Best of: 5 Things Nonprofit Marketers Need to Hear Right Now

Let's transform your mission into a movement . Hello , happy nearly end of October . What , what in the world ? How did this year fly by so quickly ? I don't know . It's a blur . It's a blur .

I have had some of the most fabulous conversations this year with guests coming onto the show , and I thought it was due time as we head into the busiest season of the year that also just continues to fly by as the holidays happen . I wanted to do a little compilation episode .

I thought there were so many incredible episodes and nuggets from them that I wanted to bring a few together that I think are fitting for this season that we are entering in , where we can feel burnt out , tired , stretched , hopefully maybe a little bit inspired . Along with that , too , I feel encouraged .

I have pulled together five little nuggets from previous episodes and I wanted to give you a little bit of a peek of what they're going to be . Before we dive into the episode , you are going to hear from Floyd Jones . You're ready to be motivated ? How to focus on the movement of what you're doing and see beyond just the moment of the craziness ?

How to switch your energy this giving season to see different and feel different results ? You'll also hear from Marcus Collins . He is the author of For the Culture , a book I highly recommend , a must read . What is his framework ? To find your congregation , your believers ?

How do we go about finding people in the world that see the world like us , to bring them called into our mission and what we do ? Jenny Nuccio a message of encouragement and talking about the micro moments .

How do you work as an organization to push past the nose which can feel so heavy and remind yourself that you're enough and there's greatness in what you're doing ? Being Queen Vic Harrison , how do you captivate the complete stranger using her three part marketing engine we talk about ?

We believe that people are out there wanting to hear our stories , but the fact is we are slammed in our daily lives . How do we break into that noise ? There will be a little snippet from me too , from a solo episode sharing what is one simple website update to make right now . That can make a huge impact and difference in increasing your online donations .

All of the original episodes will be linked in the show notes for you to check out as well . I hope you enjoy this compilation episode of some of the most fascinating , brilliant , kindhearted people I have met throughout doing this podcast . I hope you enjoy . Let's go ahead and dive in and take a listen .

You need to bring your cause front row , in center , because so many different things are trying to take your attention of your donors . But you need to get right back into the attention , right back into the center and right back to the heart of the matter , and that is what I want to focus on this season .

We say , okay , I gotta do this thing , I just gotta make it to December 31st , I gotta just finish this campaign , I gotta finish this event . And we're focused on the moment and you are going to get burned out if you're only focusing on the moment . How many times do we see organizations recreating the wheel ?

I love your whole brand about monthly sustainers and monthly donors and building that out . Because you are thinking about beyond the moment and you're thinking about come on the movement , hello , or podcast shout out . Okay , we're talking about how are you building the movement , and not the moment .

Okay , if you're only focusing on the moment , you're only focusing on this one campaign . If you're focusing on the movement , then you're focusing on how am I cultivating my donor ?

And let's get back to the heart . Like I said , we gotta get back to the heart of the matter . That's how you switch your mindset right . I get tired , true child . I want everybody's podcast . I'm talking about another thing , but I'm saying no , no , no , no , no , no . I'm not just doing this episode . It is more than missions to movement .

This is how do I think about the end listener .

activate it in their organization . Think about the person on the other side .

But essentially is this sentence saying I am a member of the link which is name of tribe . We believe blank , which is shared belief . Therefore I blank behavior norm . So you give an example . I don't know if you wanna share your specific example , but what is an example of this being spelled out ?

And then it's like there were no stone tablets in our basement that we signed in blood Say we're going to church . It's just what we do . They're expectations of us . So we think about our organization , our company , our constituents . As a politician or a leader or a manager or a marketer , the ultimate we're trying to do is how do we see the world ?

And who see the world like us ? Because if we know how people see the world , it is going to be predictive of what they're going to do . Because , as you open it up , dana , there's no force more influential than culture and that framework . People like me do something like this Because we believe a thing that framework .

It dictates almost all the decisions that we make , whether we're content of them or not .

And as we as leaders , as marketers , as managers , activists , as politicians , as clergy , even as parents , the more that we understand this , the more likely we are to harness its power to get people to adopt behavior , and that's what the whole focus of the book is how to help people , get people to move .

it's like to make a one-time gift . And would this also be a good experience , a good tool for recurring giving as well ? Now , the word that I see on nearly every button to ask for a gift is donate . Now you might be thinking well , dana , that's not really a shocker , because that's what I want someone to do .

