my nonprofit is part of a new national coalition to provide help for… the kinds of clients my nonprofit deals with. (was that vague enough for you? =). currently there are 46 members in the coalition. one of my impending tasks is to create the organization’s website, as my nonprofit is spearheading the coalition’s marketing, website creation, organization, etc. the problem? they haven’t decided on a name for the organization yet. we sat in a cube today and tried to brainstorm; they brainstormed well enough, but my mind unfortunately was mush. it was decided we should think on it for the night, and then come back, refreshed, tomorrow.
here are links i found during the past 20 minutes of researching about how to come up with a good business name:
mindpetals.com/blog/… coming-up-with-a-company-name…
sbinfocanada.about.com/…createbizname.htm
brandxpress.net…5-elements-to-consider-when-naming-your-business/
smallbusinessbranding.com/…how-to-be-unremarkable/
sbinformation.about.com/…businessnames.htm
retail.about.com/…/business_name.htm
groups.google.com/…/7ddcf6cbf8dfd0d8
firewheeldesign.com/…four_concentric_circles_of_a_web_20_name.php
intersection360.com/…How-To-Choose-A-Nonprofit-Domain-Name/Page1.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_company_name_etymologies
thenameinspector.com/10-name-types/
sideroad.com/Branding/company_names.html
update a couple weeks later:
by the way, my supervisor, who has a bunch of experience doing fundraising and cultivating for nonprofits, and has been thru 2 different identity redesigns, told me that it’s generally not a good idea to go with an acronym as your identity. he pointed to his last position, with the Happy People Local Food Bank, and their acronym was HPLFB. they used that a lot of that time, that acronym, as their main identity, which confused a lot of people. most people couldn’t remember it, and so they were called “happy people food bank” or “happy food bank”, which leads to identity dissolution. (is this *really* important, this dissolution? i have no idea. i just know it bothers me, that i like things to be precise and non-muddy.) so i didn’t get an acronym domain for my coalition’s site (which would’ve been something like “cibwcd.org”, which made no sense), and instead got a domain much like “coalitionforawesomepeople.org”. i then also did some thinking, and realized that the majority of acronym-based identities i know of are largely repetitive, conflict with similar organizations, and the majority of the time i can’t remember what they mean. which makes it harder for me to remember the organization. which might be why muddy acronym names are bad.
