communications on track and into the care of a professional team felt overwhelming. The other staff were long accustomed to managing their own communications projects and were suspicious of Jane's questions and offers of help.
She started with some baby steps. “Most importantly, I started by learning about my new colleagues and building their trust. I took the view that my colleagues were my clients, and I met with them to find out about their needs. I worked hard to be an attentive and responsive listener, sharing my vision that we were partners in our marketing work,” said Jane.
Over time, communications projects and decision making began to shift to Jane as she demonstrated that she knew what she was doing and could produce good work on schedule and below cost. Jane began creating new office systems, assembling a team to help build a new website, reaching out to media, and securing new vendors. As trust in Jane grew, she was able to create new communications guidelines and protocols to guide AchieveMpls's communications work and create more consistency across the organization.
“Now several years later, our little marketing team is seen as an integral partner in our programmatic and community outreach work,” said Jane. “We work hard to keep innovating our marketing work and also pay close attention to the importance of internal communications in building staff engagement.” As a result, Jane has seen AchieveMpls's visibility and reputation in the community grow, while finding her team playing an increasingly important leadership role in the health and vitality of her organization.
At Nonprofit Marketing Guide, we meet many communications staff who are at the beginning of Jane's journey: in the middle of a hot mess. Much of the work we do is centered on helping people like her do exactly what she did: professionalize the marketing and communications functions within her organization.
It's rarely an easy journey, and it often takes several years, as is it did for Jane.
Many nonprofit leaders, especially those who come to their organizations because of a passionate commitment to a specific cause, mistakenly believe that nonprofit marketing is about nothing more than creating newsletters and social media updates about the good work the nonprofit is doing. Those with corporate experience sometimes narrowly define nonprofit marketing as brand management, public relations, and advertising. Still others, especially those responsible for fundraising, believe that all nonprofit marketing should direct people to donate money. While their numbers have certainly dwindled since the first edition of this book, some people still believe that marketing is nothing more than self-interested selling that has no place in the nonprofit sector. (Those people are, of course, wrong.)
In fact, marketing in the nonprofit sector is much, much more than any of these incomplete assumptions. To manage it effectively, it's vital to understand the depth and breadth of the work.
In this chapter, we'll review a more complete definition of marketing and how it applies to the nonprofit world. We'll also look at the difference between marketing and communications. Then we'll get even more specific by reviewing and defining the most common nonprofit marketing goals, strategies, objectives, and tactics.
THE OFFICIAL DEFINITION OF MARKETING
Consider this official definition of marketing from the American Marketing Association: “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”
As you can see, it's much more than just communicating about the programs or services that your nonprofit provides. Marketing is also about creating those programs or services, from the outset, and delivering them to your participants and supporters. Thus, marketing is not just something you do when you have the time or money; it's an essential component of a well-run organization, right alongside strategic planning, financial management, and evaluation of your effectiveness in implementing your mission.
Also included in the formal definition of marketing is exchanging offerings that have value – in simpler terms, you give a valuable to someone and you get one from them in return. In the business world, a person gives money to a business and the business gives them a service or product, like a box of cereal. But long before you walk out of the grocery store with a box of Crunchy Cocoa Flakes, the business's marketing department has helped determine how that cereal tastes and what it looks like in the bowl, because they have learned all about the cereal preferences of people that make up families like yours. They've figured out how much to charge you for it, based not on production costs alone but also on what they think you'd be willing to pay. They've also decided which stores will carry the cereal on their shelves. They've figured out what the box should look like and what they need to put in the TV commercials, so your kids won't stop bugging you until you add Crunchy Cocoa Flakes to the shopping list.
Of course, it's not quite that simple in the nonprofit world.
Instead of boxes of cereal, nonprofits are often “selling” products and services that are much more abstract, such as education, advocacy, facilitation, technical assistance, and networking. Many times, the characteristics and descriptions of those products and services are not solely for the nonprofit to decide; they are defined instead by government agencies, foundations, and other institutions that fund or regulate the nonprofit's programs.
The exchange is also not as simple as swiping a debit card and walking out of a store with a bag full of groceries. In the nonprofit world, programs are often offered to individuals for free, because their creation is paid for by contracts, grants, or charitable donations. The individual participants pay for what's offered with something other than money, such as their time, by performing a desired action, or simply by demonstrating a willingness to consider a different point of view.
In addition to these costs to both the nonprofit and the participants, we must also consider what's called the “benefit exchange.” What does the nonprofit get out of it, and what does the participant get out of it? Where is the real value to both parties? Nonprofits often get one step closer to achieving their mission, whether it's reducing domestic violence or beautifying a neighborhood. Participants, on the other hand, often get some kind of emotional payback, such as feeling physically safer or knowing they've made their community a better place for their children.
The same is true for people who support nonprofits with donations of time, talent, and money. Nonprofits receive these benefits and in exchange, supporters get something too. Sometimes it's concrete, like tickets to an event or a fancy meal. Other times, it's an emotional benefit, such as feeling proud or inspired. Supporting a nonprofit can also affirm one's identity as a good person or as someone who makes a difference in the lives of others.
IS THIS WORK CALLED MARKETING OR COMMUNICATIONS OR SOMETHING ELSE?
I participate in numerous social media groups for nonprofit communicators, and several times a year, someone wants to debate the difference between marketing and communications. Sometimes words like public relations or outreach are also thrown in the mix. Many of these debates center on which words should be included in someone's job title or team name. As organizations grow, we also sometimes see battles about which executives or staff teams will control the various aspects of marketing and communications work, which also leads to parsing the definitions as the work is divided.
The practical reality is that both words, marketing and communications, are used interchangeably in the nonprofit sector. Communications director, manager, or coordinator is a much more common job title than marketing director, manager, or coordinator. However, those communications directors are almost always doing what I consider both marketing and communications work.
When asked to define the
