Successful branding requires targeting all your nonprofit’s audiences with the right messages.
Most nonprofits make the mistake of focusing on a limited number of audiences: donors, members, or clients. But every nonprofit has a wide array of audiences that can help it succeed. Consider them all when crafting marketing messages and choosing which media to use.
To focus your brand messages, explore the values of the audiences you want to reach and the ways in which they interact with your organization. Be sure to look ahead, at the audiences you want to reach going forward, not just those you now reach.
TYPES OF AUDIENCES
Staff
Executive staff, department heads, and front-line staff must be able to speak cogently about your organization. They are all brand ambassadors. When developing your brand, assess what staff knows about your organization’s mission, services, and success. You’ll also want to find out what keeps them working with you so you know how to attract qualified new employees.
Board
Board members are your key brand emissaries. Give them messages that help them articulate why your nonprofit matters and eases their fundraising efforts. Most important, keep them engaged and interested in the organization.
Partners
People and organizations will be much more willing to work with your organization if it is known as professional and responsible. Find out what characteristics of your organization are most valuable to those you are likely to partner with and whether you have communicated those values and common interests clearly.
Affiliates
If yours is a national organization with chapters or affiliates, others may be looking to you for guidance on how to best present your organizational story. Depending upon your relationship, involving other parties in the message development or branding process may be crucial to maintaining allegiance among these groups. For some organizations, it’s just a matter of clearly communicating brand guidelines to those on the front lines. For others, engagement in the branding process by affiliates may be required.
Clients
Clients are the reason most nonprofits exist. If clients have a choice of service providers, they want to know why they should chose your organization. They want to know what your organization offers that similar organizations do not offer and whether your services fill their particular needs. This information guides not only outreach but also may show you how to improve services. Perhaps some programs should be expanded and others dropped.
Members
Membership organizations need to know what motivates people to join and why others choose not to. Which membership benefits attract people and which are not meaningful? To keep your recruitment and renewal rates up, make sure you assess your members’ needs on an ongoing basis and communicate the value that your organization provides.
Volunteers
Whether individual volunteers or groups of volunteers (such as classes or businesses), you must ensure that the volunteer experience with your organization is a good one and that it generates the positive word of mouth you desire. Volunteers can become long-term donors and encourage others to do so as well.
Referrers
Organizations that depend on other agencies or even other people within their own agency to refer clients to its programs, must make clear what services are offered and what distinguishes them from those offered by similar nonprofits. You want to know people choose one organization over another when referring clients.
Vendors
Have you considered that the people and companies your organization deals with everyday can be crucial allies in your cause? Your vendors may be talking to thousands of other companies this year. Make sure that they know your mission and involve them in your cause. They can spread the word, donate their goods or services, support your events, or introduce you to potential partners, funders, volunteers or supporters.
Neighbors
Good relationships with neighbors — the people who live near your service sites but do not use your services — can be critical. If they don’t understand what you are doing, they may complain to elected officials or block expansion plans. This is especially true for shelters, halfway houses, and drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers. But neighbors are important to all nonprofits. From their ranks, you can get volunteers, in-kind donations, monetary or other support. Neighbors also make good partners-whether a restaurant donating surplus food to your organization or a retail store with a point of purchase display promoting your cause or hanging your flyer in their window.
Media
Media coverage is important, particularly when there is breaking news about your issue. To get media attention when you need it, you must be proactive: Make sure that key media — print, broadcast and online — know about your organization before you need publicity. Maintain lists of journalists you want to reach and cultivate ongoing relationships with them.
Legislators
If you are an issue-based organization that relies on regulation, legislation or funding at the local, state, or federal levels, then legislators will be on the top of the list of audiences you’ll want to communicate with regularly. But all nonprofits need good relations with government. You never know when funding legislation will be proposed or new rules enacted that affect your clients. Nonprofits have more leeway to lobby than they realize, so don’t take this group for granted. You can lobby on an issue but you just can’t advocate for a political candidate. Include key public officials (whether elected officials or their staff) on your email lists, send print newsletters, issue briefings, and annual reports, and make time to meet with key contacts in person on a periodic basis.
Donors
Donor audiences — a key audience for nonprofits — can vary greatly, from someone donating $1 to a food pantry at grocery store checkout to a philanthropist leaving a $10 million bequest. Make sure that you fully understand your donors, their values, and interests as well as their motivations for donating to your organization. Explore new ways to engage them in supporting your organization, such as planned giving programs.
Businesses
Whether large corporations or local businesses, the for-profit world can be an effective partner for your organization. But you need to know how to speak their language and appeal to their interests. Businesses want to know how they can leverage your goodwill to reach more potential customers, so it’s essential that partnering and sponsorship opportunities be presented as marketing opportunities for them.
Sponsors
What attracts sponsors to your organization? Crafting messages that demonstrate shared values and interests is more powerful than simply asking for support based on tiered dollar amounts. Knowing how to appeal to sponsors’ interests will be critical for building long-term support.
Funders
These days, you can’t expect foundations or other funders to see the value in your organization or expect them to renew their grants automatically. You need to demonstrate your organization’s impact. Funders want measurement, accountability, and transparency. You need to communicate your success in a way that they can appreciate. And for organizations seeking foundation support, it’s important to develop relationships with the foundations years before applying to grants. Start paving the way with clear messages about what your organization stands for.
What audiences have you overlooked in developing a marketing strategy for your nonprofit? The more you learn about them, the more effectively you can build your brand and inspire the support your nonprofit needs.
