Recently I was introducing myself and the Foundation to some prominent leaders in health care and had the up-and-down, roller-coaster experience of the Foundation being "recognized" by these eminences only to realize a bit further into the conversation that they had the wrong Hartford in mind.
One famous health care writer told me that he had spoken at the Foundation, and a leading systems innovator told me that he subscribed to our newsletter. They were both thinking of the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, a community foundation based, you guessed it, in Hartford, Connecticut. Awkward.
They are a great outfit and even support aging service organizations among their many priorities and donor-directed funds, but we are very different organizations with very different missions.
Then, on Monday in a conversation with some foundation peers, one of them called us "The Hartford." I know that some foundations are concerned that they not be reduced to an acronym without the respect of a definite article. For example, you should always say and write "The Atlantic Philanthropies," not AP and never TAP. But for us, "The Hartford" is a problem because that is how the Hartford Insurance company introduces itself in its advertising. If you are old enough, you might remember television advertisements of an incongruous deer quietly wandering around, the more refined version of AFLAC's more recent quacking duck.
Again as far as I know, “The Hartford” is a good company, but they are a little bit older than us and have a very different mission, namely, selling insurance. As it says at the bottom of their website, "The Hartford" is The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. and its subsidiaries. Hartford Securities Distribution Company, Inc., a FINRA member firm. Member SIPC ©2009 The Hartford.
Obviously these confusions sting our vanity a bit. Name confusion is also an obstacle to successful branding. How can we use our name to create a sense of credibility and quality that adds support to our grantees and advances the mission in the minds of other funders and the general public if no one knows who we are? We learned at the national meeting of health care journalists that they automatically assume that we must somehow be related to Hartford Insurance. Even worse, this mistaken belief drives journalists away from us on the assumption that we represent the vested interests of the insurance company.
The association is so strong that while we almost always explain that the John A. Hartford Foundation represents the legacy of the family leaders of the A&P grocery store chain (and that therefore, of course, our guests should be sure to eat up), sometimes we begin presentations by saying that we have nothing to do with insurance or Connecticut.
And yet we still get questions about how long the commute to Connecticut is or how the weather is up there. I’m thinking that I will have to start carrying a jar around to collect fines from anyone who calls us “The Hartford” or asks about Connecticut after the first warning.
Be warned.