The Nonprofit Marketing Ideas Blog

Whether you want to raise money, recruit volunteers, or convince people to recycle more of their stuff, it helps to know how to think about how best to sell your ideas. That much is common sense, to some extent. This post is meant not so much to restate what plenty of people know, but to begin to organize that knowledge. With that in mind, consider the basics of effective marketing and how they apply to your project. I'll then have a few things to say about market research, a topic that fewer people are familiar with. Marketing 101 for Activists: Of course I can't offer a real introduction to marketing in one post. That kind of thing might even be insulting to experienced communications or development people. Either way, for now I want to just offer a few things that all nonprofit marketers should keep in mind: What is your objective with this marketing piece?  Who is the audience?  Where is the best place to share this message?  What information does the audienc...

Activists and nonprofit executives often cast about for better ways to get things done and solve recurring problems like funding those ambitious change efforts. This page outlines a system for finding or designing new solutions to old problems in fundraising, social marketing, advocacy, public education, and program design.  Six Principles:   Regardless of the challenge, all of most of these principles should be relevant and useful. 1. Think Scientifically  - Use numbers, rates, proportions, and percentages to inform decisions and guide our evaluations, of what to do and what works once we get things going. 2.  Look for Leverage  - Look for ways to intervene that will produce the most change for a given  level of effort (or spending).  3.  Be Systematic  - Use some basic organizational principles, and tools like cost-benefit analysis, to track your thinking, research, and progress. 4.  Adopt a Marketing Mindset  - You...

When people think about a social problem, like mass shootings or teen pregnancy, they tend to stake out a position on the subject first. Then they defend their position with anecdotes, statistics, and what they believe are logical arguments. Is it true that more guns mean less crime? Is it true that sex education leads to more teen pregnancy? This post looks at a couple of misleading or mistaken claims that gun control opponents might use.  Defensive Gun Use: Millions of words have been written on one gun-related question: How often do gun owners use guns to defend themselves or other innocent people from violent criminals? I won't rehash the debate here because my purpose is to call out one big problem in how gun control opponents use defensive gun use in their rhetoric. What is defensive gun use? I know you think I just defined it for you but that's not quite true. Put on your scientific thinking hat for a minute and ponder ways to measure defensive gun use. What ques...

Millions of American voters are upset by what they know of the Trump agenda. and about his picks for key jobs in the federal government. But what can concerned citizens really do about it? Lots of things, actually. This post is a summary of strategies for stopping the Trump agenda, or minimizing the damage. Of course you can write your Congressional representatives and vote for liberal Democrats or Independents in the next House elections. That's not what this post is about. Resisting the Trump Agenda with Practical Activism: Resisting Trump is a bit like saving the environment or ending slavery. What exactly is the average person supposed to do? That question is easily answered by providing a series of practical actions that people can take. What practical actions can Jane and Joe Average take to resist Trump's plans for the nation? Certain things Trump and his political appointees do will be tough to resist directly. For example, citizens can't keep him from nomin...