Category Archives: Marketing

Have you read the 2013 eNonprofit’s Benchmark Study yet? It’s worth a gander, both for encouragement and for a reality check. The findings (based on data from 55 nonprofits) show that social media audience sizes went through the roof in 2012; in particular, nonprofits’ Twitter followers increased by an average 264%. But typical “open” rates of nonprofit emails went down to about 14%, and response rates dropped precipitously, down to .07% for fundraising appeals. Ouch.

The study’s authors (M+R Strategic Services and NTEN) are careful to note that different types of groups had different experiences, with the biggest drop in email response rates among groups doing international and rights-related work. And we might be able to blame the 2012 elections for sucking up a big share of donations. Also, response rates may also look worse than they should because nonprofits are failing to weed out nonresponsive recipients from their lists.

Nevertheless, I doubt that my email inbox is the only one in the world that’s simply flooded with emails from every nonprofit I’ve ever had contact with. (And once you sign a few petitions at the urging of your Facebook friends, you’ll find that the number of “contacts” starts rising fast.) I start looking for excuses to delete an email without opening it. (“Looks boring. Don’t care as much about that issue as others. Typo in the subject line? Fuggedaboutit.”)

What all of this inevitably means is that your nonprofit needs to work extra hard at making your emails stand out from the rest. Also be sure to include newsletters and other advocacy pieces in the mix of emails you send out — these, according to the study, get opened more than straight fundraising appeals.

For more tips on this topic, see Nolo’s article, “Nonprofit Fundraising Emails: How to Make Them Profitable.”

The Guardian (U.K.) recently brought together a group of experts to give their top tips for holding a fundraising event, in “Best bits: making events-based fundraising work.” All of the advice is worth a look, but what intrigued me was how many experts focused on the issue of connecting the event and its participants to the ongoing work of the nonprofit.

By way of background, many nonprofit fundraising events have no thematic consistency with the nonprofit’s mission or activities. Scanning the headlines these days will give you a pretty quick indicator of this. Aside from the Cicero, New York family that’s holding a dog-washing event to raise money for their child’s service dog, most of the stories you’ll find are about events like a Relay for Life marathon to support cancer research, a dog walk and fun run to support the Salvation Army, and a bowling tournament for a children’s foundation.

I’m not saying these are inconsistent or antithetical to the nonprofit’s mission — just that they’re as likely to attract people wishing to take on a personal challenge or have fun with friends as people with any long-term desire to support the nonprofit in question.

Here’s what the Guardian’s slate of experts had to say about this issue:

• “Focus on participants: . . . It’s really important to listen to them, thank them and provide them with the tools to get more involved with the charity.” – Hywel Mills, partnership manager, Movember.
• “[When] charities bring in a new audience and add them to their main supporter database[,] [t]he events supporters then receive what feels like irrelevant and disengaging messages because they didn’t get involved due to the cause. Targeted and transition communications are essential for retention.” – Al Bell – freelance consultant, Directory of Social Change (DSC).
• “We recently conducted a study on a mass-participation run (80,000 runners) and found that the challenge of the event was more important than the fundraising for participants. Charities should find a way to keep their brand and cause central . . . .” – Simon Lockyer – marketing director, Blackbaud.
• “We have given out free DVDs with a few short films at appropriate events as they are good way of getting our charity’s message across.” – Claire McHenry – events team manager, Help for Heroes.

It’s definitely a tough balance to get right. You’re focused on making sure the event goes smoothly and on schedule, and that people are enjoying themselves. Going to an extreme like, say, sitting everyone down for a half-hour video about your nonprofit is not going to work. But in my experience, too many nonprofits head toward the other extreme. Aside from knowing the nonprofit’s name, participants may leave knowing nothing about what the group does, what it needs, and what their participation and donation did to help. Don’t let that happen at your next event.

