EMBiz: Strategic Marketing for Nonprofit Organizations

Strategic Marketing for Nonprofit Organizations

Laurel Mintz

More Bang, Less Buck

Hi everyone, Laurel Mintz here CEO of Elevate My Brand. Today we’re going to talk a little bit about marketing for nonprofits. We have a lot of organizations that reach out to us and the question is always “how do I get more bang for less buck?” So, here are three tips if you are a nonprofit trying to market the right way.

Google Grants

Number one is Google Grants. Google does a $10,000 a month grant to most nonprofits. There’s a really simple application that you can fill out online. It’s a great way to get a lot of bang with someone else’s buck.

Tap Into and Utilize Other Networks 

The next one is cross-marketing with values-aligned businesses. So on the for-profit side often times will tell our brand partners to pick four nonprofits that they want to partner with each year, and each quarter they swap out a different nonprofit to develop a strategic cross-marketing partnership with. This really makes sense because then you’re tapping into their network and they’re tapping into your network. And we actually execute what we call a cross-marketing partnership agreement. Because let’s face it, everyone always has like the best possible intentions and the follow-through is often very much lacking. So, we actually make everyone sign a contract that says “this is what we’re willing to do, this is what you’re willing to do, and we are all in agreement that this is what we’re actually going to do and execute” because that is really where the beauty is in the execution of the cross-marketing partnership and tapping into both those networks.

Build an Organic Influencer Network 

And finally, organic partnerships. So this is about really connecting and sharing within your influencer networks. Nonprofits are here because they’re solving a very serious problem, whether that’s the unhoused or you want to support you know animal welfare, things like that. There’s a really strong and empowered audience behind each and every nonprofit. So a really great suggestion would be to look at who on your social channels for example, is engaging with your brand the most, and build out an organic influencer network, so to speak, whether that’s 20 people, 50 people, 100 people. Again, just like we talked about with the intentional cross marketing partnerships, you can do this in an organic way with people who are already really values-aligned and mission aligned with the organization. Ask them to share, ask them to create testimonials and things of that nature.

So that’s how you can get a lot of bang for little, or someone else’s buck, in nonprofit marketing.