What is the biggest challenge for your organization? There is a good chance it is the same as most non-profit organizations worldwide. The most difficult challenge they all face is fundraising.
How to find a budget for your projects, support the organization and cover its expenses that are necessary for running activities, setting up initiatives, planning projects, and completing them successfully when you are not earning money? Naturally, raising funds in many different ways.
Now the question is, how to raise the money and improve the efficiency of NPO fundraising campaigns? Working on your positioning, promotion, and actual marketing? Yes, marketing for non-profits is kind of a magic tool you really need if you want to keep on making a difference.
This article will help you learn more about the specifics of marketing for non-profits, some techniques, and peculiarities. Marketing strategies are not only going to improve your fundraising results but also the performance of your whole organization, helping you achieve multiple goals, develop it, and grow naturally and smoothly.
Before we start
Here is one very important thing to keep in mind before you proceed to learn more about marketing strategies and maybe even choose one for your non-profit.
Strategy is the base. There is actually nothing you can do without a strategy to predict the results.
If you already have good experience in marketing, even for non-profits, you will agree with this statement; but if you are just considering your options to achieve your NPO objectives, it may not seem important enough.
Many NGOs tend to propose short-term solutions, use advertising channels chaotically, and generally skip the planning stage or omit the marketing component, focusing more on organizational issues. There is nothing you should do without a plan. It is not possible to create a plan without a tactical approach. And where do the tactics come from? Directly from the strategy. Strategy defines the direction your organization should move in and the approach to that direction.
Now let’s move to the strategies.
We are going to cover 6 main ones today. They include:
- Get $120,000/year with Google Ad Grants
and $36,000/yr Microsoft Ads for Social Impact - Emotionally directed video approach
- Personal influence
- Targeted ads on Social Media
- Email marketing
- Influencers for free
1. Get $120,000 USD/year in free ads with Google Ad Grants and $36,000 Microsoft Ads for Social Impact
If you think you do not have a budget to promote your organization through Google Ads, then you do not know about Google Ad Grants and Microsoft Ads for Social Impact (Microsoft no longer offers this).
These are programs that financially support non-profits, so they could use the funds received for advertising on the Google and Bing search engine networks. There is no better contextual advertising than Google and Microsoft Ads, no more advanced and smart system you could take advantage of and attract any kind of audience you need. Multiple tools, advanced statistics and analytics, various targeting options, clever support, and guidance so that even a beginner could manage running their first campaign – imagine all those tools used for the sake of your organization.
Of course, there will be certain limits applied to non-profit campaigns you run under the programs. For example, you will not be able to spend more than $10,000 USD (Google) and $3,000 USD (Microsoft), and your cost-per-click bids will be limited to $2 USD (Google), but you will most likely not even notice that limitation.
There are three things you will need to apply for the grant: Google Ads & non-profit accounts, and Google Ads ID
, and a few on the Microsoft side as well.
If you don’t have time to learn how Google and/or Microsoft Ads work or aren’t sure you can manage a campaign, then you can always call an expert to make available resources that will be used efficiently and bring the necessary results.
Emotionally-directed video approach
Does content format matter? Definitely. Especially when we are considering content to be promoted by non-profits. Among the available options, the most efficient is video. It contains multiple elements that affect the view in complex ways: sound, picture, dynamics, and text. Just hearing a story or seeing an image will not be as effective as a video (we didn’t even mention simple tables or plain text).
Video is like a quintessence of the best elements used together.
Why do we pay so much attention to the power of content? Because it can be used to bring emotions to people – to make them feel. An emotional way of delivering your messages to people will speed up the actions they should take.
There are many online resources to help you create videos without investing much money. Modern smartphones also record high-quality videos, so you could process them afterward. Moreover, most Social Media (one of the best marketing channels for non-profits) confirms that video content is the most efficient.
Personal influence
You know about brand ambassadors and how important they are for the promotion of a company, organization, event, product, service – anything! But what about becoming an ambassador of your organization?
Organize and run events, and speak publicly about your organization and its work. Mention your workers, donors, volunteers, and supporters. Make friends with other organizations and attract donors. The more publicly you do that, the more attention you will attract, raising awareness of your company and expanding your supporters’ community.
Targeted ads on Social Media
Social Media deserves the most serious approach and needs a special plan. Why? Because this marketing channel is closer to your audience than any other. There are many important things to consider when discussing Social Media Marketing, but today, we will focus on the targeted ads available there.
Consider forming a budget to run paid campaigns on Facebook and Instagram. Well-prepared donor profiles will help you target your campaign effectively and achieve fantastic results. Test different formats and options to find the most efficient and cost-effective one, or ask somebody to help you, for example, one of your supporters who is interested in SMM and wants to practice at the same time, understanding and respecting your activities to put the effort in their work.
Email marketing
Email marketing is a well-known marketing channel that retains its effectiveness over time. A well-prepared and run email marketing campaign can bring 40x more than you invest in it.
It means that if you spend $5,000 you can attract up to $200,000 in funds! Doesn’t look bad, does it?
You need to build your email list and collect a strong base of potential and existing donors. Then you should build email marketing funnels and work on the templates for your letters, as well as their content. Decide on the key performance indicators to track, track them regularly, and constantly improve. For example, open rate is a very important metric to consider.
Influencers for free
Influencer marketing delivers fantastic results, but there aren’t many influencers willing to work for free or on a small budget. Also, great results require a great approach. This is why one of the strategic models to include in your plan is to find a world-famous influencer.
There are no guarantees you will get a Hollywood star promoting your agency, but you can focus on people who are well-supported, respected, and thus important within different organizations and communities, and ask them to collaborate. Tell them about your projects and initiatives. Explain why they are so important and what problems you solve. Show them you care for what you do, and they might start caring for it as well.
How to use those strategies? Practical approach
You can choose any of those models as a base for further processing within your strategic plan, or combine a few. Usually, it’s the combination that creates a perfect approach for you, but there are no ready ones – you will still need to check and adjust them for yourself.
The digital world of marketing is there for you to help you reach goals, see fantastic results, and make this world a better place for all of us. Don’t hesitate to discover it and use its opportunities and tools to the fullest.
Create positive experiences for your constituents while acquiring valuable insights to help remain agile and quickly address the issues of today, and solve for the challenges of tomorrow.