3 SECRET INGREDIENTS TO GREAT NONPROFIT MARKETING
Nonprofits - connect with your audience and build your community through storytelling.
Telling the right story about your nonprofit can make all the difference. You can illustrate problems, articulate solutions, and forge emotional connections that attract supporters.
Here are three secret ingredients that can help make your nonprofit irresistible to donors. If each of these come through in your brand story, it can radically transform the effectiveness of your marketing:
Real people and impact. Share real moments and experiences of those who have benefitted from your organization. It’s easy to assume that people implicitly understand the change that happens through your work, but that’s just not the case. Explicitly communicate the “before” and the “after” so people clearly see the value of what you do and why they should donate.
Urgency or need. Make sure people understand exactly why you’re reaching out and how much you need their help. Provide relevant facts and data.
Emotion. Humans feel first and think later. How can you use this to your advantage? Start by creating empathy for the people, animals, or region you’re helping. And then move forward to joy and hope. Empathy attaches emotion to the “before,” while joy and hope moves the reader forward to an “after” that they want to be a part of.
Here’s a great example of a short, but sweet story told by charity: water:
“In the past, we didn’t have access to clean water. My children used to get sick all the time. Dirty water caused a lot of diseases here. With clean water, health of the entire village has improved drastically.” - Sanjita, wife and mother of two
The need and impact of their work is made abundantly clear. They included a personal experience (and a photo in the original tweet). And they followed the formula of creating empathy for a mother and her children followed by the joy of seeing that an entire village has received benefits.
Here at RB Collaborative, we help nonprofits clarify their message and maximize their marketing, so they can raise the money their cause deserves. If you’d like to talk about how we can help you, send us an email at hello@rbcollaborative.com.
