Nonprofit advertising is critical to spread the word about your organization and earn donations. But while for-profit businesses can afford traditional advertising channels like billboards and commercials, nonprofits with tight budgets might struggle to inspire support for their causes. Thankfully, nonprofits have little-to-no-cost advertising options at their disposal.
To help you create a well-developed nonprofit advertising plan that keeps costs low and success high, we’ll walk you through the following topics:
Effective nonprofit advertising can help your organization increase awareness and accomplish more for your mission. Ready to jump in?
Nonprofit Advertising Basics
Before you can craft a stellar ad for your nonprofit, you need to understand the fundamentals. Let’s take a look at the basic information you need to know!
What is Nonprofit Advertising?
Nonprofit advertising is a specific type of marketing that refers to the paid channels and strategies an organization uses to spread awareness of its mission and projects.
While general mission-driven marketing includes all of the strategies and channels an organization uses to amplify its mission, nonprofit advertising only refers to traditionally paid channels. Regardless, the ultimate goal is the same: to raise more donations, grow a following, and bring attention to your cause.
The Difference Between Inbound and Outbound Marketing
As part of your nonprofit marketing plan, document how your team will promote its cause, balancing paid and free channels appropriately. Doing so enables your team to create promotional materials, stay consistent with branding and goals, and reach your target audience without breaking your budget.
While making this plan, your team should balance outbound and inbound marketing tactics. Here’s the difference between these two types of channels:
- Outbound marketing involves reaching out to the public using paid channels (i.e., advertising) to get them interested in your organization. Examples include print advertising, social media ads, pay-per-click advertising, radio ads, and telemarketing.
- Inbound marketing focuses on creating and distributing unpaid content to draw people into your mission. Inbound tactics can include search engine optimization (SEO), earned social media, blogging, and other forms of content production.
To strike a balance, we recommend using inbound tactics like optimizing your website for SEO or nurturing leads with email marketing. Then, you can advertise your optimized content.
Inbound Marketing Explained
The majority of this guide to nonprofit advertising focuses on outbound advertising, but let’s take a moment to elaborate on inbound marketing and how it can complement your outbound strategy.
Inbound marketing revolves around content generation. What types of content are likely to interest and attract prospective supporters to your nonprofit? This might be a research report on your cause, a podcast with hosts who answer listeners’ questions, or a blog post that dives into a specific topic related to your nonprofit.
After creating this content, inbound marketing follows the principle that interested parties will find it and start the process of becoming supporters. However, very few inbound marketing strategies actually leave it up to chance that interested individuals will just stumble upon their content. Rather, they employ a number of strategies, the chief of which is SEO.
SEO is the process of adjusting your current content and creating new content that is search engine-friendly. By doing so, your content will rank higher on search engine results pages, increasing the chances that potential supporters will click on it. This helps build your brand recognition, drive website traffic, and reach your audience.
Generally, an SEO strategy can be divided into three components:
- Keyword research. An SEO strategy is only effective if it targets the keywords that enough prospective supporters are actually looking up. Consider words, phrases, and questions related to your cause that supporters may enter into search engines. For example, a nonprofit selling professional development courses might target keywords like “continuing education courses” or “online certifications.”
- Content creation. Using the information gathered through keyword research, nonprofits create content focused on the topics potential supporters are searching for. This might be educational content related to recent research, tips for getting more involved, or a product page promoting specific services.
- Technical optimization. Search engines like Google want to promote content that provides users with a positive experience. As such, technical considerations, such as load times, mobile-friendliness, and the number of broken links are factored into SEO rankings.
With a strong SEO strategy, you might reach a point where target keywords for your nonprofit feature your Google Ad as the top result and then more of your content for the organic spots right under it! You might even push the competition off the page and take up more real estate within results. This presents your organization as trustworthy and valuable and increases the chances prospective supporters will click on a link to your site.
Including Advertising in Your Nonprofit’s Budget
One of the limiting factors of advertising is budgetary constraints. That’s why it’s important to establish a detailed budget before each fiscal year to make sure you aim for and maintain a positive ROI.
Try to allocate between 5-15% of your budget to advertising and marketing. As you build this budget, consider applying for grants and seeking other free nonprofit advertising opportunities to reduce expenses.
Taking Advantage of Free Nonprofit Advertising Opportunities
While traditionally expensive, advertising platforms recognize the budgetary challenges nonprofits face, so they’ll often provide discounted and occasionally free nonprofit advertising. This can skyrocket the marketing channel’s ROI for your nonprofit.
For instance, Google provides eligible nonprofits with $10,000 in free advertising credits to spend on Google Ads each month through the Google Ad Grant program. This is an incredibly valuable opportunity for nonprofits. According to Nonprofits Source, search ads have the highest ROI of any paid advertising channel at $4.78. With this grant, you can dramatically reduce your spending on advertising and reach new, interested audiences more easily.
Along with the Google Ad Grant, other free nonprofit advertising opportunities include:
- Radio ads: Many nonprofits qualify for free public service announcements on community radio stations due to Federal Communications Commission rules.
- Microsoft Ad Grants: Similar to the Google Grants program, Microsoft offers its own free advertising program that provides up to $3,000 in advertising credits monthly.
- Corporate sponsorships: Thanks to recent corporate social responsibility trends, many businesses want to help nonprofits by sponsoring them. Through media sponsorships, corporations can provide free promotion for your nonprofit.
Due to the popularity of free nonprofit advertising options like these, more and more nonprofits are able to expand their reach through advertising.
The Benefits of Effective Nonprofit Advertising
In a recent year, nonprofits invested 19% more in digital advertising to reach their audiences. That indicates they’re experiencing worthwhile advantages from it. By crafting a smart nonprofit advertising plan, you’ll experience a ton of great benefits, including:
- Raise brand awareness. Nonprofit advertising channels allow your team to reach a broader audience than word-of-mouth alone. Through compelling ads, you can connect with potential supporters and stay front-of-mind for existing donors.
- Generate high-quality conversions. If your ad is powerful enough, you can convert an ordinary viewer into a valuable supporter. You might shoot for conversions like donations, volunteer sign-ups, contact form completions, event registrations, or shares to social media sites.
- Grow and maintain thought leadership. Advertising can position your nonprofit as a thought leader in its field. If your nonprofit consistently releases relevant news and industry updates, you’ll become a trusted resource.
- Major returns on low-cost efforts. As we mentioned, nonprofits tend to see a high return on their outreach efforts, thanks to affordable and free nonprofit advertising options like the Google Ad Grant.
Advertising is too good to pass up. Even if you don’t have the time you’d like to dedicate to creating your ads, an expert can step in to help out. For example, the experts at Getting Attention understand everything there is to know about advertising on Google. With low prices, they can help you manage your Ad Grant account and craft winning ads that drive more revenue for your cause.
You won’t be able to accomplish the above without strategic advertisements and a well-crafted plan, though. We’ll explore some steps for crafting winning ads a little later.
The Challenges of Advertising for Nonprofits
Even with these great benefits, there are a few challenges you should familiarize yourself with. Knowing what to expect will help you combat these challenges before they arise:
- Potentially negative donor reactions. A lot of people already have a bad taste in their mouths thanks to for-profit advertising. Plus, many donors want to see their contributions go directly to your nonprofit’s mission, as opposed to the marketing needed to achieve that mission.
- Authenticity and establishing connections. Storytelling is a key component of nonprofit marketing that can be lost in advertising if you’re not careful. Make sure you’re producing authentic content that communicates your nonprofit’s story and why it’s vital that viewers get involved.
So, how can you get ahead of these challenges? Start by choosing affordable and free nonprofit advertising channels and strategies that won’t blow your budget out of the water. From here, make sure your ads feature inspirational content in an authentic tone, rather than being too salesy.
Many organizations also turn to external agencies to manage their ads and overcome common challenges. Just be sure to choose an agency that specializes in your sector. For example, a church might hire a church marketing agency that understands the unique needs of the religious sector and knows proper messaging and terminology.
Types of Nonprofit Advertising
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to nonprofit advertising. What works for one organization might not work for another. The good news is that there are plenty of options out there! Let’s explore seven nonprofit advertising channels you can use.
Google Search and Display Ads
Google Ads allows you to advertise your mission when users search for relevant keywords. Paid search advertisements appear on the search engine results pages corresponding to your chosen keywords on Google. Meanwhile, display advertisements promote your organization to users watching YouTube videos, checking Gmail, or browsing sites within Google’s display network.
The average small business that uses Google Ads spends between $5,000 and $12,000 per month on paid search campaigns. That’s $60,000 to $150,000 of marketing expenses every year.
To make this opportunity more accessible, Google provides eligible nonprofits with a $10,000 monthly stipend to spend on paid search ads. This program is called Google Ad Grants and can be a real game-changer for your nonprofit advertising efforts.
While regular Google Ad accounts must pay per ad-click, Google Ad Grant participants can publish ads for free through the program. These ads enable your nonprofit, whether it’s a church or a cultural organization, to appear on Google and get in front of qualified prospects searching for topics related to your mission.
The ideal Google Ad Grant candidate has a high-quality website that effectively serves its audience and promotes its mission. By leveraging Google Ad Grants for nonprofits, your organization can accomplish the following:
- Drive more traffic to your website
- Increase online conversions, like donations and volunteer sign-ups
- Connect with new supporters and retain existing ones
- Leverage conversion-optimization tools like responsive search ads
- Analyze and track your campaign performance
As long as your organization stays compliant with the eligibility requirements, your grant will automatically renew each month. For tailored help, feel free to contact our team at Getting Attention. We work with nonprofits to create winning ads that champion their cause and garner meaningful attention.
Nonprofit Facebook Ads
Facebook remains one of the most popular social media platforms for interacting with and donating to nonprofits. In fact, 56% of donors say that Facebook is the social media platform that has the largest impact on their decision to donate.
Facebook offers a range of advertising solutions for nonprofits that make it easy to take advantage of this opportunity. With their nonprofit-oriented tools, you can:
Be sure to include clear calls to action in your Facebook ads, and consider including buttons to drive users to your donation page or other key landing pages on your websites.
Social Media Advertising
According to the 2023 Nonprofit Tech for Good Report, 87% of nonprofits regularly use social media in their digital marketing and fundraising strategies, while 53% of those spend money on social media ads.
There’s a good reason for this! Social media has an incredible reach and is estimated to reach 5.8 billion users worldwide by 2027. Tap into this audience by implementing social media ads on the following platforms:
- Instagram: Instagram ads appear throughout the app in users’ feeds, stories, and explore pages. They look similar to normal posts but contain a “sponsored” label. They also have more features than a normal post like links, CTA buttons, and product catalogs. Track Instagram ad performance with insights so you can adjust your strategy to improve over time.
