I was motivated to write this by my love of MMA – Mixed Martial Arts – yes I’m a big fan and follow the sport pretty closely. Recently there was a Twitter incident between two fighters which escalated to name calling, slurs and general ugliness. Party number one then claimed that it was not really him but someone else who claimed his Twitter identity. There is some controversy about the truthfulness of that claim and whether his management was trying to do some damage control . Regardless….there is an important lesson here. If you don’t claim it SOMEONE else will.
So backing up a little:
It used to be that the biggest decision you’ll ever make is to figure out what to name your non-profit org. Will the name convey everything you’re trying to do and accomplish? Will the masses identify with it? blah blah blah.. figure that out and you can hurry to file the paperwork and poof your non profit is ready to go. Unfortunately its not so simple anymore now that we have that pesky internet stuff and damnable social media thing. The laundry list of things to claim your name has gotten longer than the lines at DSW on sale days.
Assuming you already agonizing hours, weeks and months have already been spent on coming up with that perfect name here are some things that you may or may not have thought of before you lay register it.
1 – Is anyone else already using it? Generally, a trademark search for the name is called for – you’d be surprised who has what trademarked even if it’s not being used.
2 – What does the acronym sound, look and read as? Often times, acronyms are used in place of long names- can you live with what it is? Ie. Association for Smart Singers = “ASS” It is costly, time consuming and a pain in the butt to change your name later once you realize a mistake has been made.
3 – Is the domain available online ? Google it.. find out who else is using it! Go to a domain website and do a search. You’re going to want that precious “.org” . If its already being used can you use something else? Whats the chance for confusion? Can you live with a variable i.e. www.theASS.org? www.assocsmartsingers.org? www.smartsingers.org? Will your donors go instinctively to what they think is your website based on your name and end up at a porn site? Important to know and find out NOW. Its also possible that someone may be camping on your domain in which case you will have to PAY some bucks to buy it from them. This is a big business – as the internet is becoming more crowded with domain names .com and .org are getting harder to secure and there are people out there buying up names with .tv, .net etc just to have in case someone wants it at a later date to be sold at a profit.
The Variables – speaking of domains… we all know that if the big companies like coke, ford etc protect their names by buying up all the domains so no spoof sites can pop up. How far do you need to go to make sure your identify to safe? Sure you can buy up every domain out there that comes close to your name but that’s going to cost big bucks. I’m not a lawyer or a trademark expert but from a practical small non profit point of view…
1 – The three big ones are .com, .org and .net… figure out what your domain name is going to be for your org and register those names. If you have a special event, campaign, promotion or fundraiser you’re going to want to register those as well. You don’t have to use them.. just register them. One day you may want to and find that some other clever person having noticed that your “NYC Jaywalkers ” fundraiser is taking off and register the domain and you will have to pry it out of their greedy hand or worse yet a disgruntled employee will use it to bash your org. Ok.. more likely the first part but you get the picture.
2 – Claim your social media identity right away – go to all the popular social media sites ie. Facebook, twitter, linked in, etc.. and claim your name… Again you don’t have to use them but make sure no-one else is either. Eventually though you will want to figure out which ones you want to be active on and build a profile. If you don’t someone else will and you don’t have any control over what they will say on your behalf.
Have anything to add? What are your thoughts on this?
See ya,
Jenny “claim it” Lai
