Editor’s note: Jennifer Hirt-Marchand is vice president and director of research for Marcus Thomas LLC, a Cleveland advertising and public relations agency.

The Cleveland Browns Foundation was founded in 1999 after the Cleveland Browns returned to Cleveland following a three-year hiatus from the NFL. The Foundation provides programs that benefit youths and funds nonprofit organizations that service underprivileged children in northeast Ohio.

In early 2002, after three years of existence, the Foundation felt it was time to elevate its philanthropic efforts in the area. It began developing a branding initiative with Cleveland-based Marcus Thomas LLC to differentiate its efforts from other local foundations and charity organizations. Research conducted with the Foundation’s key stakeholders and current and prospective donors directly fed an advertising campaign created to support the branding efforts and increase awareness of the Foundation’s commitment to youths in northeast Ohio.

Research findings from both qualitative and quantitative studies were used to develop a brand identity for the Foundation and a supporting advertising campaign. The first research phase involved in-depth, one-on-one, internal interviews conducted with key stakeholders of the Foundation, including management and board members. The research objective was to determine how the staff wanted the Foundation to be perceived and to identify obstacles to achieving that brand positioning.

Findings from that study fed directly into development of the second, quantitative phase. The quantitative phase queried members of the Foundation’s target audience in an online survey, including current donors and prospects, about their perceptions of the Foundation. Information gathered from both research studies was compared to determine whether a perceptual gap existed between how stakeholders wanted to be perceived and how target audi...