- Twitter: Twitter allows you to choose your target audience and amplify your message. Promoted ads reach a wider group of users and are the perfect way to share updates and increase visibility.
- TikTok: TikTok for Good helps nonprofits promote their causes on the increasingly popular video sharing platform. Our guide to TikTok for nonprofits explains the different types of ads on the platform, including Promoted Hashtag Challenges, Branded Effects, TopView Ads, and In-Feed Ads.
When using social media to advertise, keep an eye on what’s trending and focus your messaging. Use real stories and photos from the communities that you’ve helped and the impact you’ve had on individuals to drive the point home.
Community Radio
Your nonprofit might qualify for free public service announcements on community radio stations thanks to the Federal Communications Commission. They require radio stations to allot a certain amount of radio time to nonprofit organizations.
However, radio messages must be formatted as announcements rather than ads, meaning you can’t make direct solicitations. You can still inspire action by sharing impact statistics or directing users to your site or social media where they can learn more. If your social media posts or website are optimized, visitors may inevitably click the ‘Donate’ or ‘Volunteer’ button.
Direct Mail and Print Ads
Although the world has transitioned into a digital-dominant space, print isn’t dead. Direct mail describes the hard copy requests for funds mailed to your existing supporters and prospects. These solicitations arrive in your supporters’ mailboxes and provide a tangible connection to your organization.
There are plenty of benefits to direct mail and print campaigns, including:
- Cost-Effectiveness: Print campaigns are highly flexible, meaning they’re budget-friendly, too.
- Increased Action: Print is an effective way to spark meaningful action. Most print readers take some form of action after viewing a newspaper ad.
- Targeted Audiences: Print marketing is targeted to an audience already interested in your mission. Generally, you should only mail newsletters, magazines, or event registrations to subscribed supporters.
An awful lot of people prefer receiving mail from the nonprofits they support. It comes across as more meaningful, even though you’re still advertising your mission.
Retargeted Advertising
Also called remarketing, retargeting is a form of online advertising that enables you to target users with ads based on their interactions with your nonprofit’s website. These ads can work with pretty much any online marketing channel, like social media or email.
Nonprofits can leverage the power of retargeted advertising in some impactful ways, such as:
- Abandoned donations. Retarget those who left your donation page before actually giving. This strategy works well, because you’re targeting people who were already considering donating. Think about why someone might not have followed through before creating your ad. For example, maybe they didn’t know enough about your cause. In that case, your ad might feature a captivating success story.
- Event reminders. Want to drive higher attendance for your upcoming event? Set up a retargeting ad campaign for anyone who doesn’t complete their registration. If someone exits the page to check their schedule before registering, this can be a great reminder to come back.
Using retargeted advertising allows you to achieve a high level of precision when reaching out to prospects. In turn, you can convert more users who were on the fence about supporting your work.
Sponsored Retargeting
Sponsored retargeting is when another business or organization that sponsors your nonprofit purchases ads from you. Often, these ads are co-branded, featuring elements of both the sponsor and nonprofit’s brands.
A company might purchase sponsored retargeting for a couple of reasons:
- They want to strengthen their reputation by being associated with your nonprofit.
- Their audience aligns with yours, and they want to promote their services directly to your supporters.
As with any corporate philanthropy initiative, the benefits go both ways! Your sponsor might share the ads on their platforms, too. This can bring exposure to your nonprofit and its sponsors.
Influencer Ads
Social media influencers who have an affinity for charitable missions can partner with their favorite nonprofits to promote the causes near to their hearts. This type of nonprofit advertising works well because influencers have loyal audiences, they’ve built credibility, and their followers trust what they have to say.
Larger nonprofits might have room in the budget to pay a celebrity, while smaller organizations might turn to an influencer within their circle, like a board member, politician, or local celebrity. Either way, partner with those who have positive reputations and values that align with your cause. Then, create co-branded marketing collateral, making it easier for the influencer to share it with their followers.
Bonus Tip: Organic Search
While the Google Ad Grant will significantly boost your organization’s presence on search engines, incorporating SEO strategies can enhance your results even further.
We’ve already touched on the basics of creating an SEO strategy, but a few other tips to keep in mind include:
- SEO is a long-term marketing strategy. Creating valuable content, getting that content ranking in Google search results, and earning a dedicated stream of page visitors all take time. On average, a dedicated SEO strategy can take six months or longer to see results.
- SEO is better for certain types of content. Just as you can promote any page on your website with the Google Ad Grant, you can also plan your SEO strategy to target any keyword. However, SEO is better at certain types of marketing campaigns than others. Specifically, SEO is useful for nonprofits with product and service offerings because users searching for products and services are likely ready to make a purchase. In contrast, fundraising requires raising awareness and building relationships first, which can be tricky to do in a 180-character ad.
- Prioritize conversions. SEO boosts search engine traffic, but the real measure of success is conversions. A conversion might be a product sale, event registration, or any other action you want supporters to take. Use tools like Google Analytics to track visitors and see if they are landing on your keyword-optimized content. Then, dig a little deeper into your data to see if that increase in traffic corresponds to an increase in conversions. If it does, then your SEO strategy is working!
If you’re ready to dive into SEO, consider getting a little help to eliminate the learning curve. Just as there are consultants for the Google Ad Grant, there are also SEO marketing consultants for nonprofits. The top agency we recommend is Nexus Marketing.
Nexus Marketing works with nonprofits to promote their products and services through an intensive SEO strategy that involves content creation, cross-blogging opportunities, webinars, and more. Their approach lays the foundation for turning search engine traffic into a long-term revenue-generating source. In the meantime, they can also earn your nonprofit short-term wins by getting your organization in front of new audiences with their impressive network of over 500 partners in the nonprofit space.
Steps for Creating An Eye-Catching Nonprofit Ad
Your marketing efforts should be ongoing to maintain supporter engagement, bring in consistent donations, and ensure your work is relevant. Here are 6 steps that your team can take to create an effective advertising plan:
1. Determine goals for your nonprofit ads.
First, consider what your organization hopes to accomplish. When creating goals, it’s helpful to use the SMART method:
- Specific: Your goal should be as narrowly-focused as possible. For instance, a specific goal could be, “We will increase subscriptions to our e-newsletter.”
- Measurable: Goals are useful when you can quantify their success and progress with a metric. If you notice rates dropping, simply adjust your strategies. “We will increase e-newsletter subscriptions by 50%.”
- Attainable: Don’t set lofty, unrealistic goals. Look at your past digital fundraising results and aim for a realistic objective. “We will increase e-newsletter subscriptions by 30%.”
- Relevant: Your goals should be stepping stones to your ultimate mission. Make sure that every goal you set is tied to a broader marketing goal. “We will increase e-newsletter subscriptions by 30% to retain more donors.”
- Time-based: Objectives should have a deadline and be monitored regularly. “We will increase e-newsletter subscriptions by 30% by the end of the third quarter to retain more donors.”
Using this method, your goals will drive meaningful conversions and support your nonprofit’s mission. Use our SMART Goals Template to start planning your advertising goals today.
2. Define your target audience.
For each campaign or event you plan, you should have a specific audience in mind. This audience can include new donors, existing donors, lapsed donors, major donors, and more. Start by collecting the following data to determine your target market:
- Age: By dividing your ad strategy into specific age groups, you can ensure that you’re getting through to the right audience. A study by the USPS found that ads designed to elicit an emotional response were more effective with younger consumers, while those that describe a product’s function, especially in print format, were relatively more effective with older adults.
- Location: Implement geo-targeting to provide the most relevant ads to people in your area. Geo-targeting is the practice of targeting visitors online with localized or location-appropriate content based on a visitor’s geographic location.
- Employment Status and Employer: An individual’s business affiliations can give you an idea of their net worth, potential connections, and ability to donate. Plus, if they work for a company with a matching gift program, you can reach out to begin the gift match process.
- Communication Preferences: Keep communication preferences in mind when choosing between print, digital, and telemarketing. For instance, young professionals 18 to 34 have one of the best response rates to direct mail campaigns.
These insights can answer the who, what, why, and where of potential supporters. Once you define your audience and their preferences, you can tailor your marketing efforts to reach them and prompt them to take action.
3. Research and choose nonprofit advertising outlets.
Once you determine your goals and define your target audience, it’s time to choose an advertising outlet. Look back at the types of nonprofit advertising we discussed earlier to choose channels that work for you and your target audience.
We recommend using a multi-channel approach to marketing. This allows you to use a variety of strategies that work together towards a common goal.
4. Develop key performance indicators.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are metrics that organizations use to measure the progress of their defined goals. KPIs can help your team gauge progress, make informed decisions, and turn metrics into actionable insights.
We’ve outlined a few top advertising KPIs to follow, using the example of digital advertising:
- Impressions: Impressions refer to how many times your ad unit was displayed to a user. This metric is related to the top of the marketing funnel and speaks directly to brand awareness.
- Click-through-rate (CTR): This measures how relevant your ad is to your target audience. If the CTR is low, this means the ads aren’t meeting the searcher’s intent for the target keyword.
- Bounce Rates: A bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who enter the site and leave (“bounce”) rather than viewing other pages. This can help you understand the quality of your website and if it’s valuable to visitors.
- Conversion Rate: This is the number of web visitors who complete a desired goal, like making a donation or signing up for a newsletter. If your conversion rate is high, your marketing strategies are working.
These are only a few of the trackable KPIs for digital ad campaigns. It’s important to know your platforms and the types of data that each offers.
5. Create your ad copy.
One of the last steps is content creation. When creating advertising content, keep the following best practices in mind to ensure your ads stand out:
- Improve relevance. Posting regularly increases engagement and keeps your ads relevant. Another way to stay relevant is to use your supporter’s most popular search query keywords in your ad titles and text.
- Showcase impact. Make your ads engaging and insightful by showing your organization’s impact. This will keep donors, volunteers, and supporters invested in your mission and encourage them to heed your calls to action.
- Include calls to action. Call-to-action (CTA) buttons prompt readers to show their support and take initiative to further your mission. Keep phrases short and compelling.
- Add compelling visuals. Images, graphics, and videos can spark an emotional reaction in readers and help them to understand complex topics. Ensure that colors and fonts are consistently formatted and visuals are high quality.
- Make the most of the ad space and characters allotted. Use the full allotment of headlines and descriptions to make your ads appear larger, increasing the click-through rate and number of visitors arriving on your website.
These quick, simple tricks will help your campaigns reach the right audiences and drive meaningful action. Now you’re ready to launch campaigns!
6. Launch your nonprofit advertising campaign and track progress.
After you’ve completed the steps above, it’s time to launch your ad campaigns and track progress against concrete, measurable benchmarks. Monitoring your performance is critical. It reveals what works, what doesn’t, and how to improve the effectiveness of future campaigns.