But think about the mentality someone is in when they're preparing to make a gift . Do you want them to be thinking about what they're giving , which is money usually , or the impact they're creating ? Now , this is key , I'll say it again Do you want them to be thinking about what they're giving Money , or the impact they're creating ?

And now think about this Since we were kids , we have wanted to press that elevator button or flip that light switch right . Anytime there's been some sort of gadget , we've always wanted to press on it and your brain wants to click on something because it wants to know what happens next .

And , believe it or not , there's actually a lot of psychology that goes into creating a clickable button .

There's color when I was working at the agency world in New York City , we received a whole big document I'm talking about like 50 pages from a review of tests with the different political parties and there were so many different button tests of colors and shapes and placements and that's kind of what I'm drawing to .

Here is the testing element that goes into this , and I read a really interesting article from media training that stated the human mind is wired in a way that allows certain colors and shapes to subliminally create different moods and emotions without a person consciously realizing it .

So I want to read this list of colors and what moods and emotions they tend to induce , as you can think about . Is this the type of mood I'm trying to induce with my button when it's clicked upon ? So red is power and confidence , green is peace , calmness , growth .

Black is professionalism , white is simple and clean , blue is stability and trust , yellow is warmth , joy , positivity , very interesting . Orange is friendliness , energetic , and purple is luxurious and creative . So hopefully this is making you think like oh , what's the color of our button right ? Does it align with the way you want the human brain to process it ?

During our monthly giving mastermind program we really think about how can we make each of the buttons tied to the desired outcome . So one monthly giving program example is from Leap . One of my favorite nonprofits that I've worked with shout out to Cindy .

Their mission is to diversify the legal profession and give underrepresented students the support and mentorship they need to attend law school and become agents of social change . So their monthly giving program that we came up with through the program is called the bench . So one of our buttons reads save my seat on the bench .

Not become a monthly donor or give or donate , but something empowering Save my seat on the bench right . Taking an action . Another example I always like to use IJM as an example International Justice Mission . Their mission is to rescue people from modern day slavery .

And if you go to their website , on the very front home page , instead of donate or give , the button on their home page reads send rescue . That's directly speaking to the action you're creating by giving your gift right .

Other examples that I just kind of like brainstorm and made up that are more cause-based are help free the innocent , provide nourishment , help build a home , provide a house , clean the streets , gift a meal .

Now , other examples that don't have a direct tie to the cause but are still impactful could be I'm ready to blink , I want in , I'm in , I'm ready , let's go , I'm all in . So you see , these are all very actionable statements and on my own website , if you go to positive equation dot com , you will see action statements throughout my entire site .

Starting on my homepage , I share two main options to work with me . One is through my courses teaching , social media ads , and that button reads get started with ads , so again , action based . Or to join my monthly giving mastermind program , and that button reads yes , I want a monthly giving program .

So speaking to the needs of whatever that individual is looking for . One other place that I've made a really conscious effort to update my call to action buttons is on my speaker page After each signature keynote that I have listed . Each call to action is different . I don't say learn more , click here , nothing like that . They read yes , this sounds great .

Spot on what we need . I'm ready to be moved . Yes , please book now , right . So do you see the difference that these can make and , like the power of , there's a little bit more of like a dopamine hit , a little bit of excitement when you're clicking on these because like , oh , what's happening next , like I am so amped to go to this next step .

So my homework for you , if you will , is take five minutes combing through your website and write down all of the different buttons that you have on your website and check what does the color mean ?

Is the placement okay ? Maybe ? How can I make this one more impact driven and brainstorm a few options .

And so in those weeds , like I think we just need to be reminded that we are enough . We were made with beautiful talent . We are capable to bring something great into this world , but it does take time and obedience and discipline .

And I think in this day of age you know , we live in just this instant gratification of like we want to see it happen overnight and the truth is it's not going to happen overnight . Like there's not a big break . Like people are like oh , when'd you get your big break ? I'm like we're still in it .

There's these beautiful micro moments of wins that we want to remember to not like miss and celebrate , cause I think also as entrepreneurs , we move , move , move and we forget to celebrate in those wins right when they happen , cause we're just like oh , that was great , check , now we're moving to the next big win , and I think we just need to learn how to

celebrate a little more in the process . But there's not this like oh my gosh , this big thing , or going viral , whatever that might look like , the truth is the majority of us I mean , yeah , we're in it and we have to push through .

