It never fails to amuse that there are so many different blogs on the web that claim to specialize in marketing, or advertising, or non-profit fundraising, or fundraising for schools. They address each topic as though it were a very specific discipline-as if, by ignoring the other topics out there, it could stretch the meager information it had to share and somehow make it more.
The problem is, what do you do when you realize that there can never be one without the other?
I know, I know, this is shaping up to sound like a bad rendition of Romeo & Juliet. That’s not very far off, however. If you could rewrite Shakespeare to say “Never was there a tale of more woe, than that of the non-profit executive who didn’t bother to learn the fundamentals of basic marketing”, you’d be spot on. Without the fundamentals of marketing, you’re never going to be able to spread the word about your organization. Without a fundamental understanding of non-profit marketing, you’re never going to develop the passion and personal skills you need to be successful in sales.
And advertising without any background in sales doesn’t even bare thinking about.
Let me close with this. Before you kick off your next non-profit fundraiser, take some time to learn about things like target audiences and ROI. The “business” end of advertising will go a long way toward giving your donor pool the impetus it needs to step up to the plate and knock your next fundraising event out of the park.