I have spent a year with a certain mycology group providing professional marketing and branding services on my own time because I genuinely enjoy this group of people, however I am appalled by the way I have been treated as a volunteer.
My logo project back in January was hijacked by the president at the time for trying to push group forward faster as we were forming into a non-profit. They used my trip to Guatemala as a justifiable reason (the trip was only 5 days) to push forward saying I had not worked on the logo fast enough (yet never provided me with a deadline) and wanted to use something they had slapped together in illustrator. I had responded to a disarray of feedback in a timely, yet professional manor and explained in great detail the danger of releasing an unfinished logo to the public at large. During this, I stated that as the publicity chair I felt that I was in a position to make decisions and that the president shouldn’t have made an ‘executive decision’ regarding a project that they weren’t even involved with. We were going to involve them towards the end of the project once everyone has voted on the logo to move forward.
The president at the time decided to step down as a result of this and the founder moved her to the newsletter piece and someone else took her place. Between the time of the logo and the second newsletter of the year, a brand identity was created and finalized by said people who worked on the logo, including myself. With my instruction this identity was meant to be used on all marketing pieces moving forward.
To my dismay and disappointment the brand identity that I had spent several hours of my time on was not used without my knowledge upon release. Colors were changed, and the layout from what I had done was completely changed. It looked amateur and unprofessional.
I sent a disappointing email to the people involved expressing my frustrations and both presidents had unfriended me on facebook and continue to avoid addressing the ‘issue’. Once a brand identity is created the rigidity of it is not an option. It makes a group look unprofessional and unorganized, not to mention if you solicit money from prospective members who may not know who we are very well it puts on an unprofessional face to the outside world. I have provided numerous attempts at educating the group on branding and marketing because I realize that not everyone will understand these concepts if they do not work in the business industry.
If you cannot accept the rigidity of the use of a brand identity the group is not ready to accept and receive professional marketing and branding services. No body has the time nor energy to continuously fight for their contributions to be used as a volunteer. I am extremely disappointed in all of this.
I will also not work with people who feel they need to make executive decisions all the time, that’s not how to run an organization – the people in charge of specific committees should be confident enough to work with the president to come together to make decisions. The founder even briefly agree with me on this because she was afraid of this happening with the former president. It’s extremely disappointing because the rest of the group seems to understand that I knew what I was doing. I have been at a loss as to how this has all come to an end, but frankly a bit relieved this tension is gone from my life.
thank you for sharing with us, I believe this website really stands out : D.