Start by accessing your campaign data and downloading reports. Focus on the KPIs that relate to your campaign goals. Then, compare multiple metrics to find where leads drop off. For example, if the conversion rate for an ad campaign is low, you may need to make the CTAs more attention-grabbing.
3 Standout Nonprofit Advertising Examples
Let’s take a quick look at three advertising campaigns that will spark inspiration for your team. If you want to see more campaigns in action, check out our extended list of nonprofit advertising examples.
Breast Cancer Research Foundation
Type of Nonprofit Advertising: Google Ad
In this example, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) created a Google Ad campaign that targets terms related to “breast cancer research.” Using an inspirational and urgent tone, they establish a sense of trust with users and direct readers to the most important pages on their site.
As we mentioned, any eligible organization can tap into this nonprofit advertising channel by applying for the Google Ad Grant. Every month, the grant automatically renews, giving you $120,000 in ad credits each year.
Notice how BCRF also built out their ad with additional links and their phone number, giving users more ways to engage. This is a more technical strategy that you might turn to an expert Google Ad Grant agency to use.
CARE
Type of Nonprofit Advertising: Facebook Ad
In partnership with Procter & Gamble, CARE created a video ad campaign for International Women’s Day. They were the 2nd top-performing audience in terms of video completion rate (VCR) and engagement across the entire platform. They also pushed the same ad campaign on Instagram, resulting in some incredible statistics across both platforms:
- 2.9 million impressions (total post views)
- 1.7 post engagements (video views, comments, reactions, shares, and clicks)
- 10.4K clicks to care.org/everywoman
- A VCR of 2.08%
This is a great nonprofit advertising example to model your campaign after, because it asked users to complete the low-effort task of watching a video. Short video ad campaigns can be a convenient way to hook users and inspire them to take action.
God’s Love We Deliver
Type of Nonprofit Advertising: Instagram Influencer Advertising
This nonprofit advertising example shows just how easy it is to tap into influencer marketing. God’s Love We Deliver strives to alleviate hunger and malnutrition among people living with serious illnesses. To spread the word about this mission, their marketing director cleverly asked the organization’s supporters to decorate a plate of cookies to be sent to those in need and promote that on their social media pages.
This yearly campaign brings attention from well-known influencers, especially because they make it so easy to get involved. They send sugar cookies and decorating kits to influencers for their annual holiday campaign, and they send cakes and decorating kits for their clients’ birthday fundraiser campaigns.
More Nonprofit Advertising Resources
Effective advertising can fuel your nonprofit’s impact. Best of all, you can leverage free nonprofit advertising, making it easy to get everyone on board. It’s no secret that our favorite option is the Google Ad Grant.
When you partner with a Google Ad Grant professional like Getting Attention, we’ll make sure you have a strong digital marketing strategy. Our team of experts offers free consultations and resources to help your organization expand its reach. We’re here to champion your nonprofit’s digital campaigns.
If you want to learn more about nonprofit advertising, explore these additional resources:
Need Google Grants Keywords? Here’s Your Roadmap to Success
/in Google Ad Grants /by Jessica KingYour Google Ads have the power to connect you with motivated supporters who are ready to make a difference—but that’s only possible if you choose the right Google Grants keywords. In this guide, we’ll explore insider advice to enhance your Google Ad Grants keyword strategy:
It takes careful research using the right tools to find the keywords that will set your campaigns up for success. For expert help with crafting your keyword strategy and managing your Google Ad Grant, reach out to our team.
What Are Google Grants Keywords?
When someone searches for something on Google, they type a word or phrase into the Google search bar. These are what we call keywords.
You’ll attach these specific terms or phrases to your Google Ad Grant campaigns. These keywords then trigger the display of your ads on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant search terms.
Keywords are a vital part of your Ad Grant account. By choosing the right ones, your ads can help you reach the right users who are actively searching for information related to your cause or services. This can help you accomplish all sorts of things, whether you’re engaging existing donors, bringing attention to a pressing issue, or recruiting volunteers.
Keywords ensure your ads are displayed to likely donors, volunteers, beneficiaries, or anyone else connected to your mission. That way, nonprofits can maximize their ad’s visibility, boost ad clicks, and drive desired actions, such as donations, volunteer sign-ups, or nonprofit event registrations.
Types of Google Grants Keywords
Within your Google Ads account, you can use different types of search terms to target your audience. Make sure you’re familiar with these specific types of Google Ad Grants keywords:
Knowing the different types of keywords you can use within your Google Ad Grant account will allow you to show up for relevant queries and connect with likely supporters.
Why You Need To Conduct Google Grants Keyword Research
The Google Ad Grants program has a ton of requirements for websites, ad content, and (you guessed it!) nonprofit keywords. Google requires you to use your keywords effectively to maintain program eligibility.
These limitations aren’t meant to restrict you. Rather, they’re intended to help you make the most of the program.
Your keywords are what will put your ads in front of the right audiences. Choosing the right ones is crucial to spending your Google Ad Grant wisely and showing off your ads.
The Searcher’s Perspective
To get a sense of why keywords matter, put yourself in the searcher’s shoes for a moment. Let’s say you’re in the market for some new running shoes. You decide shopping online is the best way to go. Your experience will probably go a little something like this:
In this scenario, you were able to find what you needed thanks to well-thought-out keywords. The company used keywords throughout its ad and landing page to target women looking for supportive running shoes. It works a lot like this for nonprofits’ Google Ads, too.
Research Tools to Find Google Grants Keywords
That brings us to our next point. Now that you know what keywords are and why they matter, how can you pinpoint which keywords your prospective supporters are searching for on Google?
You’ll need to research trending and relevant keywords to make the most of your nonprofit ads. By leveraging research tools, nonprofits can gather valuable data and insights to inform their keyword research process and optimize their Google Ads campaigns.
Let’s explore a handful of tools that you might find useful.
Google Keyword Planner
Keyword Planner is Google’s own keyword research tool that provides insights into:
You can take a look at historical metrics to identify seasonal trends, too! All you need to do is enter potential nonprofit keywords your supporters might be searching for on Google. Best of all, the platform gives accurate data and is free to use.
Find this tool in your Google Ad Grant account. First, log into your Google Ads account. Then, find it under Tools & Settings > Planning > Keyword Planner.
Google Trends
Another one of Google’s tools is Google Trends. While it’s not necessarily for nonprofit keyword research, it allows organizations to explore the popularity and search trends of specific search terms over time.
Gain valuable insights into a keyword’s:
That way, you can make informed decisions when selecting your Google Ad Grants keywords.
Just know that the data Google Trends provides doesn’t perfectly mirror search activity. Rather, the platform assigns topics, queries, and locations a score from 0-100, with 100 being the most searched related query or the location that has the most searches for the given topic.
Google Search Console
While not exclusively for Google Grants keyword research, Google Search Console gathers vital website performance metrics such as:
Whether you want to look at individual pages or your website as a whole, Search Console provides valuable data. That way, you can refine it to be the best nonprofit website it can be and point to the best content in your Google Ads.
Moz Keyword Explorer
We’re venturing out of Google’s collection of tools with this one! Moz Keyword Explorer can be incredibly insightful for your Google Ad Grants keyword research. While it’s mainly used for SEO purposes, the platform can help you pinpoint which keywords to prioritize and target with your Google Ads.
With this tool, you’ll gain insight into:
While it’s an excellent SEO keyword research tool, note that you’re limited to 10 searches a day with a free account. If you upgrade to a paid subscription, you can research up to 5,000 nonprofit keywords per month. Their pricier plans increase incrementally up to 30,000 keywords per month, but Moz offers a 75% discount for nonprofit organizations.
SEMRush
SEMRush is a comprehensive SEO and keyword research tool that offers:
With a paid subscription, this Google Grants keyword research tool provides a handful of other helpful features and data too. It’s perfect for enhancing your Google Ads and organic performance in one fell swoop.
Narrowing Down Your Google Grants Keywords
Figuring out how to narrow down your options can be confusing. You need to strike the perfect balance of high search volume, relevance, and low competition. Meanwhile, you need to choose keywords that adhere to Google’s guidelines.
Among many other program guidelines, Google requires nonprofits to choose keywords that are:
Work with a Google Grants agency like Getting Attention to handle nonprofit keyword research and implementation. Our professionals know how to use the right tools to pinpoint Google Ad Grants keywords that will drive value for your mission.
We’ll help you narrow down your options based on:
Above all, your account manager will ensure that your nonprofit follows the Google Ad Grant keyword requirements. The official guidelines require nonprofits to avoid overly-generic keywords, use keywords longer than 2 words, and choose ones that have a quality score greater than 2. Otherwise, you risk losing your Google Ad Grants eligibility. With an expert on your side, you won’t have to worry about this.
Using Nonprofit Keywords in Google Ad Grants Campaigns
You’ve found the right nonprofit keywords that will place your ads in front of likely volunteers, donors, or another key audience. Now, you’re tasked with incorporating your keywords into your Google Ads.
Here are some quick tips to get you started:
Again, we recommend turning to a Google Ad Grant agency that knows how to incorporate nonprofit keywords into Google Ads effectively. At Getting Attention, we’ve learned the intricacies of different keyword research platforms and implementation techniques. That way, you can stand out from the competition and connect with donors and volunteers through powerful ads.
Final Thoughts on Google Grants Keywords
While incredibly important, choosing nonprofit keywords can be incredibly time-consuming. Using keywords in Google Ad Grants campaigns is a whole other ball game, too. There’s a lot to handle between brainstorming potential keywords, gathering data for them, and incorporating them into your ads. Not to mention, you have to meet some Google Ad Grant restrictions regarding keywords.
Turn to an expert to handle research and implementation. They’ll even keep an eye on your campaigns to ensure you’re seeing the results you need. At Getting Attention, our marketing consultants are equipped and more than happy to find the right nonprofit keywords to make your campaigns thrive.
In the meantime, continue refining your marketing strategies with these resources:
Matching Gift Best Practices: Raise More for Your Nonprofit
/in Nonprofit Communications /by Jessica KingAs a nonprofit professional, you likely already know the basics of matching gifts. But ask yourself this question:
Do I know how to implement matching gifts effectively as part of my team’s fundraising strategy?
As a nonprofit professional, you likely already know the basics of matching gifts. Matching gifts are an amazing fundraising tool that allows you to maximize your donation revenue. However, without a sense of matching gift best practices, you may be missing out on some essential matching gift opportunities.
That’s why here at Getting Attention, we’ve put together this guide to help you set your matching gift strategy into motion. We’ll start with the basics and then jump into some best practices you can leverage to make matching gifts work for your organization. Let’s dive in!
How Matching Gifts Work
There are a few different ways your nonprofit can collect matching gifts, but the most common ones are matching gift campaigns and corporate matching gift programs. Matching gift campaigns involve getting a business, benefactor, board member, major donor, or foundation to match donations made during a campaign up to a specific amount.
