Non-Profit Woes
It might be a bit dramatic to call some of the challenges these organizations face “woes” but considering the opportunity we had to really understand what it takes to run one, I believe woe is the correct term.
First, a little introduction of our featured partner:
Although not officially a non-profit organization (yet), Prugråman Sinipok is a not-for-profit immersion program for adults whose mission is to revitalize the CHamoru (or Chamorro) native language and culture. They also just celebrated their 3rd year this past July! Yay!
Okay, back to business.
Since this was our first time getting an inside look into non-profit organizations, we had to understand that the goals of “for-profit” and “non-profits” are similar but also different. Maybe this is a big “DUH” to many of you, but it really opened my eyes to the challenges these organizations face. Amongst the usual wants of brand exposure, client/customer conversions, etc. one thing I realized is:
Where businesses want to make money for their own positive profits, organizations like Prugråman Sinipok still need to raise money, but in order to be sustainable.
Our Process:
First things first, let’s get a meeting going!
Since this isn’t a culture or language that I was familiar with, we really had to ask the right questions to fully grasp who they are and what their overall organization mission is to create marketing solutions that were going to align best with them.
Some of the questions we asked were:
What are your short & long term goals?
Who are you trying to attract?
What have been some of the challenges you’ve faced during the three years you’ve been active?
& a whole bunch of “why’s”
Next, research, research, research!
Fortunately, this organization had a lot of material ready for us to look over and get familiar with. We were able to understand why participants joined in the first place, why this program is meaningful to them, what parts of the program stood out to them, and why they feel like the program had worked for them. The best material for effective strategizing is feedback, in my humble opinion.
Now, we strategize!
With all the information we were able to gather and analyze, our next step was to present our findings and create a market strategy unique to their organization goals and brand. From my understanding, there were 2 very clear goals, and each need their own set of market strategy.
Goal 1: Increase Program Awareness & Program Sign-ups
Most of their success has been through word of mouth, and exposure through other partners. What they wanted to do was start establishing their own name and organization and be able to be recognizable without the help of their previous partners.
Goal 2: Increase Donations and Raise Money
As stated before, raising money is very much needed to keep the organization running. Curious as a newbie, I asked, “What for?” Well, without saying too much, most of the people who work for the organization are volunteers and work 9-5 jobs. The money would go to paying staff and to make the program more accessible.
Here’s what we did for each goal:
Defined a mission statement that aligned best with who they are and what they aim to do.
Thoroughly created a very detailed target audience and a few client personas to have them really understand the type of people who they should be attracting for what goal.
Improved their SEO, hashtag and keyword strategy so that they were easier to find on their socials.
Created content that hit all the levels of the marketing funnel.
Created “Content Pillars” so that they offered variety in their postings.
This project was genuinely so fun for me to work on because of all the passion that shined from the executives. You can really tell when someone’s whole heart is in their vision. So happy we were able to work together on their market strategy, and now we’re onto their visual branding!
Hope to update you all soon!
Oh, and thanks for reading.
