Bruce G. Rosenthal has over two decades of service to nonprofit organizations and associations. He is skilled in creating new organizations, and providing them with communications, media relations, convention management, marketing, membership development and fund raising services. He is now the Communications & Public Relations Manager of the National Foundation for Women Business Owners.
Bruce can be reached by phone at 301-495-4975 or by e-mail at NFWBO-PR@
worldnet.att.net.
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The Nonprofit Organization Marketing Test
by Bruce G. RosenthalCommunications and Marketing Manager, NFWBO
Here is a quick test to see if your association or nonprofit organization is ready for a prosperous and successful future, or doomed to succumb to dwindling revenues and a shrinking constituency.
Consider each of the services and programs that your organization provides. Now, develop three lists:
- What are some other nonprofit organizations with similar or overlapping missions?
- What are some companies that provide a similar range of products or services to your constituency? and
- What are the government agencies that offer similar services to your constituency?
- What are some organizations, companies and agencies that might enlarge their missions to provide services and products similar to your organization?
- What are some entities that haven't been created yet, however if established would be your competitor?
Most of you, I surmise, are thinking that there could be challenges ahead for your organization...or new opportunities.
A year or so ago I was director of a coalition of nonprofit organizations that were pursuing interactive communications for their marketing and fund raising efforts. This gave me an opportunity to talk with more than 300 nonprofit organization marketers and fund raisers.
In the course of my discussions, I identified
Ten Steps to Successful Nonprofit Organization Marketing:
1. Create "venture capital."
I know this isn't considered "normal" for a nonprofit because you raise dollars from donors, members and/or grantors to provide specific services and products now. However, ask any successful business person where their business would be today if they didn't devote some of their dollars to preparing for the future.
2. Create "venture time."
Devote a small percentage of your staff's time to exploring new marketing ventures...particularly business marketing ventures. An entrepreneurial business owner once told me that one morning each week he turns off the phones and instructs his staff not to schedule any meetings. They use this time to learn or study something that is NOT part of their day-to-day responsibilities...a new computer software, a biography of a creative business person, whatever. The program pays off royally.
3. Recognize that death, taxes and CHANGE are certain.
How many of you had fax machines 10 years ago? Voice mail 5 years ago? E-mail three years ago? Web Pages 2 years ago? Is your marketing plan keeping up with change?
4. Don't be a bureaucracy.
Delays, consensus-building and too much "process" plague many organizations. Pull your organization's mission statement out of the file and tape it to the wall in front of your desk; ask yourself if your marketing plan supports bureaucracy or supports the mission.
5. Work like a team.
I'm amazed at the number of nonprofit executives who tell me with great excitement abou the training they're getting so that they can begin to work together as a team. Many innovative marketing strategies cross-cut different departments...marketing, fund raising, education, public relations, conferences, and advocacy. Do it as a team.
6. Team up with other organizations
Some folks believe that teaming up diminishes an organization's effectiveness. However, coalitions, joint alliances, and joint ventures can result in very effective marketing and fund raising efforts. What do you see in the business news? Companies that never thought they'd sit at the same table are now working together. Nonprofits should be doing the same...with each other and businesses.
7. Encourage Board support.
Does your board of directors micro manage and stifle creativity? If so, you can probably quit reading this article now and try again at a later date. Or does your board act constructively and advance your organization's mission? If so, great!
8. Know your constituency.
Are you relying primarily on direct mail for your marketing? Hmmmmm. Ask an 18-year-old their address and they'll give you their e-mail address, not their street address. Younger donors and participants in organizations - those most valued because if their loyalties are captured now they will be around for many decades of support - are not likely to be as responsive to yesterday's marketing strategy.
9. The lessons of history.
Daniel Burrus points out in his book Technotrends that "your past success is your worst enemy." Don't lapse into complacency just becasue your last marketing campaign broke all records.
10. Know your goal.
Read some books about business marketing; read some entrepreneurial business plans; surf the Internet for business marketing ideas. Ask your board members who are in business how they market their businesses (not how they market your organization.) Then, create a goal that incorporates your organization's mission and business marketing strategies.
Your decision to adopt a "business-like" marketing strategy is a professional decision to learn, understand, network, assess the options, evaluate the costs and benefits, and develop an affordable and workable alternative for your organization's present and future marketing programs.
As the competition heats up and the pace of change quickens, the first organizations "out of the starting gate" with competitive marketing programs will have far greater opportunities than those that emerge after there are dozens of other competitors vying for your constituency's attention.
My final marketing test question for your nonprofit organization or association is...if you think that your organization is not ready now for a full-fledged marketing program, please be forewarned. Your (public and private) sector competitors may have already started.
Copyright © 1997 Bruce G. Rosenthal
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