However, what many donors don’t know is that their own employer might match their personal donations to many nonprofits. That’s where corporate matching gift programs come in—and they’re the focus of this article!
Many companies match employee donations at a certain ratio—usually 1:1—to most eligible nonprofits. Corporate matching gifts are one of the most common forms of corporate philanthropy. Here’s a rundown of how the process works:
This process is made easier with dedicated matching gift software that pinpoints your donor’s matching gift eligibility. A donation tool like 360MatchPro by Double the Donation does all of the heavy lifting for you. Organizations simply embed the matching gift search tool anywhere on their website. Here’s how it works:
From there, donors can access Double the Donation’s comprehensive matching gift database, which houses information on more than 20,000 companies and subsidiaries and their matching gift programs.
Corporate Matching Gift Rules
As amazing as corporate matching gifts are, there are a few important guidelines to take note of. That means, as a best practice, following and meeting these guidelines will ensure your nonprofit reaps the benefits of matching gift programs.
Guidelines usually include:
Understanding the basic matching gift guidelines from companies will give you access to the gifts your nonprofit needs to propel its cause forward.
Promoting Matching Gifts
Did you know that approximately $4-7 billion in matching gift funding goes unclaimed every year? That’s because too many donors are unaware that they’re eligible for matching gift programs. And even if they knew they were eligible, they wouldn’t know how to start their match request.
That’s why one of the most impactful matching gift best practices is promotion. Here are some additional statistics provided by Double the Donation for some perspective:
With so many employees working for companies with matching gift programs, it’s essential to spread the word to capture as many matched donations as possible. Plus, because more employees are more likely to increase their donations if they knew their employer would match!
To summarize, if you don’t promote this valuable opportunity to your donors, they won’t take the next step toward matching their donation. Luckily, we’ve identified some of the top ways you can effectively promote matching gifts to your supporters.
Online Donation Forms
Donors are at the height of their engagement when they arrive on your donation form. They’re serious about making a donation to your organization, which means this is the perfect time to promote matching gifts.
At the very least, ask donors in a prominent spot on your form if they are looking to get a matched donation from their employer. From there, link to an informational page on your website that explains what matching gifts are.
To drive even better results, insert a matching gift search tool on your donation page. Tools like these capture employer information on the donation form, then display that company’s matching gift information immediately following the donation.
These tools then track the donors who take the next step and click on their company’s matching gift form. Some of these tools will even autocomplete a company’s name in the search field as a donor types it in:
Adding matching gift information to your donation process, whether that’s on the actual donation page or confirmation page, can significantly impact the number of matching gift funds you ultimately receive.
Email Outreach
According to Double the Donation, mentioning matching gifts in fundraising appeals results in a 71% increase in the response rate and a 51% increase in the average donation amount. This statistic illustrates that email is a marketing trend that is here to stay.
That’s why using email outreach to make your matching gift appeals is so important.
Mention matching gifts in your emails, whether you’re sending out a regular newsletter or specifically thanking a supporter for their donation. Briefly explain what a matching gift is, how donors can submit a matching gift request to their employer, and how they can let your nonprofit know that they’re doing so. For example, refer to this email:
Dear Mary,
We really appreciate your support to our organization.
Did you know that we raised 1 million dollars from matching gift programs? which were submitted by over 6,000 donors? Please visit our matching gift page to see if your company will match your gift and to access the forms, guidelines, and instructions to submit your match. Here are the steps to follow:
Thank you again for your support.
Kind Regards,
Matching Gift Team
Like in the example above, provide links in your email that donors can click to:
By including these links, your organization will be able to keep track of who is engaging with your matching gift appeals, as well as the status of each active matching gift request.
Direct Mail
Contrary to popular belief, direct mail is not dead! Many of your supporters may still prefer traditional mail to other methods of communication. Whenever you send out printed marketing materials or thank-you letters, include an insert or other mention of matching gifts.
Just as with email outreach, the insert should briefly explain what matching gifts are and offer ways for the supporter to learn more. You might even include a scannable QR code that directs the reader to a dedicated matching gifts page on your website.
To simplify the process of designing, printing, stuffing, and sending your mailings, consider reaching out to a direct mail fundraising platform. This can save your team time and money that can be reinvested into your mission and put efforts toward your highest value match opportunities.
Social Media
Social media is already an excellent marketing channel to promote giving opportunities. So why not promote matching gifts through this method, too?
Spread the word across social media platforms, whether you’re running a specific campaign or simply looking to bring in more corporate donations. Include information about matching gifts, such as how they work and how donors can learn about their employer’s programs. Then link to a dedicated matching gift page on your website.
There are many ways you can promote matching gifts. From mentioning them at the height of a supporter’s engagement to sending out matching gift appeals on a regular basis, following these best practices will keep your strategy in line and help you raise more.
Acknowledging Matching Gifts
While promotion can certainly get you a long way, you’ll want to sustain the new relationships you’ve created with your supporters. That means acknowledging both the donations and the matches you’ve received.
After you’ve sent out matching gift appeals via a variety of channels, and those matches start coming in, you should stay in contact with donors to retain their support and cultivate your relationships with them.
Here are a few best practices you can follow:
Even though the match was initiated by the donor, it’s the matching gift company that made the second gift. Typically, there’s no need to send a separate thank-you letter to the company—especially if it’s a large one. However, smaller companies might have a different preference, and if any company requests an acknowledgment letter, make sure to send one.
When it comes to acknowledging matching gifts, one of the best things you can do is be transparent. Openly demonstrate the impact matching gifts have had on your organization, and let donors know what that money has allowed your organization to accomplish.
Additional Resources
Matching gifts are game changers, but only when you follow best practices for educating your stakeholders, promoting opportunities, and acknowledging donors. The more effort you place into enhancing the specifics of your matching gift program, the greater revenue you’re more likely to experience. This is why it’s crucial to work to proactively bridge knowledge gaps and promote matching gift opportunities.
Looking for more information about matching gifts? We’ve handpicked some excellent resources from Getting Attention to help you out:
How to Optimize Your Nonprofit Budget: A Guide & 5 Best Tips
/in Nonprofit Communications, Nonprofit Fundraising /by Jessica KingA nonprofit budget is an important financial document that helps organizations allocate expenses and predict revenue. Your budget is crucial in helping your nonprofit plan for the future, stay fiscally responsible, and reach its campaign goals.
This comprehensive guide will walk through the value of a budget and explain how it relates to the actions outlined in your marketing plan. We’ll cover the following points:
These tips will guide you through budgeting basics, and recommend new ways to stay on top of your finances, like supplementing your marketing budget with the Google Ad Grant. Let’s get started by defining what a nonprofit budget is and why it’s important.
What Is a Nonprofit Budget?
A nonprofit budget is a financial document used to plan how an organization will spend its money. It encompasses both your expenses and expected revenue for a set period of time.
A regularly updated and realistic budget helps you know exactly how much money is coming in and out of your organization, allowing you to manage your resources more effectively.
Why Is It Important to Create a Nonprofit Budget?
Your organization likely already has a sense of how much money it spends each year. However, rough estimates are unhelpful when it comes to balancing your finances, and documenting your nonprofit’s expenses concretely has numerous benefits.
A nonprofit budget allows you to:
Creating and sticking to a nonprofit budget will put your organization in a healthier financial position. As a result, you can spend less time worrying about your nonprofit’s expenses and more time helping your beneficiaries.
What Makes a Good Nonprofit Budget?
Financial planning is vital to an organization’s success and sustainability. The Better Business Bureau recommends that nonprofits spend under 35% of their funding on fundraising efforts and spend at least 65% on programs.
To meet these guidelines, your team must devise a budget that outlines projected expenses and revenue. A budget for a nonprofit organization should be:
Accuracy and transparency are crucial for your nonprofit’s image. After you calculate your financial statements, pull insights and share them with your staff, volunteers, and board. This will increase engagement within your organization and allow your team to better understand your nonprofit’s financial health.
What Should Be Included in a Nonprofit Budget?
From daily operational costs to monthly donations, there is a wide range of elements that should be included in your nonprofit’s budget. We’ll focus on the primary revenue and expense items.
Income Sources
Nonprofits rely on a combination of income sources from individuals, foundations, corporations, and government agencies. Track your diverse revenue streams by accounting for the following types of income:
Projected Expenses
Projections are the best way to assess how much you are likely to spend on each campaign or project. Include the following costs in your budget:
Now that you have the basic line items for your nonprofit’s budget, let’s focus on budgeting for communications and marketing in particular.
How Much Do Nonprofits Spend on Marketing?
Budgeting for marketing costs is vital. Your marketing budget ensures you have the funds needed to reach your goals and determine whether your plans are realistic.
In the for-profit world, it’s fairly standard to determine a marketing budget by allocating 10-20% of projected gross revenue to marketing and communications. For organizations in the nonprofit sector, try to allocate between 5-15% of your budget to marketing.
Of course, exact totals will vary from organization to organization. According to the 2023 M+R Benchmarks Study, nonprofits spent an average of $0.11 on digital advertising for every dollar of online revenue in 2022. Nonprofit investment in digital advertising increased by 28%, with 56% devoted to digital fundraising, 26% to brand awareness, and 15% to lead generation.
What’s most important is that you establish a detailed marketing and communications budget prior to the start of each fiscal year. Track costs and revenue to analyze your return on investment (ROI) for each fundraiser and campaign. For your annual marketing and communications plan, allocate a specific dollar amount to each strategy (direct mail, email, paid advertising, media relations, etc.), each of which should be broken down further by additional costs that may apply, such as printing, postage, and consulting fees.
The following nonprofit marketing budget template can help your organization stay on track. Simply add each marketing activity, the associated strategy, and how much the activity will cost.
5 Best Nonprofit Budget Tips
A strong nonprofit budget serves as a framework for making decisions and meeting your goals.
Take control of your nonprofit’s finances and start building your budgeting skills with these best practices.
1. Determine a budgeting approach.
No one-size-fits-all budget exists. Adjust your budget approach to communicate financial information in a way that works for your organization. Consider the following strategies when building your nonprofit budget:
Each approach has its own benefits and limitations. That’s why most nonprofits implement a combination of these strategies.
Now that you have solidified a budget approach, share it with your leadership and staff.
2. Develop a budget with your entire team.
Team-based financial planning is the most effective way to ensure your budget aligns with your organization’s goals. Involve staff and board members in the budgeting process to create a comprehensive strategy that relies on a variety of perspectives.
Consider these steps to running a budget meeting:
Once you develop your budget, you will have a clear plan for moving forward, shaped by concrete data and strategies.
