by Nicole Battles

Created on: February 26, 2010   Last Updated: February 27, 2010

There are two main challenges to overcome when marketing for a nonprofit organization; selling the invisible, and identifying your customer.  Nearly everyone in the marketing industry could create a marketing plan for a toaster.  You would market the toaster by demonstrating the features and benefits to your selected audience.  The audience can see for themselves what it looks like and how it works. 

When you market for a nonprofit organization, there are often no products to sell, or if there are they are not the main revenue source of the organization.  You need to switch your focus and sell people not on the features and benefits of a product, but on an ideal or value and how it will affect their lives.  Most nonprofit organizations are selling an intangible item.  They are selling a solution to a specific social problem.  This shift in thinking takes someone who can describe the invisible and get other people to believe in it and understand how it affects their lives.

Take the American Cancer Society for example.  While they do sell t-shirts, bags and other logo items on their website, this is not the main source of revenue for the organization.  They are selling hope for a cure for cancer.  How do you get someone to buy hope in the form of a donation?  You focus on how the problem, in this case cancer, affects them.  Maybe they lost a loved one to cancer, or know someone who did.  Then, you focus on how they can be part of the solution through a donation.  You are not selling them a cure for cancer.  You are not even selling them the promise of a cure for cancer.  You are selling them hope that with their help, your organization will find one.

Another challenge for marketing a nonprofit is to identify your customer.  For the American Cancer Society, it's pretty easy.  Since nearly everyone has been touched by cancer in some way throughout their life, nearly everyone is a potential donor.  For an organization like the Humane Society for Companion Animals, their potential donor base is smaller because it would include only those who are animal lovers. 

The most important aspect of marketing to a nonprofit is to never lose sight of the mission of your organization.  There might be some great marketing ideas out there that promise big returns and new donor bases, but once you start down that road, your organization can easily lose its identity which will make marketing a clear message extremely difficult.  Each time you put a marketing plan together, read the mission of your organization to be sure the messaging is consistent.  Donors are smart.  If you try to market with gimmicks that are not in line with your mission, they will see through you every time, and the hardest donor to reach is the one you lost.

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