Elizabeth Glaser and two other moms founded the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation about 14 years ago at a kitchen table. At that time, mission and branding were quite
clear: The goal of the foundation was to save the life of one child, Glaser's son Jake.
Glaser herself became infected with HIV when she required a blood transfusion after the birth of daughter Ariel in 1982. Ariel was infected by her mother's breast milk long
before Glaser knew she was HIV-positive, and Jake contracted the virus in the same way. Ariel died in 1988, and her mother's mission became to provide hope for children with AIDS.
Years later, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation is no longer a grassroots organization focused on one child - or even one disease. The foundation is now an
international organization whose programs and educational efforts reach hundreds of thousands of women and children around the world. "We are very well-known and well-respected
when it comes to AIDS," says Adam Coyne, communications director for the foundation.
But the organization is suffering something of an identity crisis. "As the foundation has evolved in the past few years, our mission has really expanded. Before we had a pretty
crystal-clear message, but as our mission has expanded, so have our messages."
The growth of the foundation has prompted Coyne and his board of directors to launch a major brand audit.
PR NEWS spoke with Coyne recently about the progress of the project and found out how the audit is helping to guide the organization as its mission grows to embrace new causes,
new research and new donors - and as it works to maintain its credibility with longtime supporters.
PRN: Your success with HIV has been spectacular. There are some who might wonder why you're expanding your mission.
A.C.: We started off as a domestic organization focused on helping kids in the United States. In 1999, we launched a program to prevent mother-to-child transmission [of HIV] in
the developing world. We now have about 140 sites in 14 countries, and in the next two years, the program should reach about 350,000 women.
Then in 2000, we launched the Glaser Pediatric Research Network, a partnership of the University of California at San Francisco, Stanford, UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital,
Baylor and Harvard. The network is a clinical research network, and one of the tenets is this focus on collaboration and getting researchers to work together. It is something we
not only encourage but demand.
Now we're taking that model of collaboration and applying it to other diseases in addition to HIV. For example, we're starting our first study on childhood osteoporosis.
This was part of Elizabeth's philosophy - to demand interconnectedness. There have been many breakthroughs in the study of HIV that apply to other diseases, and in that fashion
of studying any pediatric disease, there can be other breakthroughs.
PRN: When did you realize you needed to do an in-depth analysis of the brand?
A.C.: When I started a little less than two years ago, we were having a lot of trouble with our messaging. Last summer, we hired Fleishman-Hillard to flesh out our messages and
create a platform for how we [communicate that we do] more than just AIDS. That bumped us up a notch, but in many ways it made us realize we needed to take it a step further. We
took a larger step back to look at our overall branding.
PRN: What was the initial process?
A.C.: We formed a new committee of the board, a communications committee. We knew that with any big change we made, it would be critical to have buy-in from the board.
Internally, we wanted everyone to have buy-in and feel they were part of the team.
Once we had accomplished that, we wanted to strip it down and look at everything from our name - is it the right name, should we consider changing it - to why people contribute
and connect to us. What is critical about our logo? (Our logo is a hearts and flowers painting that Ariel did, and everyone loves it.) What are the emotional touch-points? And how
can we keep what's beneficial about our reputation in the AIDS community and still add new things?
In May we assembled our team. Our goal was to set a roadmap and a timeline for how we're going to examine the brand.
PRN: What did that roadmap and timeline look like?
A.C.: We are currently conducting one-on-one phone calls with every one of our board members to assess their key ideas on branding. We're also doing a donor audit and survey to
understand where our donors are coming from. And we're exploring doing a general consumer Web- or mail-based survey. We're also identifying what research currently exists. We're
gathering data from existing surveys about whether people give for domestic vs. international interests, how they think about specific diseases. And we're looking at case studies
of other organizations that have done things similar to this: March of Dimes started out as dimes for polio [research], and it has evolved into something much larger.
PRN: What's the next move after you finish gathering all this material?
A.C.: In July, a few representatives from Lowe [the foundation's ad agency], key foundation staff, select board members and one or two folks from Fleishman will gather, and we
will really identify and define what are the core elements of the brand. From this brand evaluation session, we're hoping to have a deliverable by fall for the November board
meeting.
(Contact: Coyne, [email protected])
Addressing the 'Fear Factor' Across Audiences
Coyne and his team are examining the brand question from all angles. A change in brand involves every stakeholder group. In particular, the brand evaluation team is looking at
how the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation can carry on its mission of bringing hope to children with AIDS and add to it while satisfying:
- Donors
- Employees, especially the development and fundraising staff
- Board members
- Volunteers
- Celebrity spokespeople (some have a special attachment to working for children's causes; others have an affinity for the foundation's work on HIV in particular)
- Media
"We're addressing what I'll call the 'fear factor,'" Coyne says. "As our brand promise changes from being the worldwide leader for children with AIDS, there's a little fear in
the question, 'What is it now?' Is it 'healthier children worldwide'? There's a fear of losing donors, a fear of losing press and visibility, a fear of losing celebrity
involvement, and a fear of losing credibility among the research community."