If your nonprofit publishes a newsletter, magazine, or even a blog, getting volunteer writers can be a great way to both reduce your workload and foster community involvement. But once the piece is written and published, who owns it? For example, if a for-profit magazine wanted to reprint the article, to whom would it pay the licensing fee — your group, or the original writer?

If you don’t know the answer to this, you can bet your volunteers don’t, either — which is why it’s worth figuring out this issue in advance and drafting a short agreement for your volunteers. Luckily, Nolo’s own Rich Stim, an expert on intellectual property matters, gives you the details in his blog post called “Who Owns What I Write for Nonprofit?”

Despite the girl selling cakes on the cover, readers of my book The Volunteer’s Guide to Fundraising know that I think the time has come to cut the sugar and other junk that so many nonprofits have come to rely on in selling goods for cash. The mixed message — we’re trying to help society, but we’re going to close our eyes to the health implications of what we’re purveying — is just too strong.

It’s not that I’m anti-treat. (Ask anyone who knows me!) But rarity is part of what makes something a treat, and sweets and other junk food are anything but rare in people’s lives these days, including those of children. That message rang out loud and clear with the publication of a study finding that, despite years of outcry and supposed efforts to curb the problem, junk food remains ubiquitous at the nation’s elementary schools. (See “Junk Foods Widely Available At Elementary Schools, Study Shows,” by Lindsay Tanner.) School lunches are nothing to brag about nutritionally, and then the kids can head straight to the vending machines for sugary, fatty, or salty chips, cookies, and so on.

Any fundraiser considering selling cookies at school, or even asking kids to sell them on behalf of a group, should consider that context. Fortunately, healthier alternatives are available, such as granola, low-salt pretzels, or home-baked items using whole grains and recipes adapted to reduce the common baddies. (In fact, now that I look again, the girl on my book cover is selling un-frosted cakes. Good job, cover girl!)

For a foundation that seemed to have so much marketing savvy, the Susan B. Komen foundation can be awfully tone deaf — and send a message that it’s more interested in raising cash than in spending it charitably.

Their current colossal oops, having stopped funding Planned Parenthood despite that agency’s importance in providing mammograms to low-income women, is only the latest example. As I described in January of last year, the Komen Foundation alienated plenty of nonprofit watchers with its hypervigilant efforts to protect its brand: See “Fundraising Oops: The Susan B. Komen Foundation Uses Donor Dollars to Sue Smaller Groups.” (I was going to illustrate this post with something pink, but decided not to take the risk. Did I say “pink?” I meant “that color that is a mix of red and white.”)

And then there was the foundation’s odd choice in 2010 to put its branding on buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Given that junk food and grilled food have been linked to cancer, this inspired plenty of commentary, and one “What the Cluck?” headline by the group Think Before You Pink (“a project of Breast Cancer Action, launched in 2002 in response to the growing concern about the number of pink ribbon products on the market.”)

Clearly there are people who were already shying away from pink products, not to mention supporting anything else but the Komen foundation, before the latest misstep. But at this point — based on all the media attention, not to mention the fact that my Facebook friends seem to be talking of nothing else — I’d say we may start seeing some pink products on the remainder tables. And an increase in donations to Planned Parenthood.

For an excellent summary of the current pink meltdown, analyzed in terms of nonprofit marketing best practices, see Kivi Leroux Miller’s “The Accidental Rebranding of Komen for the Cure.”

There’s only the December tiger left to be viewed on my “Tiger Creek Wildlife Refuge” calendar, and you all know what that means for nonprofit fundraising. But as a pre-season gift to us all, Nancy Schwartz has drawn up some simple and effective tips for using emails for year-end appeals in her “Getting Attention” blog.

The sample list of other nonprofits’ email taglines alone is worth the article. Nancy is too polite to say it, but some of those subject lines sound really tired — would anyone really be intrigued enough to open something that just says “Tonight,” or “An important message?” And she’s apparently not on the email list that I am where the nonprofit continually tells me “We still need larger donors,” to which I mentally reply, “I’m not large enough yet, thank you.”