3. Include non-monetary contributions.
In-kind donations are donated goods, services, and time. If your organization is fortunate enough to attract in-kind donations, record these contributions to abide by legal standards and create plans to thank specific donors.
Consider the following examples of in-kind donations you may record in your budget:
In-kind donations should be recorded at fair market value. The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) defines fair market value as “the price that would be received to sell an asset or paid to transfer a liability in an orderly transaction between market participants at the measurement date.”
To determine the value of your in-kind donation:
Volunteer hours do not need to be reported in a budget. However, your organization can still acknowledge the impact of volunteers in your audit or in a short narrative included in your budget.
4. Conduct regular checks of your budget.
Set regular team meetings to monitor your budget’s progress. Whether you hold these meetings monthly, quarterly, or annually, ensure that your entire team is involved. This will improve communications and management between departments.
Consider the following topics in your meeting:
Monitoring your budget throughout the year is the key to financial success, along with setting aside enough funds for marketing.
5. Apply for a Google Ad Grant.
The average small business using Google Ads spends between $5,000 and $12,000 per month on Google paid search campaigns. That’s $60,000 to $150,000 of marketing expenses per year spent solely on ad clicks. Thankfully, Google created a grant to help nonprofits budget for marketing.
Google Ad Grants provide eligible nonprofits a $10,000 monthly stipend to spend on paid search ads, helping supplement their marketing budgets. While regular Google Ad accounts have to pay per ad click, Google Grant participants can display their advertisements for free. These ads enable your nonprofit to appear on Google when someone searches for topics related to your mission.
The ideal Google Ad Grant candidate has a website that effectively serves its audience and promotes its mission, helping drive more traffic to your website. With the Google Ad Grant program for nonprofits, organizations can:
We recommend setting a daily budget of $329 to run as many campaigns as possible and take full advantage of your grant.
As long as your organization complies with the eligibility requirements, the grant renews monthly. That means your nonprofit will be allocated funding for Google Ads indefinitely.
Our Final Tip: Work With a Team of Google Ad Grant Experts.
It’s no secret that budgeting guels your nonprofit’s ability to make an impact. When you work with a Google Ad Grant professional like Getting Attention to manage your Google Ad Grant, you’ll be able to develop a strong digital marketing strategy that works for your budget. Our team of experts offers free consultations and resources to help your organization create a successful marketing plan.
Our services include Google Grant application, Google Grant hygiene, Google Grant reactivation, keyword research, and Google Grant management. Maintaining your data and keeping it clean can be a pain point for many nonprofits. We’re here to champion your nonprofit digital campaigns.
To continue learning more about nonprofit budgets and how to optimize your strategy, check out these additional resources:
5 Pro Tips for Marketing Your Fundraiser in the Online World
/in Nonprofit Communications, Nonprofit Marketing /by Jessica KingLet’s face it—if you’re not using online channels to market your fundraiser, you’re missing out on more donors, more dollars, and more support for your mission. Whether you’re hosting a golf tournament fundraiser, a gala, or even a bake sale, these tips will help you level up your online marketing.
1. Use a marketing-savvy software solution.
Get your tech in place before you do anything else online. A software solution for your fundraiser is a key part of spreading the word and attracting participants and donors. According to GolfStatus, your event’s management platform should be able to:
2. Track your campaign’s progress with online marketing metrics.
Bottom line, you need to know what’s working and what’s not in marketing your fundraising event. By creating a marketing plan that outlines key metrics, you can better understand the success of your different campaigns. The following metrics can provide useful insights:
3. Be strategic about your social media presence.
While it might be tempting to create accounts or profiles on every social media platform out there and blast information about your fundraising event, it’s not the best idea. Not only will you spread yourself too thin, particularly if you don’t have a dedicated social media manager to post regularly and monitor each channel, but you’re likely to get less engagement. Instead, focus on building a robust social media presence on just a few platforms where your target audience is present.
Here are a few guidelines from Double the Donation for choosing which social media platforms to focus on and leverage to promote fundraising events:
4. Work with celebrities and influencers.
Online channels have made it easier to connect with celebrities and influencers. It may feel like a long shot, but nonprofits have a number of options to partner with those in the public sphere to amplify your cause and any fundraising events benefiting it. Keep the following in mind:
Getting Started with Software
Your organization stands to benefit from an increasingly online world. Online marketing not only spreads awareness about your work, but garners support for fundraising events and your mission in general. You can maximize your online presence by getting a software solution in place for your fundraising event. Whether you need a ticketing option for a charity golf tournament or online bidding software for auctions, a web-based software will save you time, make it easy to collaborate with your team, and help raise even more money for your organization.
Top 7 Nonprofit Marketing Blogs You Should Bookmark and Why
/in Nonprofit Communications /by Jessica KingStaying in touch with nonprofit industry trends, new software updates, and current marketing best practices is an ongoing challenge. However, not keeping up with these changes may lead your nonprofit website to look outdated, your communications to stop receiving responses, or your overall fundraising revenue to decrease.
While you can do a simple Google search and click through the results to look for relevant resources, many nonprofit organizations and thought leaders in the industry actually have dedicated places to address these challenges. There, they discuss common tips, advice, and relevant news that can impact fundraising efforts.
That’s where nonprofit marketing blogs come in! Whether it’s their /tips or /resources or /blog page, many professionals in the philanthropic space maintain a running blog roll. In this guide, we’ll discuss the importance of a nonprofit blog as well as dive into some of our favorites for you to check out.
Oftentimes, doing your own research can offer the valuable insight and guidance that your organization needs to answer nonprofit questions, get advice on top industry tools, and explore best practices to take your own fundraising to the next level. You just need to know where to look. Ready to learn more? Let’s dive in!
What Is a Nonprofit Marketing Blog?
A nonprofit marketing blog is usually a dedicated page hosted on websites of charitable organizations, fundraising professionals and consultants, and donation software companies. The blog roll will be made up of content like:
Most nonprofit marketing blogs feature a variety of content to engage their supporters in different ways.
Why Do Organizations Write Nonprofit Marketing Blogs?
There are many reasons why organizations implement a blog roll into their website. For one thing, a blog roll can act as a helpful SEO-building tool. That’s because it’s the perfect place to build backlinks, target high search volume keywords, and provide valuable nonprofit content that your supporters and audience actually want.
In turn, this can increase your ranking on search engine result pages and attract new prospects! Plus, it’s almost necessary for Google Grant users, as it’s required that nonprofit participants have valuable and promotable website content to receive the grant.
Ultimately, nonprofit marketing blogs position themselves as thought leaders in the space. If a blog is consistently releasing relevant news and industry trends of the nonprofit marketing world, it’ll soon become a go-to resource for philanthropic professionals all over.
As readers, if you ever have a question about how to improve your peer-to-peer fundraising campaign, what text-giving tool is best, or how to implement prospect research into your donation strategy, turning to nonprofit blogs has proven to be a reliable and informational source. Specifically, nonprofit blogs:
These days, there’s no shortage of blogs for nonprofit professionals to turn to. With so many great resources available, it can be hard to determine the most valuable nonprofit blog to consult. Let’s explore some of our favorite blogs in the next section.
Explore These 7 Nonprofit Marketing Blogs
Getting Attention
Getting Attention is made up of professional fundraising consultants dedicated to Google Ad Grant management. As a certified Google Grant agency, our team at Getting Attention helps nonprofits oversee their Google Grant accounts no matter what stage they’re at. From applying for the grant to ensuring the account remains compliant to reactivating a dead account, Getting Attention is there to help.
While we might be a bit biased, Getting Attention also has a great nonprofit marketing blog! We boast articles spanning a variety of essential nonprofit topics, from the basics of Google Grants to guides for planning a comprehensive nonprofit marketing plan.
Check us out with some of our favorite posts:
Double the Donation
Did you know that an estimated $4-$10 billion in matching gift funds go unclaimed each year? Double the Donation has the largest and most accurate database of matching gift and volunteer grant information in the nonprofit industry so your donors don’t miss a match opportunity.
As thought leaders in the fundraising and nonprofit industry, Double the Donation also has a dedicated blogroll. Their impressive blog consists of industry guides and nonprofit tips ranging from corporate fundraising to general fundraising guides to top software providers!
Here are some of our favorite posts:
NXUnite
The NXUnite community is the perfect place to acquire new nonprofit knowledge and connect with others in the field. They host webinars and panels with experts in the mission-driven industry to help lead important nonprofit-related discussions.
The NXUnite blog roll is filled with articles about a variety of nonprofit topics from fundraising tips to breakthrough technology. Check out some of their articles below:
eCardWidget
If you’re looking for a creative new way to engage with your supporters, eCardWidget is a great place to start. They provide eCard software that nonprofits can use to thank their donors or even spread awareness of their cause. On their nonprofit marketing blog, eCardWidget shares important information about stakeholder appreciation, innovative nonprofit software solutions, and seasonal fundraising ideas.
Check out these articles from the eCardWidget blog:
NPOInfo
Data is everything when it comes to nonprofit decision-making. NPOInfo helps organizations raise more money with accurate, updated data in their databases.
Articles on NPOInfo’s blog roll include:
re:Charity
re:Charity is a nonprofit blog entirely dedicated to hosting fundraising resources, tips, best practices, industry guides, and software lists. There’s a breadth of information on re:Charity, with specific blog categories dedicated to fundraising, marketing, technology, and nonprofit strategies.
Here are some of our favorite articles:
Fundraising Letters
Fundraising Letters is a website dedicated to helping nonprofit leaders craft compelling and engaging communications with supporters. From basic fundraising emails, matching gifts, sponsorships, donation requests, and more, they offer fundraising letter templates for every occasion and cause—plus it’s completely free to download and use them!
Once on the site, you can also explore their blog roll. The Fundraising Letters blog contains educational resources provided by thought leaders throughout the nonprofit industry. Here are some articles you might see:
Crowd101
If you’re thinking about starting a crowdfunding campaign, there’s no better resource than Crowd101! Crowd101 hosts a wide variety of resources and blog posts to help fundraisers begin a crowdfunding event, market it effectively, and explore other fundraising tips.
Their blog is split into a few sections, like Getting Started with Crowdfunding, Crowdfunding Examples, and Fundraising Ideas! Here are some of their top blog posts:
Additional Resources
Having a dedicated nonprofit marketing and fundraising strategy is critical for your organization’s success and the pursuit of your mission. As a philanthropic professional, doing your due diligence in research is one of the best ways to keep updated with best practices and ensure that your own efforts produce results. Nonprofit marketing blogs are the perfect place to begin!
Want to continue expanding your nonprofit knowledge and learn about other marketing methods? Check out these additional resources:
Nonprofit Advertising: The Essential Guide (With Examples!)
