Q&A with Brad Groznik,

Brad Groznik has made his name helping those in the community who help others. As a member of Central Pennsylvania Creative Professionals, or [CP]², Groznik aims his career as a public relations strategist toward developing the marketing and branding of local nonprofit organizations.

Groznik and [CP]² are currently focusing on their thirdannual Brand[Aid], where the various marketing and PR professionals, writers, and graphic designers come together to rebrand a particular nonprofit each year. This year’s recipient is the Mid-State Literacy Council.

Groznik discussed his personal involvement, as well as this summer’s Brand[Aid] project, with Town&Gown.

T&G: What made you begin working with [CP]²?

Groznik: I graduated from Penn State in 2006, ended up in New York for eight years then came back here three years ago. [My wife and I] wanted to start a PR firm in Pittsburgh or Nashville, Portland; everything was on the table. We got back here, and just because I wanted to be busy and look busy, I started networking. I found [CP]², and the people there, they were just awesome folks who really wanted to see me succeed.

T&G: What prompted the beginning of the Brand[Aid] project?

Groznik: I quickly got involved in the group, and one of the ideas that the board was kicking around was, how do we help nonprofits? What can we do with a nonprofit? I think everybody does free work for nonprofits at some point, but we can't make a job out of it. So what could we do as a group to educate the nonprofit community about what good marketing and good branding looks like? We went through a couple of different iterations, and what came out of it was Brand[Aid].

There are some great local nonprofits in this area doing great work; if they could just get their marketing and branding right, they would fly. They're usually in it because they care for the environment or care for the homeless, and the marketing is just not where their heart is. Promoting themselves is not where they put a lot of their energy. We said, well, what if we did that piece for them, redo their website, redo their logo, redo some of the language, help them and put together a plan so then they can take off.

T&G: For a nonprofit, what does good marketing and branding mean?

Groznik: For nonprofits, at least locally, good branding means consistency. Make sure that their website looks like their social media page, Facebook page, then that looks like the emails that you're getting in your inbox, and that looks like what is at the events. That is tough because you'll have to hire a graphic designer to make sure you have all of those elements together. We're seeing a lot of disjointed marketing, not having a lot of consistency across all the channels they're putting out.

T&G: Do these nonprofits continue to apply your teachings after the end of the project?

Groznik: Absolutely. This is our third year of Brand[Aid], working before with Housing Transitions and Taproot Kitchen. Both of them are constantly out there doing amazing things and promoting themselves in a great way.

T&G: What led to the selection of the Mid-State Literacy Council for this year’s Brand[Aid]?

Groznik: Every year we send out emails to nonprofits for Brand[Aid]. We need a nimble nonprofit that is willing to consider a logo change, consider completely changing their website, changing the way their marketing apparatus is working. We had a half-dozen nonprofits apply this year, and when we met with Mid-State Literacy Council, it was clear to us and they told us that they have a lot of things right except for their marketing. It was just lagging behind their other efforts, so if they could get that help, they would be able to fly.

T&G: What are the broad plans for the rebranding of the council?

Groznik: When we selected them, we put together a creative brief. This basically shows who we are as a brand, this is who Mid-State Literacy Council is as a brand, then we asked the graphic designers at [CP]² to submit a logo redesign based off that. We’re going to be working with the council to see if one of those [logos] is a good fit. T&G