Email is great for regular, timely communication, but at this time of the year, if the subject line doesn’t convey some intriguing substance, no one is going to open the email.

Here’s a subject that doesn’t get the attention it deserves: The importance of having great photo visuals in your marketing, fundraising, and other published or printed materials. Christy Wiles, Marketing Manager at PhotoPhilanthropy, both discusses the topic and provides fabulous examples of powerful photo images in her recent article, “Visual Storytelling for Nonprofits.”

As someone who’s owned a camera since childhood, but been too lazy to get beyond the basic point-and-shoot, I can attest to the fact that there are limitations to what any amateur can do. I’ve taken a lot of photos at nonprofit events, which usually look either like disorganized crowd scenes, or look posed. Take the below, for instance: a fundraising bake sale, showing a lot of cement, weeds, and people’s backsides. It was a fun event, but the picture isn’t going to move anyone to tears!

(Want to know how professional photographers get those great candid close-ups? It’s with a humongous telephoto lens, so that the subject isn’t necessarily aware of the photographer’s presence.) Sometimes, you just need to hire a pro.

You know how I love fundraising that makes money by selling something that costs the nonprofit nothing, and the Montclair Veterinary Hospital’s Pet and Wildlife Fund’s “Pet Mayor Contest” is one of the best examples I’ve seen lately.

Here’s how it works:

• People pay a $25 registration fee to enter their pets in the annual “Pet Mayor” race, fill out a simple nomination form, and send digital photos.
• Local businesses sponsor pet candidates and provide polling places , where people can vote for their favorite, on their premises.
• The winning pet gets a $100 gift certificate for veterinary care along with pet food, treats, and services donated by local vendors. The pet mayor’s responsibilities don’t sound too onerous: According to the Fund, the winner “serves as an ambassador of goodwill to all creatures in the community: two-legged, four-legged, furred, feathered and scaled,” enjoying “media attention and the chance to appear in public on behalf of the Pet & Wildlife Fund.”

This is apparently the Fund’s most popular fundraising event of the year. And it’s a proven publicity-generator — I read about it in the local neighborhood paper.

Since I cover both fundraising and real estate matters at Nolo, I can’t help but notice how often the two intersect.

This week, for example, my local neighborhood newspaper’s real estate section contains a front-page article about the Grubb Company’s recent donation of $5,000 to a local arts center.  DJ Grubb is quoted as saying, “From a personal perspective, I can’t wait to enjoy and participate in upcoming events. From a realtor’s perspective, it represents the spirit and ingenuity of the community . . . .”

On page 5 of the very same section, McGuire Real Estate’s home ads are accompanied by an announcement of its “1st Annual Neighborhood Garage Sale,” to benefit local schools. For every local homeowner who registers to hold a garage sale on September 17, McGuire will make a donation to the schools.

And agents at Pacific Union routinely donate part of their commission to a “Community Fund,” which makes annual awards to local nonprofits.

The pattern here looks pretty clear: Real estate companies have an interest in maintaining the vibrancy of the communities in which they operate, given that it helps them sell houses. And by helping local nonprofits, the get positive press coverage, or can at least draw attention to their own advertising.

Sure, they might have altruistic motives as well, but when it comes to business donations to charity, that altruism almost always gets exercised in a way that simultaneously benefits the business.

So, if you haven’t been watching which local real estate agents are interested in partnering with nonprofits, perhaps now is the time to open your local real estate section.

Or, get proactive. Even without making a cash donation, there are ways that local real estate companies may be able to pitch in with your nonprofit’s efforts — perhaps by lending their offices for a phone-a-thon or event, or suggesting properties for your next fundraising home-and-garden tour.

Wondering how important it is to come up with a fundraiser for your group that’s new and different? Or how other groups have managed to come up with winning ideas? Check out the podcast “Bringing Creativity to Your Fundraising Efforts,” drawn from Ilona Bray’s recently published book, The Volunteer’s Guide to Fundraising. It includes tips and stories from parents, events planners, and more.