/in Nonprofit Marketing /by Jessica KingNonprofit advertising is critical to spread the word about your organization and earn donations. But while for-profit businesses can afford traditional advertising channels like billboards and commercials, nonprofits with tight budgets might struggle to inspire support for their causes. Thankfully, nonprofits have little-to-no-cost advertising options at their disposal.
To help you create a well-developed nonprofit advertising plan that keeps costs low and success high, we’ll walk you through the following topics:
Effective nonprofit advertising can help your organization increase awareness and accomplish more for your mission. Ready to jump in?
Nonprofit Advertising Basics
Before you can craft a stellar ad for your nonprofit, you need to understand the fundamentals. Let’s take a look at the basic information you need to know!
What is Nonprofit Advertising?
Nonprofit advertising is a specific type of marketing that refers to the paid channels and strategies an organization uses to spread awareness of its mission and projects.
While general mission-driven marketing includes all of the strategies and channels an organization uses to amplify its mission, nonprofit advertising only refers to traditionally paid channels. Regardless, the ultimate goal is the same: to raise more donations, grow a following, and bring attention to your cause.
The Difference Between Inbound and Outbound Marketing
As part of your nonprofit marketing plan, document how your team will promote its cause, balancing paid and free channels appropriately. Doing so enables your team to create promotional materials, stay consistent with branding and goals, and reach your target audience without breaking your budget.
While making this plan, your team should balance outbound and inbound marketing tactics. Here’s the difference between these two types of channels:
To strike a balance, we recommend using inbound tactics like optimizing your website for SEO or nurturing leads with email marketing. Then, you can advertise your optimized content.
Inbound Marketing Explained
The majority of this guide to nonprofit advertising focuses on outbound advertising, but let’s take a moment to elaborate on inbound marketing and how it can complement your outbound strategy.
Inbound marketing revolves around content generation. What types of content are likely to interest and attract prospective supporters to your nonprofit? This might be a research report on your cause, a podcast with hosts who answer listeners’ questions, or a blog post that dives into a specific topic related to your nonprofit.
After creating this content, inbound marketing follows the principle that interested parties will find it and start the process of becoming supporters. However, very few inbound marketing strategies actually leave it up to chance that interested individuals will just stumble upon their content. Rather, they employ a number of strategies, the chief of which is SEO.
SEO is the process of adjusting your current content and creating new content that is search engine-friendly. By doing so, your content will rank higher on search engine results pages, increasing the chances that potential supporters will click on it. This helps build your brand recognition, drive website traffic, and reach your audience.
Generally, an SEO strategy can be divided into three components:
With a strong SEO strategy, you might reach a point where target keywords for your nonprofit feature your Google Ad as the top result and then more of your content for the organic spots right under it! You might even push the competition off the page and take up more real estate within results. This presents your organization as trustworthy and valuable and increases the chances prospective supporters will click on a link to your site.
Including Advertising in Your Nonprofit’s Budget
One of the limiting factors of advertising is budgetary constraints. That’s why it’s important to establish a detailed budget before each fiscal year to make sure you aim for and maintain a positive ROI.
Try to allocate between 5-15% of your budget to advertising and marketing. As you build this budget, consider applying for grants and seeking other free nonprofit advertising opportunities to reduce expenses.
Taking Advantage of Free Nonprofit Advertising Opportunities
While traditionally expensive, advertising platforms recognize the budgetary challenges nonprofits face, so they’ll often provide discounted and occasionally free nonprofit advertising. This can skyrocket the marketing channel’s ROI for your nonprofit.
For instance, Google provides eligible nonprofits with $10,000 in free advertising credits to spend on Google Ads each month through the Google Ad Grant program. This is an incredibly valuable opportunity for nonprofits. According to Nonprofits Source, search ads have the highest ROI of any paid advertising channel at $4.78. With this grant, you can dramatically reduce your spending on advertising and reach new, interested audiences more easily.
Along with the Google Ad Grant, other free nonprofit advertising opportunities include:
Due to the popularity of free nonprofit advertising options like these, more and more nonprofits are able to expand their reach through advertising.
The Benefits of Effective Nonprofit Advertising
In a recent year, nonprofits invested 19% more in digital advertising to reach their audiences. That indicates they’re experiencing worthwhile advantages from it. By crafting a smart nonprofit advertising plan, you’ll experience a ton of great benefits, including:
Advertising is too good to pass up. Even if you don’t have the time you’d like to dedicate to creating your ads, an expert can step in to help out. For example, the experts at Getting Attention understand everything there is to know about advertising on Google. With low prices, they can help you manage your Ad Grant account and craft winning ads that drive more revenue for your cause.
You won’t be able to accomplish the above without strategic advertisements and a well-crafted plan, though. We’ll explore some steps for crafting winning ads a little later.
The Challenges of Advertising for Nonprofits
Even with these great benefits, there are a few challenges you should familiarize yourself with. Knowing what to expect will help you combat these challenges before they arise:
So, how can you get ahead of these challenges? Start by choosing affordable and free nonprofit advertising channels and strategies that won’t blow your budget out of the water. From here, make sure your ads feature inspirational content in an authentic tone, rather than being too salesy.
Many organizations also turn to external agencies to manage their ads and overcome common challenges. Just be sure to choose an agency that specializes in your sector. For example, a church might hire a church marketing agency that understands the unique needs of the religious sector and knows proper messaging and terminology.
Types of Nonprofit Advertising
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to nonprofit advertising. What works for one organization might not work for another. The good news is that there are plenty of options out there! Let’s explore seven nonprofit advertising channels you can use.
Google Search and Display Ads
Google Ads allows you to advertise your mission when users search for relevant keywords. Paid search advertisements appear on the search engine results pages corresponding to your chosen keywords on Google. Meanwhile, display advertisements promote your organization to users watching YouTube videos, checking Gmail, or browsing sites within Google’s display network.
The average small business that uses Google Ads spends between $5,000 and $12,000 per month on paid search campaigns. That’s $60,000 to $150,000 of marketing expenses every year.
To make this opportunity more accessible, Google provides eligible nonprofits with a $10,000 monthly stipend to spend on paid search ads. This program is called Google Ad Grants and can be a real game-changer for your nonprofit advertising efforts.
While regular Google Ad accounts must pay per ad-click, Google Ad Grant participants can publish ads for free through the program. These ads enable your nonprofit, whether it’s a church or a cultural organization, to appear on Google and get in front of qualified prospects searching for topics related to your mission.
The ideal Google Ad Grant candidate has a high-quality website that effectively serves its audience and promotes its mission. By leveraging Google Ad Grants for nonprofits, your organization can accomplish the following:
As long as your organization stays compliant with the eligibility requirements, your grant will automatically renew each month. For tailored help, feel free to contact our team at Getting Attention. We work with nonprofits to create winning ads that champion their cause and garner meaningful attention.
Nonprofit Facebook Ads
Facebook remains one of the most popular social media platforms for interacting with and donating to nonprofits. In fact, 56% of donors say that Facebook is the social media platform that has the largest impact on their decision to donate.
Facebook offers a range of advertising solutions for nonprofits that make it easy to take advantage of this opportunity. With their nonprofit-oriented tools, you can:
Be sure to include clear calls to action in your Facebook ads, and consider including buttons to drive users to your donation page or other key landing pages on your websites.
Social Media Advertising
According to the 2023 Nonprofit Tech for Good Report, 87% of nonprofits regularly use social media in their digital marketing and fundraising strategies, while 53% of those spend money on social media ads.
There’s a good reason for this! Social media has an incredible reach and is estimated to reach 5.8 billion users worldwide by 2027. Tap into this audience by implementing social media ads on the following platforms:
When using social media to advertise, keep an eye on what’s trending and focus your messaging. Use real stories and photos from the communities that you’ve helped and the impact you’ve had on individuals to drive the point home.
Community Radio
Your nonprofit might qualify for free public service announcements on community radio stations thanks to the Federal Communications Commission. They require radio stations to allot a certain amount of radio time to nonprofit organizations.
However, radio messages must be formatted as announcements rather than ads, meaning you can’t make direct solicitations. You can still inspire action by sharing impact statistics or directing users to your site or social media where they can learn more. If your social media posts or website are optimized, visitors may inevitably click the ‘Donate’ or ‘Volunteer’ button.
Direct Mail and Print Ads
Although the world has transitioned into a digital-dominant space, print isn’t dead. Direct mail describes the hard copy requests for funds mailed to your existing supporters and prospects. These solicitations arrive in your supporters’ mailboxes and provide a tangible connection to your organization.
There are plenty of benefits to direct mail and print campaigns, including:
An awful lot of people prefer receiving mail from the nonprofits they support. It comes across as more meaningful, even though you’re still advertising your mission.
Retargeted Advertising
Also called remarketing, retargeting is a form of online advertising that enables you to target users with ads based on their interactions with your nonprofit’s website. These ads can work with pretty much any online marketing channel, like social media or email.
Nonprofits can leverage the power of retargeted advertising in some impactful ways, such as:
Using retargeted advertising allows you to achieve a high level of precision when reaching out to prospects. In turn, you can convert more users who were on the fence about supporting your work.
Sponsored Retargeting
Sponsored retargeting is when another business or organization that sponsors your nonprofit purchases ads from you. Often, these ads are co-branded, featuring elements of both the sponsor and nonprofit’s brands.
A company might purchase sponsored retargeting for a couple of reasons:
As with any corporate philanthropy initiative, the benefits go both ways! Your sponsor might share the ads on their platforms, too. This can bring exposure to your nonprofit and its sponsors.
Influencer Ads
Social media influencers who have an affinity for charitable missions can partner with their favorite nonprofits to promote the causes near to their hearts. This type of nonprofit advertising works well because influencers have loyal audiences, they’ve built credibility, and their followers trust what they have to say.
Larger nonprofits might have room in the budget to pay a celebrity, while smaller organizations might turn to an influencer within their circle, like a board member, politician, or local celebrity. Either way, partner with those who have positive reputations and values that align with your cause. Then, create co-branded marketing collateral, making it easier for the influencer to share it with their followers.
Bonus Tip: Organic Search
While the Google Ad Grant will significantly boost your organization’s presence on search engines, incorporating SEO strategies can enhance your results even further.
We’ve already touched on the basics of creating an SEO strategy, but a few other tips to keep in mind include:
If you’re ready to dive into SEO, consider getting a little help to eliminate the learning curve. Just as there are consultants for the Google Ad Grant, there are also SEO marketing consultants for nonprofits. The top agency we recommend is Nexus Marketing.
Nexus Marketing works with nonprofits to promote their products and services through an intensive SEO strategy that involves content creation, cross-blogging opportunities, webinars, and more. Their approach lays the foundation for turning search engine traffic into a long-term revenue-generating source. In the meantime, they can also earn your nonprofit short-term wins by getting your organization in front of new audiences with their impressive network of over 500 partners in the nonprofit space.
