Inspire Good: Nonprofit Marketing for a Better World

By Bill Weger

If you are a nonprofit marketer seeking to learn how to inspire more good, youll need this guidebook to get the job done.

Bill Weger, a nonprofit marketing veteran with more than twenty-five years of experience serving the nonprofit and government sectors, shares proven methods on how to gain more traction using social media, media relations, branding, and message development.

Get ready to discover how to start conversations that spark social change; leverage new and traditional media to accomplish your goals; and use proven theories, practices and success stories to your advantage. Youll also learn how to improve your marketing by analyzing case studies from a variety of nonprofits, including the American Red Cross, YMCA, Lutheran Services in America, and Network for Good.

By equipping yourself with updated marketing tactics, youll outperform your peers from the biggest corporations with larger budgets. Inspire Good boils down to getting people to take positive action that makes a difference.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Nov 2, 2011
• ISBN: 9781426989094

Bill Weger

Bill Weger is the founder and senior partner of Image One PR, a social marketing and strategic communications firm that specializes in nonprofits, associations, health care, education, and government. He began his communications career twenty-five years ago at the American Red Cross National Headquarters in Washington, DC. Visit his website at www.imageonepr.com.

Book preview

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Nonprofit Marketing for a Better World

Bill Weger

A portion of the royalties received from sales of this book

will be donated to charities.

Inspire Good ® is a registered trademark of

Image One PR Consulting, LLC

Order this book online at www.trafford.com

or email [e-mail]

Most Trafford titles are also available at major online book retailers.

© Copyright 2011 Bill Weger.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

Printed in the United States of America.

ISBN: 978-1-4269-8908-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4269-8910-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4269-8909-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011914848

Trafford rev. 12/05/2011

missing image file www.trafford.com

North America & international

toll-free: 1 888 232 4444 (USA & Canada)

phone: [phone] * fax: [phone]

Contents

Preface: A Book of Inspiration

About the Author

How to Use This Book

Part I

The New Nonprofit Marketing Environment

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Part II

Building Brand Connections

Chapter 4

Chapter 6

Part III

Nonprofit Communications: Let’s Talk

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Part IV

Promoting Good Causes

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Part V

New and Social Media

Chapter 13

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Preface: A Book of Inspiration

In the heart of every community, you’ll find nonprofits hard at work. Helping neighbors. Feeding the hungry. Caring for the sick. Making lives better. Nonprofits fill critical gaps, shape policy, mobilize stakeholders, and contribute to the economy.

These are the hallmarks of America’s nonprofits. And behind every nonprofit are remarkable stories that need telling. This book is for nonprofit marketing professionals who want to tell their organization’s stories so people listen and take action. It’s meant to be a handy resource filled with strategies and practical tips for improving nonprofit marketing and communications. It’s intended to start conservations, facilitate open communications, and drive measurable outcomes for nonprofit organizations. Foremost, the purpose of this publication is to inspire good.

More than 25 years ago, when I began my communications career, I went to work for three years at the American Red Cross National Headquarters in Washington, D.C. It was a meaningful experience that shaped my opinion that the nonprofit marketer’s primary job is to inspire good – whether it’s raising funds, increasing awareness, influencing behavior, or recruiting volunteers. It all boils down to getting people to take positive action that makes a difference.

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In 2002, I founded Image One PR with a focus on serving nonprofits, associations, and government. Consistent with our work, we decided our tagline would be inspire good® – also the title of this book. Over the years, I conducted presentations before nonprofit audiences and wrote a series of articles for our newsletter entitled, Brand Bytes. The topics covered a range of marketing and public relations areas, including naming, branding, logo development, website development, media relations, micromarketing, and much more.

So I always had an outline for a book in my head. I finally put it all together in the form of this publication, adding fresh information and many new thoughts and ideas. I have been fortunate to work for and with diverse nonprofits small and large, including the American Red Cross, the Epilepsy Foundation, Lutheran Services in America, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Much of what I learned over two decades as a journalist, nonprofit marketer, association professional, government contractor, and volunteer has gone into writing this book. I have tried to share information that will be valuable to nonprofit marketers with limited staff, budget, and resources.

I hope this simple book helps you to inspire good. Best wishes in your efforts to strengthen nonprofits and achieve their critical missions.

About the Author

Bill Weger is the Founder and Senior Partner of Image One PR, a social marketing and strategic communications firm that specializes in nonprofits, associations, healthcare, education, and government.

Based in Rockville, Maryland, Image One PR has received 30 national and international awards for communications excellence, including Ava, APEX, Aster, Aurora, Communicator, Hermes Creative, MarCom, and Telly Awards.

For more than 20 years, Bill has worked for or with some of the nation’s most respected nonprofit organizations and government agencies, including the American Red Cross, The Epilepsy Foundation, Lutheran Services in America, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

He has created and successfully executed nationally recognized branding, social marketing, and public awareness campaigns. Bill speaks and conducts workshops on nonprofit marketing at national conferences.

He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism from the University of Maryland, College Park and a Master of Arts degree in Public Communications from The American University in Washington, D.C. He has been a member of the Public Relations Society of America since 1989. He is also a member of the American Public Health Association.

Bill enjoys reading, running, poetry, and spending time with his wife and family. You can reach him through the Image One PR website at www.imageonepr.com.

How to Use This Book

This book was written specifically for nonprofit marketers who need a handy resource they can turn to for proven strategies, quick reads, and guidance. Whether you are an Executive Director, Communications Manager, Marketing Assistant, Development Director, or Volunteer, this book is meant for you.

