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What every nonprofit should know about marketing

July 8, 2010 By Sandy 1 Comment

I interviewed Kivi Leroux Miller today about her new book “The Nonprofit Marketing Guide.”  There were several nuggets of wisdom that popped out of our conversation, and I thought I’d share them with you.

Tell stories.  Learn how to tell a story about a person your organization has helped.  A good story has a beginning, a middle, and an end.  The story should be about the person, not about your organization.

Lose the jargon.  Keep all your communications simple and easy to understand.  Your donors don’t know your industry slang and acronyms.

There’s no such thing as the general public when it comes to marketing.  The general public includes everyone.  But you don’t need to reach everyone.  You only need to reach those people who are likely to support you. You must identify the specific groups of supporters who are out there, and craft your message to them.

Be clear about your message.  Don’t try to cram too much into it.  And include a call to action.

When deciding how best to reach your audience, first consider their preferences.  If most of them are hanging out online, then you might be able to completely ditch your print newsletter.  If not, then don’t try to force them online, because it won’t work.

I encourage you to get a copy of “The Nonprofit Marketing Guide.”  It’s easy to read (my copy is already marked up, tagged, and dog-eared!) and is full of practical ideas you can implement right away.  Get yours at Amazon.

Filed Under: Communications/Public Relations, General Fundraising, Marketing Tagged With: ,

Enter the 2010 Tagline Awards!

July 6, 2010 By Sandy Leave a Comment

My friend Nancy Schwartz is hosting her annual Tagline Awards.  Here’s the scoop:


Your nonprofit or foundation could be one of this year’s Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Award (a.k.a. The Taggies) winners!  And this year, for the first time, you can submit your organization’s program, fundraising campaign and special event taglines, in addition to your organizational tagline. So enter here now.

A strong tagline does double-duty—working to extend your organization’s name and mission, while delivering a focused, memorable and repeatable message to your base. It’s one of your most basic, and effective, marketing tools, but a recent GettingAttention.org survey showed that 72% of nonprofit organizations don’t have a tagline or rate theirs as performing poorly.  This program is designed to help close that gap.

All entrants will receive a free copy of the fully-updated 2010 Nonprofit Tagline Report in late 2010. It’s the only complete guide to building your organizational, program, fundraising or special event brand in 8 words or less—filled with how-tos, don’t-dos and models.

Please take 3 minutes now to enter your nonprofit’s taglines today while it’s on your mind. The deadline for entering is July 28.

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Telling a story without pictures

June 26, 2010 By Sandy 10 Comments

I heard a wonderful presentation recently about storytelling.  It’s entirely possible to tell a very compelling story without using pictures.  Instead, you paint a picture with the words you use.

To see what I mean, check out The Girl Effect.  www.girleffect.org.

Then think about what you see in your mind’s eye as you watched the video.

Cool, huh?

What stories can you tell about the work your nonprofit does that will paint such a vivid picture in your reader’s mind’s eye?

Filed Under: Communications/Public Relations, General Fundraising, Newsletter Tagged With: ,

Details, details…

April 30, 2010 By Sandy Leave a Comment

If you want to be a successful Fundraiser, you must pay attention to details.  No way around it.

Spelling a donor’s name incorrectly can instantly tear down any trust that donor had for your organization.  There’s often a perception that if you can’t handle the small things, you can’t handle the big things.

Here are a couple of details you may not have thought about, but need to be handled.

I received an invitation to an open house recently.  I was unfamiliar with the location, so I plugged the address into my GPS to get directions.  No such location.  The name of the street was misspelled on the invitation.  Luckily, I was able to guess at what the correct spelling was and get the directions.  Lots of people use GPS these days.  It’s a good idea to make sure you give a correct address on any materials.

I happened to be away from a computer when I received this invitation.  I had accessed my email with my phone and saw the invite, but couldn’t open it because it was included as an attachment.  My phone doesn’t open attachments.  If I had needed this information immediately, I would have been up the creek.  Lesson learned – include the information in the text of the email for people on the go.

I’m sure there are dozens of other places where we need to pay close attention to the details.  Please share your lessons learned with the rest of us.  Click on the comment link and tell us what you’ve learned.

Filed Under: Communications/Public Relations, General Fundraising Tagged With:
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