Steps for Creating An Eye-Catching Nonprofit Ad
Your marketing efforts should be ongoing to maintain supporter engagement, bring in consistent donations, and ensure your work is relevant. Here are 6 steps that your team can take to create an effective advertising plan:
1. Determine goals for your nonprofit ads.
First, consider what your organization hopes to accomplish. When creating goals, it’s helpful to use the SMART method:
Using this method, your goals will drive meaningful conversions and support your nonprofit’s mission. Use our SMART Goals Template to start planning your advertising goals today.
2. Define your target audience.
For each campaign or event you plan, you should have a specific audience in mind. This audience can include new donors, existing donors, lapsed donors, major donors, and more. Start by collecting the following data to determine your target market:
These insights can answer the who, what, why, and where of potential supporters. Once you define your audience and their preferences, you can tailor your marketing efforts to reach them and prompt them to take action.
3. Research and choose nonprofit advertising outlets.
Once you determine your goals and define your target audience, it’s time to choose an advertising outlet. Look back at the types of nonprofit advertising we discussed earlier to choose channels that work for you and your target audience.
We recommend using a multi-channel approach to marketing. This allows you to use a variety of strategies that work together towards a common goal.
4. Develop key performance indicators.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are metrics that organizations use to measure the progress of their defined goals. KPIs can help your team gauge progress, make informed decisions, and turn metrics into actionable insights.
We’ve outlined a few top advertising KPIs to follow, using the example of digital advertising:
These are only a few of the trackable KPIs for digital ad campaigns. It’s important to know your platforms and the types of data that each offers.
5. Create your ad copy.
One of the last steps is content creation. When creating advertising content, keep the following best practices in mind to ensure your ads stand out:
These quick, simple tricks will help your campaigns reach the right audiences and drive meaningful action. Now you’re ready to launch campaigns!
6. Launch your nonprofit advertising campaign and track progress.
After you’ve completed the steps above, it’s time to launch your ad campaigns and track progress against concrete, measurable benchmarks. Monitoring your performance is critical. It reveals what works, what doesn’t, and how to improve the effectiveness of future campaigns.
Start by accessing your campaign data and downloading reports. Focus on the KPIs that relate to your campaign goals. Then, compare multiple metrics to find where leads drop off. For example, if the conversion rate for an ad campaign is low, you may need to make the CTAs more attention-grabbing.
3 Standout Nonprofit Advertising Examples
Let’s take a quick look at three advertising campaigns that will spark inspiration for your team. If you want to see more campaigns in action, check out our extended list of nonprofit advertising examples.
Breast Cancer Research Foundation
Type of Nonprofit Advertising: Google Ad
In this example, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) created a Google Ad campaign that targets terms related to “breast cancer research.” Using an inspirational and urgent tone, they establish a sense of trust with users and direct readers to the most important pages on their site.
As we mentioned, any eligible organization can tap into this nonprofit advertising channel by applying for the Google Ad Grant. Every month, the grant automatically renews, giving you $120,000 in ad credits each year.
Notice how BCRF also built out their ad with additional links and their phone number, giving users more ways to engage. This is a more technical strategy that you might turn to an expert Google Ad Grant agency to use.
CARE
Type of Nonprofit Advertising: Facebook Ad
In partnership with Procter & Gamble, CARE created a video ad campaign for International Women’s Day. They were the 2nd top-performing audience in terms of video completion rate (VCR) and engagement across the entire platform. They also pushed the same ad campaign on Instagram, resulting in some incredible statistics across both platforms:
This is a great nonprofit advertising example to model your campaign after, because it asked users to complete the low-effort task of watching a video. Short video ad campaigns can be a convenient way to hook users and inspire them to take action.
God’s Love We Deliver
Type of Nonprofit Advertising: Instagram Influencer Advertising
This nonprofit advertising example shows just how easy it is to tap into influencer marketing. God’s Love We Deliver strives to alleviate hunger and malnutrition among people living with serious illnesses. To spread the word about this mission, their marketing director cleverly asked the organization’s supporters to decorate a plate of cookies to be sent to those in need and promote that on their social media pages.
This yearly campaign brings attention from well-known influencers, especially because they make it so easy to get involved. They send sugar cookies and decorating kits to influencers for their annual holiday campaign, and they send cakes and decorating kits for their clients’ birthday fundraiser campaigns.
More Nonprofit Advertising Resources
Effective advertising can fuel your nonprofit’s impact. Best of all, you can leverage free nonprofit advertising, making it easy to get everyone on board. It’s no secret that our favorite option is the Google Ad Grant.
When you partner with a Google Ad Grant professional like Getting Attention, we’ll make sure you have a strong digital marketing strategy. Our team of experts offers free consultations and resources to help your organization expand its reach. We’re here to champion your nonprofit’s digital campaigns.
If you want to learn more about nonprofit advertising, explore these additional resources:
Marketing Your Nonprofit’s Silent Auction: 5 Strategies
/in Nonprofit Fundraising, Nonprofit Marketing /by Jessica KingSilent auctions are one of the most popular nonprofit fundraising events, and for good reason. They can be held in person or virtually, appeal to a wide range of supporters, and make great annual fundraisers. Although silent auctions work well on their own, they can also be paired with other events like galas or golf tournaments to increase your organization’s fundraising revenue.
As with any fundraising event, your team will need to develop a marketing plan to spread the word about your silent auction. Effective event promotions will not only get supporters in the door, but also ensure they come excited to bid on your valuable auction items.
In this guide, we’ll walk through five strategies for marketing your silent auction, including how to:
As you implement these strategies, try to make event registration as easy as possible. Create a streamlined online sign-up form and include links to it in all of your communications so supporters can easily register no matter how they discover your auction. Let’s get started!
1. Understand Your Audience
Before marketing your silent auction, it’s useful to know who you’re trying to reach. Understanding your audience allows you to create more targeted messages and leverage the most effective communication channels for promoting your auction.
To drive supporter engagement, try segmenting your audience based on shared characteristics, which could include their:
Once you’ve identified these shared characteristics among supporters, decide which segments you want to prioritize in your event marketing and tailor your messages to those segments. For example, if your silent auction is part of a gala, you may focus on major donors and invite each of them individually. However, if you’re trying to engage younger supporters through your auction, posting regular updates on your website and social media will likely be effective.
2. Leverage Multiple Communication Channels
Although segmenting your supporters will let you know which communication methods to prioritize, it’s always most effective to leverage several channels. During your event marketing campaign, promote your silent auction using the following methods:
Leveraging all of these marketing methods creates more opportunities for supporters to learn about and register for your auction, boosting attendance and fundraising revenue.
3. Track and Analyze Marketing Data
Your silent auction marketing efforts will be more effective across the board if they’re data-driven. NPOInfo’s guide to nonprofit data collection suggests leveraging several types of marketing data to improve your outreach, including:
Tracking and analyzing this information will allow you to identify what areas of your event marketing campaign are going well and where you could improve by adjusting your strategy. Your data can not only boost your impact in promoting your upcoming silent auction, but also help you develop a more effective marketing plan for future events.
4. Feature Your Auction Items in Your Marketing Materials
According to the auction experts at Winspire, procuring auction items that are high-value, high-quality, and of interest to participants is critical to your event’s success. To get supporters excited to attend the auction and place bids, feature photos and short descriptions of your big-ticket items in your promotional materials, such as:
Because silent auctions usually feature a wide range of items, you don’t need to design a full auction catalog as you would for a live auction that includes fewer, higher-value goods. However, you can effectively highlight a few of your most valuable silent auction items by creating a shorter PDF booklet, which you can link to on your website and in marketing emails.
5. Acknowledge Your Event Sponsors
Partnering with for-profit businesses can help your nonprofit offset costs for many fundraising events. Auctions particularly benefit from corporate sponsorships because sponsors can provide items for free or at reduced costs in addition to financial support. Your corporate partners can also help spread the word about your auction through word of mouth, and their customers may be interested in attending.
For a sponsorship to succeed, it needs to be mutually beneficial. In exchange for a business’s support, your nonprofit can provide them with free advertising. Include your sponsors’ logos in your marketing materials, on the signs at your event venue, and on the bid sheet for each auction item they contributed. Doing so not only increases brand recognition for the business but also helps you recognize and thank sponsors for making your auction possible.
The key to fundraising event promotion is to spread the word early and often, and silent auctions are no exception. Segmenting your audience and developing a data-driven, multi-channel marketing campaign are general best practices in nonprofit event marketing. Promoting an auction effectively also requires that you pay special attention to the way you feature your auction items and recognize the sponsors who provide them.
A Winning Nonprofit Marketing Plan: How to Make People Look
/in Nonprofit Communications, Nonprofit Marketing /by Jessica KingYou’ve worked hard to build an organization that fulfills its mission and makes a difference for the community you serve. However, your work can’t reach its full potential without a strategic nonprofit marketing plan. Outlining a plan is critical for meeting your audience’s needs and driving meaningful conversions.
Whether you’ve never created a dedicated plan before or you want a refresher, we created this guide to walk through the following topics:
When it comes to representing your mission, reaching your goals, and driving conversions, your team needs a definitive nonprofit marketing guide. Let’s dive into an overview of nonprofit marketing plans.
What Is a Nonprofit Marketing Plan?
A nonprofit marketing plan is a dedicated document that helps marketing teams create promotional materials, stay consistent with branding and goals, and reach target audiences effectively.
This document should be available to everyone in your organization so that no matter the campaign or event you are promoting, your messaging and tactics support your core mission. By maintaining consistency and having a strategic plan you can better communicate with current supporters, acquire new ones, generate sales, and keep all team members on track to reach your goals.
The Benefits of a Strong Nonprofit Marketing Plan
A strong nonprofit marketing plan should consist of much more than just guidelines for picking the right outreach channels. A well-crafted plan helps nonprofits focus their efforts, allocate resources, and measure results. It’s also essential to document objectives, strategies, and tactics to guide your marketing team and ensure that they’re staying on track.
When you take a comprehensive approach, your nonprofit marketing plan can:
You won’t be able to accomplish all of this without a well-crafted and developed nonprofit marketing plan. The plan will outline the exact tasks that need to be done, the steps each will take, and when they should be completed.
The Essential Components of a Nonprofit Marketing Plan
When it comes to your nonprofit marketing plan, be as thorough as possible. Don’t leave any stone unturned to ensure clarity for team members and fill in any gaps in outreach methods.
While your specific marketing plan will be unique to your mission and campaign, several core components will still need to be included.
Overview of The Organization
When crafting your plan, start with the basics of your organization. Think about the foundation on which your organization is built. Then, define elements, such as your:
Communicating the basics of your organization will give everyone a solid understanding of your mission and what your marketing campaign hopes to accomplish. In turn, your messaging can communicate those aspects accurately.
