Marketing for Nonprofit Organizations
Marketing is something that every nonprofit knows they should do. The challenge is knowing
what marketing involves or, more importantly, how much of an organization’s resources should
be invested in marketing initiatives.
This Topic of the Month defines marketing for nonprofits, outlines how an organization can most
wisely spend funds on marketing, and articulates the importance of clearly communication your
nonprofit’s mission and vision.
What is Marketing for Nonprofit Organizations?
It can be difficult to distinguish between marketing and fundraising. The issue is further
complicated by the fact that marketing efforts typically have a positive impact on fundraising
initiatives. For the purpose of this paper, marketing is the way in which an organization presents
itself both internally and externally. In this context, marketing includes:
•
•
•
•
•
An organization’s brand, including how the logo is used.
How employees talk about the organization and recruit clients or participants.
Ways in which board members share the mission of the agency with others.
An organization’s messaging in printed collateral.
How the organization determines its other external messaging, including the use of
social networks.
Brand Identity
Prior to engaging in marketing activities, an organization needs to understand its brand. For
small to mid-sized organizations, Cathedral believes that it does not take an investment in hiring
a brand or marketing expert to understand and define the organization’s brand. The brand
includes tangible and intangible elements from the logo to the organization’s reputation, history,
and how others perceive it. For the purpose of this paper, we will focus on the tangibles and will
begin with the concept of the logo.
An organization’s brand is primarily defined by its logo and how it presents itself externally. The
logo is the one thing that visually defines what the organization does. This is particularly
important if the name of the organization does not immediately describe the organization’s work
or mission.
The logo needs to be used consistently and on every piece of communication – virtual or paper
– that is sent out by the agency. A few reminders:
•
•
Never alter your logo by changing its color or dimensions. In the same way that
McDonald’s does not change the color of its famous golden arches, you do not want to
allow staff or others to change the fundamental look and sizing of your logo.
When possible, use the full-color version of your logo. This will help increase brand
awareness among your donors and constituency.
Cathedral Consulting Group, LLC
Page 1 •
Every staff person’s email signature line should include the logo and organizational
address.
It is important to remember that even though you may be bored of your logo or want to exercise
your creativity, you need to present a consistent brand. A logo change not only disconnects the
organization with its institutional history but is often perceived as institutional instability coupled
with worries of mission drift by donors, volunteers, clients, and constituents.
That being said, many organizations refresh their logos from time to time. If needed, Cathedral
agrees that hiring a professional who can retain the original “look and feel” of the logo while
updating the font or colors is a wise investment.
After ensuring that you and your staff are consistently using your organization’s logo, you can
consider developing a more complete brand identity. This includes fonts used in presentations
and communication materials, the types of pictures you use and the way you use them (color,
black and white, group action photos vs. individual still photos), and a general design theme.
Upon completion of these tasks, it will be useful to develop a brand guideline handbook that can
be used by all staff.
One way to determine if you have already developed a brand is to examine both your website
and any pieces of printed collateral. If they all share the same color scheme, type font and logo
and look like they came from the same organization, than you have a strong brand identity. It is
more common that an organization’s website looks completely different from the annual report,
which looks nothing like its latest direct mail appeal. With a bit of focus and focus, this can be
easily corrected and a strong brand established.
Internal Communication
Marketing begins with how your employees talk about the organization. Each employee should
be able to state your organization’s mission and vision and explain how his/her job is helping the
organization accomplish its mission. This is particularly important for larger agencies or those
with more than one program area as employees in different program areas may not be aware of
the work of their colleagues.
Part of the internal communication should include an understanding of how (and if) employees
can speak to the organization’s success stories. Since many organizations work with vulnerable
populations, it is important for all employees to understand the need for privacy and how to tell a
participant’s story from the participant’s perspective. You may want to provide some sample
stories of how your agency should correctly and effectively discuss its work.
External Communication
Board members are the first line of external communication. Since they are key representatives
of the organization, it is important that each is able to articulate the mission and vision
statement. In addition, we recommend that every board member have an “essential story,” or an
example of how your organization transformed someone’s life. We have created a short outline
of what an essential story is and how you can create your own here.
The next part of external communication is how you present yourself to your donors. While most
organizations want a great annual report or a nice leave-behind brochure, current and potential
donors respond best to personal stories and testimonies. There is never going to be a single
brochure of piece of collateral that is going to make someone want to give who is not otherwise
Cathedral Consulting Group, LLC
Page 2 affiliated with your organization. That said, we do recommend that you invest in two key pieces,
a case for support and a leave-behind brochure.
