Why Every Nonprofit Needs Marketing Ops

Veteran nonprofit leader and Founder of Jackson Fields Consulting, Elizabeth Fields, explores the fundamentals of marketing operations, and why marketing at nonprofits should never be a secondary priority.

If they don’t know you, they can’t buy from you. We’ve all heard some version of this sales wisdom in the for-profit realm, but how does that translate to nonprofits??

Recently, Jackson Fields Consulting launched the LinkedIn Nonprofit Series to clear up common misconceptions about effective nonprofit management and demonstrate the need for operations in nonprofit organizations, while offering actionable advice and best practices to help nonprofits build capacity and ensure sustainable growth.?

While many nonprofits begin with a passionate cause, too many well-meaning organizations become flashes in the pan: they neglect to invest in the infrastructure and operations necessary to keep their nonprofit going so it can build a lasting legacy.

In this second installment of our series, we’ll conduct a special Q&A with Jackson Fields Consulting Founder Elizabeth Fields, who will talk us through the biggest mistakes nonprofits make in regards to marketing, actionable advice for how to grow your organization’s brand, and drive awareness, and why marketing shouldn’t be an afterthought but your very first investment.?

1. Is marketing really as important to nonprofits as it is to for-profit businesses?

Absolutely. Organizations can’t drive change without donors, and for that, they need long-term funders and recurring donations. Ideally, just like any bluechip brand, if a nonprofit is doing it right, then they are continually finding innovative ways to drive awareness through marketing.?

It’s marketing that enables an organization to take an audience who, at first, is just engaging with your content on your channels, whether it be social media, email, your blog, or any other source of content, and bring them through the funnel, with the ultimate goal of transforming prospects into donors.?

From there, development takes over, but marketing is also what allows you to continually activate your donors: it’s the first entry point to your organization and nonprofit brand.

2. So what does marketing in the nonprofit space look like and why is it important for fundraising?

Nonprofit marketing isn’t that different from marketing in a for-profit company. Marketing is the use of marketing strategy and content to promote the brand and spread the message of a nonprofit organization, with the ultimate objective of increasing funding and donations.?

In today’s landscape, online presence is a given. Beyond that, developing a full-funnel marketing strategy is necessary for a nonprofit’s brand visibility and to convert prospective donors to active, engaged members of your nonprofit community. This can take the form of email campaigns, social media channels, content generation like e-books and white papers, events, or value-add “free” content that informs and drives visibility and engagement.?

A development team can’t fundraise or perform stewardship for a brand or story that doesn’t exist. Great nonprofit marketing tells the story of the organization.?

3. What are some common mistakes nonprofits can make when it comes to marketing??

The first mistake I see organizations making is not having a marketing department or even a strategy. Now, I understand budgets can be tight. But even an organization that’s working on a shoestring can create a website or social media profile.?

It’s worth noting that there are other roadblocks leaders face when approaching marketing: One is that nonprofits are ranked by percentage of budgets spent on programs as opposed to administrative costs. So, to optimize that ratio, organizations often skimp on marketing, which counts as an administrative cost, as opposed to fundraising. Nonprofit executives sometimes need to justify every investment to their board, so they’re afraid of taking the risk of investing in marketing and not seeing an ROI. This is a critical mistake. In fact, as soon as an organization invests in marketing, they’re going to see an almost immediate ROI in brand visibility, engagement, and donations.

The second mistake I’ve seen over the years is a nonprofit being unclear about who their audience is, and what the story is they’re telling. If you don’t understand who your audience and donor persona is, you can’t market to them. On top of that, your audience needs to understand your story, which is: what you're doing, why you're doing it, and the impact of what you're doing. Period.?

Lastly, too many organizations are reacting instead of being proactive. Hire marketing experts, and, for lack of a better term, be aggressive about it.?

You need to constantly be stewarding current donors, while also looking for innovative ways to expand your audience and donors, and marketing is invaluable to both of these efforts. When I see nonprofits stall out, it’s because they rely on an old Rolodex of annual donors and neglect new blood. They’re not reaching out to prospective members, tracking their initiatives, or testing and tweaking their efforts to increase engagement and bring new audiences through the funnel.

All too often, marketing is an afterthought when in fact, it should be the very first priority.?

