Brand-Building at Community Colleges:

Insights from The Million Dollar Community College Challenge

Jump To:
  1. Branding Matters: Show Who You Are
  2. A Peek Inside: Branding at Community Colleges
  3. Hidden Truths: Branding Insights
  4. Revitalize Your Brand!

1.Branding Matters:Show Who You Are

Branding Matters: Show Who You Are

In an age of information overload, how do you tell the story of who your college is to students and your community? How do you take charge of your own narrative and showcase all that your college has to offer?

The answer is your brand – and it is so much more than marketing. At its core, your brand is what you stand for and how your students, faculty, staff, and community feel about you. Do they feel as if they belong at your college and clearly understand who you are? Or is there a disconnect between how your college views itself and how the community experiences your campus?

In today's changing higher education landscape, community colleges must connect with prospective students in new ways beyond traditional marketing.

Historically, community colleges have not had to focus on their brand to the same extent as four-year institutions.

In 2022, Lumina Foundation launched The Million Dollar Community College Challenge to help community colleges improve their connection, relevance, and community appeal. Colleges clearly saw a need for such help, as hundreds of institutions applied – 15 percent of the nation's community colleges, in fact.

Watch: The Million Dollar Community College Challenge, a national grant opportunity for community colleges

Ten finalists selected

After a nationwide search, 10 community colleges were selected as Challenge finalists. Each finalist then submitted a video showcasing its brand promise for adult learners. Lumina chose one community college to receive $1 million to support brand transformation. The other finalists each received $100,000 to implement a part of their broader brand vision. Institutions also received technical assistance from partners such as Noetic and Statwax/TrendyMinds.

Based on the high interest from colleges across the country, Lumina launched the Community College Marketing Academy in partnership with Noetic in fall and winter of 2022-23.

The Academy helped institutions identify how to better reach prospective students by strengthening their branding and marketing efforts in meaningful and measurable ways. Lumina also offered webinars in partnership with Smallbox on how community colleges could improve their websites. In addition, the foundation made relevant resources available on the Challenge website, including: "What is branding?", How to Build a Brand, and The Difference Between Brand and Marketing.

Workshops

Website Workshop #1:Designing Student-Centered Websites
 

Website Workshop #2:Analyzing and Optimizing
Your College Website for Results

The Million Dollar Community College Challenge created tremendous momentum in brand-building at these community colleges. Each college took a unique approach based on their specific branding needs and vision. Some conducted learner-centered research or engaged deeply with technical assistance providers to get started. Others focused on internal capacity-building or partnered with external vendors to help them best communicate who they are. Several institutions received additional funding to expand their implementation and apply their learning through a second grant year.

2.A Peek Inside:Branding at
Community Colleges

Interactive Case Studies

3.Hidden Truths:Branding Insights

Hidden Truths: Branding Insights

#1 Branding is about connection.

Through this work, colleges recognized the distinct need to connect with both their institutional community (students, faculty, and staff) and across their broader local community (community members, families, prospective students, and employers). They had to tell their story, authentically demonstrate who they are, and forge meaningful connections that were anchored in belonging and a shared sense of place and identity. These colleges are engaging their campus and community in new and deeper ways.

SEE EXAMPLES:

Madera Community College

“Pertenezco” or belonging was the central theme for Madera’s brand. They sought to demonstrate belonging by inviting the community and families to open house sessions on campus. They developed a multi-faceted mural to celebrate students’ Hispanic and Indigenous identities so students have a stronger sense of representation on campus. They embody this ethos of belonging through their faculty and staff who don’t just give students directions to offices or classrooms but personally walk them there.

Madison Area Technical College

After months of research to understand their students’ lived experience, Madison Area Technical College launched a “You’re Never Alone” campaign to signal the college’s support for students, with a particular focus on male students of color. The campaign included media, mailings in English and Spanish, and social media engagement. They launched a new website and expanded their efforts to provide individualized outreach and success coaching for returning adult students.

Northwest Shoals Community College

The college focused on connecting its brand to key external stakeholder groups, from its athlete alumni base, to employer partners, to dual enrollment students and even to the toddlers in its on-campus childcare center. They brought the college’s logo, message, and swag out into the community through billboards, videos, and t-shirts and then celebrated the brand with their campus community, resulting in a strong sense of pride and buy-in.

#2 Small investments go far.

Without funding, most colleges agreed they would not have been able to pursue this work or that it would have taken several years. However, colleges saw how small investments, when aligned with their top priorities, made a significant impact. They modernized a logo or mascot, painted walls, and generously distributed branded swag. These investments sent a big signal out to students and the community about what mattered. People got excited. Institutional pride soared. Enrollment, persistence, and partnerships increased. Several colleges are now identifying new sources of funding to help them go further with their branding goals.

SEE EXAMPLES:

College of Eastern Idaho

The project lead encouraged team members to gather ideas from all sectors, to take pictures of what they liked at other institutions and organizations, and to see how to apply it to their college. While they made bigger investments in a mural and statue on campus, it was the smaller investments inspired by other places that helped the team achieve brand consistency and awareness. They wrapped doors and windows with branded posters, put branded messages in heavily trafficked areas, and used available photos and resources to create student murals and engaging spaces in buildings.

