Know-How Exchange : Taglines/Names

I'd be concerned that the 40th anniversary is more a distraction than a meaningful benefit statement. It's fine to celebrate the milestone internally, but I would not go so far as to create a tagline to use for the year. By definition a short-term tagline like that will borrow interest from the real mission of the organization and the reason folks should support it.

You didn't have a special tagline for the 39th anniversary, did you? Why is 40 more worthy of celebration than 39 or 41?

Does your organization have a tagline already? If not, perhaps creating one anew (or revamping your old one) is in order - rather than something "40"-related.

I've worked with non-profits on and off for almost 30 years. From my perspective, celebrating any kind of milestone year-based event is a waste of time, effort, and resources. With respect, it's likely that the only people who really care about your organization's 40th anniversary are senior staff and trustees. While forty years of service is indeed a milestone, rather than investing time and effort creating tag lines to celebrate an event that in reality, is of little significance to anyone but internal stakeholders, it may be better to invest time and effort in brainstorming events for the next 40 months.

Unless you have the ability to print promotional materials for your 40th anniversary on-demand, or in tightly controlled quantities, and unless you design and roll out a strict distribution policy that you stick to like glue, at the end of your 40th year, the chances are high that you'll have lots of dated and potentially useless tag-lined and dated material left over, none of which you'll use without looking dated.

Instead of spending time creating a tag line (that really, probably won't help your organization do that much in the world of media), consider contacting and interviewing 40 people whose lives you've impacted over the last 40 years and interview them. Get these interviews on video, or write them out as human interest stories, and then roll these pieces of content out throughout the year, with connected media releases, to maintain top of mind presence in the local and regional media.

Include a solid call to action at the end of every piece of content that drives readers, viewers back to a website on which they can learn more, and through which they can contribute their own stories and a donation to your cause.