for children. But ChildFund International phased out its Christian programs in the 1970s, and our Learning Centers provide dyslexia tutoring, not instruction in Masonic thought.

Even the rebranding process the charity followed is similar to our own. The article states that ChildFund International “conducted focus groups with donors, reached out to people who received help from the charity overseas, and discussed the idea with board and staff members.”

Anne Goddard, the charity’s president, noted that the change took time. “This is not something you do quickly,” Ms. Goddard states in the article. “Not only do your supporters identify you with a certain name, your staff identifies you with a certain name, and the communities we work in do. There was a lot of discussion; it was a slow process.”

ChildFund International hopes their name change will increase their donor base, especially among foundations and corporations.

What can we take from this? Change will always present a new set of challenges. But we change in hopes that with those challenges comes a floodgate of fresh opportunities.

Rebranding Update!!!

Results from the recent board meeting

On July 2 the parent board of the 32nd Degree Masonic Learning Centers for Children met in Lexington. On the agenda was a presentation by Marcia Morgan, a branding consultant who has worked with us for the past six months to consider a change in name to the Learning Centers. To many, the current name is unwieldy and not easily communicated to the non-Masonic universe. The board in January agreed to look at the issue and hear recommendations.

The result of Ms. Morgan's work with a number of focus groups is a proposed name change. What she found best met our needs is:
This name appealed both to Masons and non-Masons. It also passed many usage requirements (for example a local place would be called Cornerstone Tutoring for Chidren with Dyslexia of Waterbury or Cornerstone Tutoring of Waterbury, for short).

The image change reflects the clear message Ms. Morgan received that it should reflect the typical age range of our students.

"Tutoring" was chosen over "Learning" because we tutor, our children learn.

We are also looking at branding our certifcation program to further the image of our program (more on that later, but you can read about it in the presentation).

To understand more fully the results of this effort, log on to the forum, and you can download Morgan's full presentation as well as the decision criteria for the naming process which is located here (you must be a registered user to download the documents).

The parent board unanimously supported this renaming process and gave it a green light to move further ahead. This includes sharing the name with you and asking for your feedback. Please use the poll located in the right-hand column to express your opinion on the name. I've opened a topic in the Rebranding section of Forum for your comments.

We look forward to your input.