Great Falls College

Once the college reached the primary goal of raising brand awareness through a mascot, they saw the need to address other areas, such as the website and the physical environment. While grant funds covered some of the cost, they identified other funding sources and reallocations to pursue these additional goals.

#3 Branding is cross-functional.

The colleges that were most successful in achieving their brand goals had both a branding champion to lead the work and cross-functional teams to collaborate in new ways. This led to better buy-in, improved relevance, and greater impact.

SEE EXAMPLES:

Community College of Rhode Island

The facilities, marketing, and institutional advancement offices came together to work in new ways. They jointly toured their four campuses and collectively redesigned common spaces to enhance brand awareness, create welcoming spaces, and ease navigation.

County College of Morris

The institution engaged faculty and staff through participation in a variety of teams and working groups. These teams worked with both staff and faculty from departments across the college and included a student intern who engaged other students to inform branding plans.

#4 Branding boosts engagement.

Pride of place and a shared identity are no small accomplishments, as these are the very hallmarks of community and belonging. Through their branding efforts, institutions experienced an outpouring of enthusiasm from all sectors and broader awareness across their campuses and communities, both of which translated into higher levels of engagement.

SEE EXAMPLES:

Individuals in the community connected over their shared branded swag. In one instance, two strangers met when they realized they were wearing the same mascot socks, which had been given to friends and partners of the college. Now they are dating!

Individuals approached college employees around town (at doctor’s offices and the grocery store) based on their branded clothing and pins. They shared positive feedback and questions about changes to the campus environment and brand.

Faculty and staff increased personal donations to their college after connecting to the branding process and outcomes, which included more regular celebration of faculty and staff achievements.

Students reached out to their college peers through their shared mascot identity during a crisis and started a GoFundMe site to support the recovery of an injured fellow student.

Institutions increased enrollment across several sectors and increased employer and community leader connections and engagement.

4.Revitalize
Your Brand!

Revitalize Your Brand!

There is no single right way to get started. Successful branding is based on strategies tailored to your institution’s specific context, culture, and goals.

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5

#1:Tackle your trickiest issue.

What is your biggest or most persistent problem related to branding? For these colleges, it was about a logo that no longer resonated, brand confusion caused by multiple name changes, misperception in the community, lack of connection to key internal and external stakeholders, or simply a physical environment that did not fully represent who the college was trying to be. Determine the issue unique to your institution and make a plan to address it.

#2:Be a brand champion, but don’t do it alone.

Leadership is essential but not sufficient. The colleges that went furthest started with brand champions at the executive level and senior administrators in marketing and then engaged stakeholders across campus through a collaborative approach for the duration of the project. One college took a grassroots approach, with its brand champion leading from a single department and working closely with all other parts of the college to achieve goals together. For brand revitalization to reach its full potential, it must be pursued with a shared vision, commitment, and passion.

#3:Embrace your blind spots.

Prioritize learning before you jump into action. Institutions that started by listening to students, faculty and staff, alumni, and external partners were the ones that gained powerful new insights about branding needs and approaches. Colleges took the time, either on their own or with the help of consultant partners, to conduct focus groups, interviews, and/or market research. They then used these findings to inform their change efforts.

#4:Get to the heart of the matter.

Recognize that identity, belonging, and connection are what branding is about. Set a vision that will help you articulate your brand promise, build your brand identity, and establish your brand awareness. Be clear about what story you want to tell and who your college wants to be to your students, your staff and faculty, your alumni, and your community and employer partners.

#5:Look for the next thing.

Branding is not a “one and done” endeavor. Colleges chose a starting point and achieved their initial goals but then recognized more was needed. Early efforts created an appetite for brand placement and helped ensure brand consistency. Colleges also recognized the need to embed branding into institutional priorities. Incorporate branding into your strategic plans and priorities, infuse it into existing initiatives, and create processes to ensure that branding is considered essential when thinking about new projects, new buildings or renovations, and new priorities.

Conclusion

In today’s competitive higher education landscape, branding is no longer optional for community colleges–it’s essential. By focusing on identity, belonging, and clear messaging, colleges can create stronger connections that drive engagement and enrollment. Small investments and cross-campus collaboration can lead to big wins in building pride and community. To thrive, colleges must view branding as a continuous, strategic effort that evolves with their goals and the needs of their students.

Historically, community colleges have not had to focus on their brand to the same extent as four-year institutions.

As open-access institutions, community colleges instead focused on serving the students who came to them. However, recent declines in enrollment have shown community colleges that they must tell their story better and show their community who they are. This is especially true for working-age adults (ages 22 to 40 years), who make up more than one-third of today's students.

One challenge for community colleges is they don’t often have the same resources or capacity as their 4-year counterparts to explicitly focus on their brand. However, we’re seeing community colleges get creative and tell their stories in innovative and efficient ways.

The applications showed that larger community colleges were growing their capacity and investment in marketing and branding, while smaller and medium-sized institutions were less poised to do so. Many institutions have shifted to newer marketing strategies through digital and social media channels, but most do not yet track data to assess their impact and efficacy.

Institutions recognized that branding should go beyond enrolling new learners; it should also support students until they earn credentials. Institutional messages to adult learners focused on belonging and connection, achieving future aspirations, and the benefits of earning a credential.