4. What are your top tips for nonprofits looking to invest in marketing??

Hire a marketing team that has experience in the nonprofit space, understands how to scale the organization, and knows how to help bring in a mix of bigger donors as well as consistent donations. It’s worth noting that there are laws and regulations in place for nonprofits, so to avoid trouble with the IRS, make sure your team understands the nonprofit arena and the rules.

An on-the-ground, full-time staff is always preferred to freelancers because they have a vested interest in your organization’s success. You don’t want to become too reliant on outside vendors who aren’t contributing to your organization in the long term, especially if they don’t have a history of working in the nonprofit space.

Hire a third party to create a Donor Persona Profile. Just as for-profit companies create buyer personas, you need to understand who is donating to your cause, so you can find more people like them and know how to market to them effectively.?

As far as marketing operations, investing in building your CRM is money well-spent that will yield a huge ROI, because it provides data and insights on who your audiences and prospective donors are. Working hand-in-hand with development to clean your data and build out a CRM database is what lays the groundwork and infrastructure you need to convert prospects into donors.?

You can’t manage what you can’t measure, so track engagement on all platforms to see how audiences are responding to your messaging and what campaigns are winning the greatest engagement. Then use those insights to optimize your marketing strategies and campaigns.

5. Why is “knowing your audience” so important??

In for-profit marketing, your audience is a consumer. In the nonprofit world, your audience is a donor or a potential donor. The better you can understand your audience, the better you can tailor your marketing strategies for them.?

A prime example of this is direct mail v. email. If you find out through donor research and creating your donor personas that your audience skews older, say 60+, you will want to ensure that in addition to email, you are also investing in direct mail, which tends to generate a lot of donations for that audience. Planned giving would be another important strategy to invest in, and your marketing department will want to steward those donors.?

If your audience skews younger, you may be getting a lot of consistent donations in smaller increments. You’re also going to get better reach and engagement if you invest in your social channels, i.e., Twitter, Instagram, or even TikTok. Think out of the box, like creating a podcast or hosting an event with a step-and-repeat and a hashtag so guests will do the marketing for you, or create a campaign based on user-generated content (UGC).

Also, younger people are often attracted to a cause because they know someone in their life that’s been personally affected: i.e., they have a relative with cancer, so they support cancer research, or, they’re the child of a first responder. Understand that that personal connection plays a big part in their giving.

The big takeaway is that you have to base your marketing strategies and tactics on who your donor personas and profiles are. Lastly, marketing and development should always be working hand-in-hand. In an ideal situation, marketing would raise brand visibility and warm up leads, and hand prospective donors off to fundraisers to come in and close the deal.?

6. When crafting your company story, where do you start??

Start with your why, and say it in clear, concrete terms so people understand the impact your organization has.

If you have statistics that demonstrate your impact, share them on your site, in your email messaging, anywhere and everywhere. Everyone, whether they be prospective donors, your volunteers, your board, likes quantifiable results.

But even better, share testimonials of the people who have benefited from your work. Get a quote or create a video of someone whose life has changed because of your organization. This person could be a formerly homeless youth, a veteran amputee, or a person with a rare disease. Video testimonials are a very powerful vehicle for inspiring people to donate to your cause, especially in the age of COVID when it is a little more complicated to invite donors to on-site visits or host in-person events. When people can visually see the impact their donations are having on peoples' lives… that’s greater than any story you can invent.?

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About Elizabeth Fields

Elizabeth Fields is Founder of Jackson Fields Consulting, and is thrilled to soon be joining First Responders Children's Foundation as Chief Marketing & Development Officer. Prior to First Responders Children’s Foundation and Jackson Fields Consulting, Elizabeth served as the Chief Operating Officer at the Gary Sinise Foundation from 2018-2021. Under her leadership, the Gary Sinise Foundation experienced record-breaking year-over-year growth in fundraising, provided meaningful programmatic spend to support our nation’s defenders, retained the coveted 4-Star Rating from Charity Navigator every consecutive year under her leadership, and achieved a program expense ratio that never dipped below 88%.?

Elizabeth has previously served in various executive roles at leading nonprofits and academic institutions, including National Public Radio (NPR), the University of Pennsylvania, University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management, and Michigan State University.?

Elizabeth earned both her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees at the University of Arizona. She also holds an Executive Certificate from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.