Your organization is doing important work to advance positive outcomes for the people you serve. You have a differentiated approach that makes your nonprofit uniquely qualified, and those who know your work best are true believers.
So why is it so difficult to get others to see what you, your staff and current volunteers see? Why does it feel like you’re continually fighting uphill to attract the constituency you need to make a bigger impact?
It likely has nothing to do with your competition or a need to demonstrate additional effort.
In fact, it likely isn’t about you at all…
Defining Movement-Building Brand Marketing
We know focusing on recruitment (when you’d prefer to focus on advancing your programming) is frustrating.
But we have a solution.
We’ve developed a strategy, informed by our work with 200+ social good institutions, called “movement-building brand marketing.” An adaptation of Donald Miller’s Storybrand, our approach focuses on the unique ways nonprofits can build belonging with their constituents.
The premise is simple — brands do best when they position the person they’re communicating with as the “hero” in their messaging. Why?
Because when people see themselves in your narrative, they’re more likely to engage with your brand.
However, we’ve seen that this communication strategy is counter to how nonprofits and other social good institutions typically present themselves. Organizations often place themselves as the hero of the story they’re telling — with their approach, their programming and their staff positioned front and center. While that may seem logical, it’s far less effective than the alternative and does little to foster the “belonging” necessary to achieve constituent buy-in.
Reframing the Narrative
Social good leaders often grasp this concept quickly but often struggle to apply it in their communication efforts. Here are some indicators your organization should consider reframing its narrative:
- Your communications focus on the institution rather than the audience. One of my favorite social-good thought leaders Penelope Burke suggests counting the number of times your messages use the word you instead of we or us. It’s a great way to build a metric around shifting to human-centered communication. Your audience wants to connect with your messaging, so speaking directly to them is a simple way to accomplish this. (Check out the opening paragraphs of this blog for an example of how to “make it about them.”)
- Your organization outlines funding as a need — with the stakes being your nonprofit’s survival. Fundraising is always tricky. It requires a deeply nuanced approach to build human-centered narratives that motivate people to give. But we’d argue there’s no more nonprofit-centric narrative than this: If we don’t exist, people suffer. Making the nonprofit the “hero” and challenging people to donate to support your work is a classic misstep (and one that raises far fewer dollars than one that positions the donor as the change agent).
- Your organization continually reiterates the story of how the nonprofit came to be. This is one of the hardest tropes to disrupt because the founder-centric story is often a powerful strategy for awareness-building in an organization’s early days. But over time, constituents become less interested in a nonprofit’s past and instead want to see how they can be a part of its future. This will require your organization to reposition the spotlight onto each new person who discovers your organization. To do so, share messaging that elevates the constituent as an important part of how your nonprofit can advance its mission. It takes a great degree of humility to move on from an oft-told founding story, but it so often holds the key to future growth.
Using Community Voice in Your Market Research
Determining what “you-centric” messages will resonate with the people you aim to reach can be best determined with community voice research. Why guess when you can directly ask representatives of the people you want to attract?
We shared methods for conducting such market research earlier this year as part of our free Community Voice webinar series. We believe community voice is essential to a strong movement-building brand marketing strategy because it creates a strong sense of shared values and belonging with your constituents.
Catch the encore of our free Marketing & Community Voice webinar this Thursday at 11 am.
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Interested in elevating your organization’s messaging to connect with new audiences?
Reach out and let’s set up a time to chat.
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Next Stage CEO Josh Jacobson launched Next Stage as a social enterprise in 2014, bridging his professional experiences as a nonprofit practitioner with his consulting expertise. He has led Next Stage’s work with 200+ clients, including nonprofits, private-sector companies, municipalities, faith institutions, philanthropies and community-based organizations. Josh’s skills in strategic positioning and tactical design help clients achieve their goals. He guides Next Stage’s work in strategic planning and collaboration management and is a major contributor to the company’s thought leadership efforts.