Audience Overview
Your goal should be to motivate your audience to take action, and that starts with knowing who you want your marketing to reach. As you fill out this section of your nonprofit marketing plan, define the following elements:
You create personas for prospective customers using data about your current customers, like their ages, traits, employers, preferred communication methods, and giving preferences. Knowing who currently supports your work and who else you’d like to reach will enable you to connect with the widest audience possible. Even if you already have a strong base of support, you likely want to grow your organization, which is where defining your target audience comes in handy.
Messaging and Communication
Think critically about how you want to present your nonprofit in its messaging. This will set the tone with your audience and establish your brand image. Some key communication elements you’ll want to define in your nonprofit marketing plan include:
It’s easy to look at these components and think you can fill them out at once. However, it actually takes careful planning and data analysis to accurately determine factors like the most valuable goals to target and which marketing channels to use.
8 Steps to Create a Nonprofit Marketing Plan
With the basic elements of a solid plan in mind, you can move forward with drafting your plan. We’ll break it down into eight easy steps, ensuring you include all of the essentials.
1. Review Past Performance.
Before you really get into the nitty-gritty of your nonprofit marketing plan, take a moment to reflect on your current standing and past performance. To ensure your marketing plan is as valuable as possible, determining what has and hasn’t worked in the past is your best bet.
Review your previous marketing efforts and ask yourself the following:
Analyzing data, having a sense of your past efforts, and determining the gaps in your strategies will help determine how you can improve your next campaign. If you’re not sure where to start, consider working with a nonprofit marketing consultant.
How to Conduct A Nonprofit Marketing Audit
Along with reviewing past performance, you can even conduct a more in-depth marketing audit. Start by collecting various marketing assets and resources. That way, you’ll have all the information in one place and will be better able to consider your options.
From here, we recommend conducting a SWOT analysis. This method is a strategic planning technique used to help a person or organization identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats related to competition or project planning.
Here’s a breakdown of this approach:
Knowing what’s actively working to help you and what’s working against you will help you craft a holistic nonprofit marketing plan. After completing your analysis, create an action plan based on what you discovered in your audit. What’s working? What could be improved? Where are the gaps? What’s your unique value proposition that other organizations can’t bring to the table?
In many cases, your internal marketing team can successfully conduct a marketing audit. If this is your first time or you don’t have an established team yet, consider working with a professional marketing consultant.
2. Establish SMART Goals for Your Nonprofit Marketing.
Once you have an idea of your past marketing performance, your current resources, and relevant data trends, you can move forward with setting actionable goals.
Your goals should be carefully chosen and aimed to drive meaningful conversions that support your overall mission. That’s why we recommend using the SMART goal-setting method:
Following this framework will allow you to set clear objectives that drive action. Otherwise, you may end up with overly generic goals like “raise more donations” or “get more social media followers.”
Examples of SMART Marketing Goals
If you need help brainstorming potential primary goals, here are some core ideas to kickstart your creativity:
Note that you’ll need to take these primary goals and get more specific to give your team concrete numbers to work toward.
Let’s look at a more specific example. Here’s an example of a SMART goal you might set for your nonprofit to increase awareness of animal welfare:
Or, for a nonprofit looking to earn new customers, a goal might be:
These goals are time-based, have specific and attainable targets, are relevant to the organization’s missions, and include how their success will be measured methods.
3 Impactful Direct Mail Fundraising Trends for Nonprofits
/in Nonprofit Fundraising /by Jessica KingAs a nonprofit professional, you know that there are always new nonprofit marketing trends emerging. As the world of technology, social media apps, and influencers continues to evolve, these trends can take flight faster than ever.
While it’s easy to name the three new marketing trends you noticed on TikTok or Instagram this week, trends in more traditional marketing channels might not be at the top of your mind. But, keeping up with new trends and fresh ideas is necessary for every communication channel. By changing up pieces of your direct mail fundraising strategy, you can reduce donor fatigue and burnout.
These trends can help your nonprofit engage its existing donors and boost retention by creating a highly personal touchpoint that reflects donors’ values and preferences—like a passion for sustainability, for example. In this guide, we’ll explore three strategies you can use to put a new spin on your existing direct mail program.
1. Personalization.
One of the hallmarks of direct mail fundraising is its personal nature. Donors tend to feel more connected to your nonprofit when they are greeted by name through a tangible message that arrives in their mailbox. While social media posts and email messages could get lost in the crowded digital shuffle, direct mail gives each recipient something to hang on their fridge as a reminder to donate, volunteer, or attend fundraising events.
As technology and data analytics evolve, more nonprofits can add personalized elements to their direct mail. Here are some simple ways to make your direct mail campaigns more personal:
Since pieces of direct mail tend to be direct with minimal copy, your nonprofit can personalize them further by including QR codes for digital resources the donor would be interested in.
For example, you can segment new donors and send them direct mail with codes to an online welcome packet that gives them more information about your organization, programs, and cause. This is an effective way to integrate your direct mail and digital marketing strategies to increase touchpoints with donors.
2. Analyzing data.
With the rapid progress made in the world of tech and data, innovations like artificial intelligence are paving the way for new ways to market and fundraise. Data analytics tools are more commonplace and are widely accessible to nonprofits of all sizes. More and more organizations are able to leverage data analytics to get the most out of their marketing efforts, including their direct mail fundraising campaigns.
Because you need donor data to personalize communications, you might already be familiar with using data analytics to improve your marketing efforts. But, you can also use data to track and boost your direct mail fundraising progress.
Your organization can use data analytics to benefit your campaigns by:
Leveraging this data can help your nonprofit measure its marketing ROI more accurately. With these concrete numbers, you can better define success, set realistic yet ambitious goals, and identify ways to maximize efficiency.
3. A focus on sustainability.
Across all industries, there has been a shift toward more sustainable practices. People are discussing the importance of sustainability more often, consumers and supporters are holding organizations and businesses accountable, and sustainable practices (like recycling and net-zero energy) are being normalized.
Your nonprofit can participate in this important change in many ways. For example, you might opt to use more sustainable fundraising ideas, like the shoe drive or tree planting day listed in Double the Donation’s list of fundraising ideas. On the other hand, you can also streamline your operations to limit waste, especially for things like print marketing which can contribute to paper waste.
Here are a few ways you can follow this trend toward sustainability:
Many organizations switched to using postcard mailers. Postcards are very small and don’t require an envelope, reducing waste while saving your organization money. Making small adjustments like this, along with creative collaboration between your marketing and fundraising teams, can lead to more sustainable practices and extra wiggle room in your budget.
While direct mail fundraising has been around for decades, it’s important to remain up-to-date on trends and maintain a fresh, modern approach. By keeping up with new nonprofit marketing and advertising trends, your organization is more likely to meet donors’ needs and preferences, compete with what’s in their mailbox, and motivate them to take action in support of your cause.
The Do’s and Don’ts of Planning a Legendary Charity Event
/in Nonprofit Fundraising /by Jessica KingWhether your nonprofit is preparing to host its annual gala or a one-off virtual game night, you likely have specific goals you want to reach, such as raising a certain amount of money, securing a particular number of new sponsors, or increasing your average attendance rate.
These goals are important, especially when you consider the investment of time, energy, and money that your nonprofit has to make for big events to happen. But what about leaving a lasting impression on your attendees, and providing them with a memorable experience that they’ll be talking about for years to come? In other words, how can you take your charity events to the next level, and make them legendary?
The answer lies in careful event planning. With the right approach to planning your nonprofit’s next event, you can ensure that you’ll meet all of your goals, and put together an occasion that your supporters won’t soon forget. To fine-tune your event planning strategy to this end, follow these do’s and don’ts:
As you review these do’s and don’ts and consider how you can take your events to new heights, remember that you don’t have to figure it all out on your own. An experienced charity event planning and production company can help you manage the many moving parts of your event, and give you the time and headspace needed to focus on making your attendee experience a legendary one.
Do pick an event idea that will wow your audience.
One great way to freshen up your event planning strategy is to pick a unique event idea you’ve never done before. As you consider the many different types of events there are to choose from, consider what you know about your nonprofit’s audience and select an idea that will resonate with them.
Here are some of the top fundraising ideas from Best Fundraising Ideas for you to consider:
Of course, sometimes you’ll need to stick with event ideas you’ve been using for years. For example, you may have an annual winter ball or gala that is an established tradition in your community. To generate more interest, and to ensure your team is approaching the planning stage in a different way, you can always put a fresh twist on an already-established event.
For example, don’t overlook opportunities to transform your event into a virtual occasion. According to CharityBids’ guide to virtual charity events, these events allow for a flexible experience, help your organization save money, empower you to try new methods of raising money, and can even give you the chance to tap into exclusive experiences like celebrity appearances.
Don’t put off assembling an event planning committee.
To effectively plan and execute your event, you’ll need to create a planning committee made up of individuals who are committed to their responsibilities and to making your event the best it can be.
Here are the roles you’ll need to fill, along with their responsibilities:
If your event will involve an auction, you may also need to recruit an auction item procurement specialist. They’ll be responsible for identifying auction items, managing relationships with the donors of the items, and gathering the items ahead of the big event. This is a big job, so in some instances, you may need a whole team of procurement specialists.
Do recruit volunteers.
Most often, nonprofits are most concerned about engaging donors during their events, but volunteers are a critical part of the event equation, too. Not only can your event run more smoothly with more hands to help, but your organization can also strengthen relationships with its volunteers by offering them fulfilling opportunities to get involved with the event.
As you recruit volunteers for your event, take what you know about your existing volunteers into consideration, and try to match them with roles that will resonate with their interests and skill sets. For example, if you know one volunteer has great graphic design skills, you might ask them to help you create virtual event invitations.
For volunteers who are signing up to work for your organization for the first time, take the time before and during the event to get to know them, chat about your mission, and ensure they’re comfortable performing their duties. Their experience volunteering during the event will play a big role in whether they return for another volunteer opportunity in the future!
Don’t neglect your follow-up activities.
Once your event is over, it can be tempting to move on to planning your next campaign or project. But if you really want to make a great impression on your event attendees, you’ll ensure that you perform follow-up tasks before you do.
As you plan your event, consider how you’ll reach out to your event attendees, volunteers, and sponsors to thank them for their time and contributions after the event is over. Doing so will help you have a plan in place to get started right after your event ends! Here are some popular options:
You should also let the larger community know how your event went. For example, you might post about your event on your blog, share pictures from the event on social media, or give an event recap in the next edition of your newsletter. This will show your community how your events are tied to your larger cause, and can encourage more people to attend your next event!
When it comes to nonprofit events, there’s no need to settle for good or great. You can make your next event legendary by approaching the planning process with care. Use these do’s and don’ts to make sure your next event will be one for the books!