Nonprofit Marketing

All marketing for a nonprofit is targeted toward fund raising more money. A for profit company uses marketing to make more money, and a nonprofit uses marketing to fundraise more money. When marketing for a nonprofit you can use three key principles to gain more support in looking for new donors. These three principles are; 1) To always be respectful to the person you are marketing to; 2) Build trust with that person; and 3) Build a great website.

A bad characteristic of marketers is they sometimes are very disrespectful of the person they are marketing to. We've all had the mass bulk mail, telemarketers, pushy network marketing salesmen, and those famous SPAMers. A respectful marketer makes the message relevant to the person he is marketing to. This takes a little more time and effort, but it's worth it. If someone says they would not like to donate to your cause, and does not want to in the future, take that person off your database list.

An important part of the marketing aspect for nonprofits is building trust. We've all heard the horror stories of people donating money to a nonprofit, only to find out that the CEO & Finance manager had been embezzling donors money for years. One of the first questions that someone will ask before they give is, "Is my money going to be used for what I intended it for?" This comes down to communicating your message in a simple and concise way. Such as, "Your $5 a week of support will feed 480 meals to children every year," or "A $50 donation will save the life of seven India natives who currently have malaria." It's sad to say, but many people don't give to charity simply because they don't trust the nonprofit to use their money. Another way to get around this is to communicate to your audience how long you have been serving your community. The longer the better, as long as you've been in business for loner than five years, this gives you credibility and builds trust with your audience.

Build a great website. I could talk about what makes a great website all day long, but will keep it short here. Just having a website is not enough. A website is what future donors and funders are going to use to check our your nonprofit and do research. It's always great to have some pictures of what you do, volunteers helping out, and some pictures of your staff and board members. This makes a big difference, especially when they see the name or face of someone they know and trust who is associated with you. And as always you need to have a "donate now" button. Ideally it should be on the top left corner of your web page. This is the first place someone is going to look, and it's also the most common place someone is going to click.

When it comes to marketing for nonprofits just remember to always be respectful; build trust with those you are marketing to; and make sure your website is great.

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