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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.