So I want the book to be an inspiration of that , to remind you that like you have a tribe out there and you're not alone in that . But also totally agree , yeah , yeah , and I think what I hope for also in the tour is , again , the tour itself is going to be an experience .

We are borrowing a trailer from our friend , susie pink Airstream trailer , and we are wrapping that . That's going to be our pop-up shop . So there's going to be like pop-up shop . There's going to be like interactive things .

We're going to have live music and we just again I'll speak for 0.5 seconds Like I don't want the light on me , I want it on you and like whoever's a part of it to experience something really beautiful , and so that is all like being ideated now and like created .

But yeah , so I think , if you're just in it , if you're dreaming big and you want to do something good in this world , and you know that well , I'm reminding you right now that you are talented and you are enough . I think this book will just reaffirm that .

There's another phrase that I like that you explain , which is how do we captivate the lizard brain of someone ? We're all running a million miles a minute , doing a million things . So much noise , so many marketing messages out there . The short-term attention span how do we really captivate people through marketing content at that first level ?

Essentially , we are all kind of walking around the world looking for a dopamine hit , and that's why we are on social media , that's why we engage with hundreds of pieces of content every day .

And , as you think about , the big priority that we all have and this is the first part of the marketing engine in our marketing roles is to get more traffic to our nonprofit right , to get more eyeballs on what we're doing , and that's the first part of the three part engine is how do you captivate the complete stranger , somebody who's never heard of you ?

You have one opportunity , one chance to get their attention , to keep it long enough , just a few seconds , so that they become somebody who is interested . And I think as nonprofits we are often too close to our own work . We

believe people are better than they are . Unfortunately , we believe people are all out there wanting to hear about a story of a woman from Uganda or wanting to hear about how we procure bags of sand so we can drill wells and create the projects we create . The truth is people are going around worried about their everyday lives .

They're taking their kids to soccer , they are busy , they're late for work and sometimes they sit down on the couch and they just start scrolling through their feet to get a little bit of a relief . And we all do that and that's just the reality .

And I don't think I think that the very noble side of us wants to believe that that's not how we want to engage with our community , with the world , but the truth is people are all scrolling on their phones . So your objective , the smart marketer , needs to understand this concept that I teach , which is people are good but people are lazy , right , like ?

People want to view themselves as somebody who gives to non-profit , who cares about all of these big global issues , but at the end of the day , they are going about their everyday lives and your job is to kind of appeal to the laziest person , like if you think of the laziest person who wants to view themselves as a giver , but it's just like I do not want

to expand any amount of mental energy learning about your non-profit . So show me something fun , show me something engaging , show me something different and quirky , and that's how we need to think about this is that person's brain gets a dopamine hit when they see something novel Like novelty is the number one driver of captivation .

If you want to captivate somebody , you got to think different .

And some of those triggers are novelty , specificity , authenticity . So anytime you can be really specific , right ? So instead of saying together we can help end the hunger crisis , you know you can say like $7.50 will achieve X .

If you can just get specific about some part of your culture , actually some part of your storytelling technique , that's going to attract more people . That is just going to peak people's curiosity , because we're all curious creatures . So an example for us early on at Charity Water , when we were , we were just trying to get the word out there .

Probably year one , year two , as an organization , we had the opportunity to partner with Saksha Avenue and they allowed us on Fifth Avenue in New York City , their flagship store , to take over the windows of Saks Fifth Avenue , which are like pretty iconic in New York City , and this was before we even knew about like the science of captivating attention , but we

just knew that we needed to grab people's attention and we needed to do something that was really unexpected and novel .

New stores , handbags , nice outfits , high heeled shoes . Let's put dirty jerry cans that look like fuel containers and put them in the windows in really interesting , creative ways . We put actual wells in the windows and then behind it we had some photos of kids drinking clean water , kids drinking dirty water .

But the focus wasn't on this like expected charity imagery . The focus was on these big , giant , yellow dirty cans that people only have context for as carrying fuel , and so that was just a really easy way to get people to stop and look and do a double take on the streets of Fifth Avenue , because it's something they weren't used to seeing before .