Put it on your desk. Keep it on your bookshelf. Share it with your colleagues. It’s for you to use when and where it has the most value. Read it once. Make mental notes. And refer to it often when seeking solutions for your next nonprofit marketing challenge.

This book is organized into five parts. Together, they present a multi-faceted and open approach to achieving effective nonprofit marketing and communications.

Part I: The New Nonprofit Marketing Environment provides fresh insights on the nonprofit marketing landscape today and how it’s rapidly changing. The section outlines seven strategies for success and the role nonprofit marketers play as social butterflies. The influence and benefits of social marketing are also discussed, along with cause marketing and micromarketing. Part I also offers strategies for creating a marketing plan true to your mission. The section includes a Network for Good case study on optimizing online giving.

Part II: Building Brand Connections highlights ways to strengthen your nonprofit’s position and visibility. Important topics covered in this section include the six pillars of branding (research, visualize, verbalize, promote, protect, and refine), repositioning, naming, taglines, logos, the psychology of colors, and great design for good causes. Part II also presents a case study in effective nonprofit branding.

Part III: Nonprofit Communications: Let’s Talk encourages nonprofits to build successful relationships through open communications and conversations. This section highlights the importance of articulating your vision and mission, shaping messages that stick, the language of nonprofits, multicultural communications, website content development, and why telling great stories is vital to connecting with stakeholders.

Part IV: Promoting Good Causes gives you strategies and tips for increasing stakeholder awareness and earning positive marketing results. You will learn about nonprofit public relations in a Web 2.0 world, developing a media plan with traction, the power of public service announcements, cultivating media relationships, becoming word on the street, creating special events, the rise of citizen journalism, and why traditional media, and aging news releases still matter. This section also highlights an award-winning national media campaign that helped Lutheran Services in America boost its national profile and raise funds through its online auction, Trading Graces.

Part V: New and Social Media recognizes the value of facilitating conversations in the new era of public engagement. This section focuses on ways to help your nonprofit leverage social media as a tool for listening, sharing, and facilitating conversations. Topics discussed here include creating a social media strategy, connecting with the Facebook and Twitter communities, blogging to say something, broadcasting on YouTube, Flickr for nonprofits, and mobile marketing.

Part I

The New Nonprofit Marketing Environment

Chapter 1      The Evolution of Nonprofit Marketing

Chapter 2      Modern Marketing Many Ways

Chapter 3      Your Nonprofit Playbook

Chapter 1

The Evolution of Nonprofit Marketing

Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.

– Plato

While answering pledge phones for the Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon one year, a woman asked me Where would we be without volunteers and nonprofits like the MDA?

It reminded me of the holiday film classic It’s a Wonderful Life when Clarence the Angel tells George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) that he has been given a great gift – a chance to see what the world would be like without him.

One man’s life touches so many others, when he’s not here it leaves an awfully big hole, Clarence says profoundly. To demonstrate the point, the story recounts how, as a child, George Bailey saved his brother from falling through the ice and drowning. Later in life, his brother, Harry, went on to become a Navy fighter pilot and was awarded the Medal of Honor for shooting down enemy aircraft, including one that would have crashed into a U.S. transport ship full of troops.

What if there were no charitable organizations? Imagine the enormous hardships, despair, and lost dreams. When It’s a Wonderful Life premiered in 1946, fewer than 100,000 nonprofit organizations existed in the United States.

The nonprofit sector today is bigger, more complex, and organized than ever before. Simultaneously, the role of nonprofit marketers has never been more important. Today, more than 1.4 million nonprofits, foundations, and religious congregations fill gaps, save lives, and do the selfless work and giving that makes our lives, communities, and world better.

According to the Corporation for National and Community Service, 62.8 million Americans volunteered to help their communities in 2010, providing powerful economic and social benefits to communities across the nation. These volunteers contributed 8.1 billion hours of service with an estimated equivalent dollar value of $169 billion. More than 10 percent of the American workforce is employed by nonprofits, which contribute nearly $322 billion in wages, according to a study by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Civil Society Studies. These facts are a remarkable testament to the spirit of serving others for the greater good and their importance to the economy.

The Era of Public Engagement

The nonprofit landscape has undergone dramatic change over the past 100 years and new technologies and sophisticated communication forms have fueled its growth and success. Nonprofit marketing and public relations, along with radio, television, cable, and the Internet, have all played important roles in the sector’s enormous expansion. And now, social media is the new game changer.

Today, the social media revolution is creating exciting new opportunities for nonprofits to engage the public in online conversation and content sharing. From Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr to Wikipedia and the blogosphere, the remarkable and rapid proliferation of Web 2.0 and new media has reached a tipping point.

In 2000, several years before new and social media became a worldwide phenomenon, Malcolm Gladwell wrote a best-selling book, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. Tipping points, according to Gladwell, are the levels at which the momentum for change is unstoppable. Clearly, the acceptance and affinity for social media has reached critical mass.

In many ways, the butterfly principal reflects the ripple effect of the social media revolution. Based in chaos theory, the butterfly principle supports the idea that small differences can collectively create a big difference over time. For example, the flapping of a butterfly’s wings produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere that can change weather patterns. So a huge migration of butterflies to Mexico can potentially cause a tornado in Texas.

Similarly, social media participation started slowly, but over several years a metamorphosis occurred. Perceptions changed. The caterpillar became a butterfly and a popular communication form with worldwide influence.

Becoming Social Butterflies

In a sense, nonprofit marketers serve as social butterflies. Think of the flight of the butterfly. It goes from flower to flower, garden to garden,