1. Case for Support. A case for support is often used with major donors and outlines who
you are, what you do, how you are different from others doing similar work, why your
model works, and current financial needs. This document can be a PowerPoint
presentation that is shown electronically or printed out and presented as a bound report.
Please refer to our paper on Creating a Case for Support.1
2. Leave Behind Piece. We recommend that every organization have a leave-behind piece
that can be broadly distributed. Traditionally, this has been a tri-fold brochure, but it can
also be a postcard or an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper. The collateral should summarize your
organization, highlight the mission, indicate the number and types of participants served,
share a success story, and highlight an opportunity for an individual to get involved. This
piece should be inexpensive enough that board members and staff can give it away to
people they meet who might be interested in learning more about your organization.
More and more communication is being done virtually, and to that end, it is a good idea
to design pieces that can also be sent as a PDF and can be visually appealing when
they are viewed on a computer screen.
Social Media
One of the easiest ways to go off brand is through the use of social media. While it is common
for social media to be a more informal communication environment, it is still important that posts
on Facebook, LinkedIn or other social media sites are professional and accurately reflect your
organization.
We recommend that organizations have a presence on Facebook and LinkedIn. However, it is
important that you assign an individual who will be responsible for updating these and other
sites such as Twitter. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter can all be great ways to cost-effectively
generate awareness of your organization. However, most nonprofits do not generate many
donations through the use of these types of media. Nearly all organizations – 98% – have a
presence on Facebook, and the average number of fans is 8,3172 Note that although Facebook
is a great way to increase recognition of your organization, it is still not an effective fundraising
tool. Less than 1.5% of all organizations report generating more than $10,000 through their
fundraising efforts on Facebook.3
Email
Email can be a cost effective marketing and fundraising strategy. More and more nonprofits are
using email to send out newsletters and other updates that have traditionally been mailed.
Because email has become a sophisticated communication tool, we recommend using a
commercial program such as Constant Contact of MailChimp. These are available on a monthly
subscription basis and can help you develop and manage professional-looking email
communications and mailing lists.
Email is easy to send, but how much is too much? An average nonprofit organization sends 3-5
email messages a month, increasing to an average of eight in the month of December.4 This
statistic includes emails sent for educational purposes as well as those sent for fundraising.
1
http://www.cathedralconsulting.com/files/TOPIC Case for Support January 2011.pdf
Nonprofit Social Network Survey, 2012.
3
Nonprofit Social Network Survey, 2012.
4
2012 eNonprofit Benchmark Study.
2
Cathedral Consulting Group, LLC
Page 3 Because of the ease with which emails can be sent, it is important to develop a communication
calendar that is used by anyone in your agency that send out email campaigns. This will help
you think through the important pieces of communication that you want your donors and
volunteers to receive without overwhelming them with too much data in any particular month.
We receive many questions about average click-through and open rates for emails. The 2012
eNonprofit Benchmarks Study provides detailed industry standards that are worth examining for
your organization. A link to this study is provided below. In general, the average open rate
across all nonprofit sectors is 13% for a newsletter and 12% for a fundraising email. The
average click-through rate (the number of people who “click through” to a link you designate) is
1.6% for a newsletter and .47% for a fundraising email.
Summary and Key Do’s and Don’ts
Marketing is important for an organization, but you can be an excellent marketer without
spending a lot of money or having a fancy brochure or annual report. Here are some key Do’s
and Don’ts.
1. Do be consistent in all of your communication and make sure your organization “looks”
the same through all your communication vehicles.
2. Do take time to train your staff and board members on how to speak about your
organization.
3. Do provide examples of how staff and board members should speak about your clients
or program participants.
4. Don’t set up Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn accounts without identifying a specific staff
person who can update them regularly.
5. Don’t rely on Facebook to fundraise, but DO use Facebook to increase awareness of
your organization.
Articles for Further Reading
1. Register for free and receive the 2012 Nonprofit Social Network survey.
http://www.nonprofitsocialnetworksurvey.com/
2. 2012 eNonprofit Benchmarks study. http://www.e-benchmarkstudy.com
Kimberly Reeve is a Managing Director, Michelle Fitzgerald is a former Senior Associate in the
New York office. Rachelle Bottenbley is an Associate in the Amsterdam office.
For more information, please visit Cathedral Consulting Group LLC online at
www.cathedralconsulting.com or contact us at info@cathedralconsulting.com.
Cathedral Consulting Group, LLC
Page 4