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Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

What Kind of Communicator are You, Anyway?

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So a nonprofit has hired you as its communications consultant, or maybe even its Director of Communications.  But what do they really want from you?

Do they want you to help them raise funds?  To promote their programs?  Or to engage the broader community?

It’s vital that you find out.

Raising Funds, or Building Community?

Author Kivi Leroux Miller says whether you’re a fundraising communicator or a brand-builder/community-builder affects everything you do.

If you’re a fundraising communicator, then most likely:

  • You work for a smaller organization that can’t afford separate staff for both development and communications.
  • You focus on people ages 55+, because they give more money.
  • You use print and email marketing, and you send out direct mail appeals.
  • You also use phone banks and events.
  • You may “be on” social media but you’re cautious about it and see it as a lower priority.

But if you’re a brand builder or community builder, then probably:

  • You work for a larger organization (at least a $1 million budget), and your organization has a written marketing plan.
  • You focus on people under age 55, for the life-long value of the relationship.
  • You see volunteering (including advocacy and fundraising with friends) as equally important with immediate donations.
  • You do more content marketing than asking.  You tell more often than you sell.
  • You use social media regularly, and you aim to engage your community–not just do outreach.

Why It Matters

You need to know which kind of communicator you are, so you know how to direct your effort.  And the client or the employer needs to know too–so they can define what counts as success.

But what if you’re asked to do both? According to Kivi’s estimate, about half of us are asked to do both.  She says:

These communicators are the ones I worry most about, because their jobs are much more likely to be poorly defined, and therefore they are much more likely to burn out and hate their jobs.  We need all the creative, dedicated people we can get in this work, so I don’t want this to happen!

What kind of communicator are you?  Have you been in an organization that didn’t make your role clear?  How did you cope?

 

You Can Make Me Glad I Saw Your Ad

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When I watched the video “The Power of Words,” I cried.  Then I shared it on Facebook and Twitter.  A lot of the 18 million people who saw the video did the same. And it’s an ad!

How did Purple Feather make me and millions of other people around the world say, “Thank you, I’m glad I saw that”?  They used the principles of content marketing.  They gave the people what we want.

People like stories.  In a minute and forty-eight seconds, “The Power of Words” tells a complete story–one that includes a triumph at the end.

People identify with characters.  When you watched the video, did you identify with the blind man, the young woman, or the people who at first passed him by and then stopped to give generously?  Or, like me, did you identify with all of them?

People want to feel.  At the end of the video, I hadn’t done anything, right?  I only sat in my chair and looked at the screen.  Yet I felt as if I had been though something life-changing.

People are curious.  When the blind man asked the young woman, “What did you do to my sign?”, I was leaning forward in my seat to find out the answer.

People get it.  When the young woman answered, “I said the same thing, in different words,” and her rewrite of the sign came onto the screen, no one needed to sell me on Purple Feather.  They showed me the power of words.

I felt in my body how big a difference they might be able to make.

I wanted to thank them…and hire them.

And because I do communications, I wanted to write something as powerful as they had.  I hope I will.  I hope I do.

Let’s share some other examples.  What marketing message have you read or seen that made you glad you’d seen it?

G’day! A Nonprofit Tale of Two Nations

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Does your nonprofit organization want to be known and respected?  Why, and by whom?

The answer may vary by country–and how you answer determines how you should communicate with your supporters.

I recently spoke with Chris Gandy, a colleague and the founder of the Australian consulting firm Cause and Effective.  In Australia, it is common for not-for-profits to compete to receive funding from the government.  Few of these organizations obtain a significant portion of their budget by fundraising from the public.

That means that content marketing in Australia is aimed at a very specific audience.  The people that our friends Down Under want to impress with their organizations’ expertise are what we in the U.S. would call bureaucrats.  This audience expects subject-matter knowledge, well-substantiated claims, and detailed evidence that taxpayer money will be spent appropriately.

In the U.S., government is still the biggest source of funds for nonprofits, but its share is declining.  Over the last dozen years, I have seen nonprofits increasingly market themselves to donors, community-minded businesses, and philanthropic foundations.

These givers ask first, “What difference do you make?”, and only then, “How much do you know?”  And the rule of thumb in the U.S. is to win hearts first.  Once people want to support you, they will look for reasons to do it–and by providing those reasons, you clinch the deal.

Of course, bureaucrats have hearts, and donors have heads.  But getting the balance between the two right is crucial.

At your nonprofit organization, are you more American or Australian?  Which is more important to you: your prestige in your field, or your brand loyalty among your supporters?

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