Key Strategies to Give Meaningful Nonprofit Work Feedback
| Shall we join forces? |
Fundraising is not basketball, but it’s madness not to play as a team. I’ve spoken with three nonprofits in the past several months that, rather than joining forces, have decoupled their marketing and development departments. I surmise they do this because marketing doesn’t understand development. Or development doesn’t understand marketing. Or the CEO doesn’t understand either. Or they’re mad as March Hares and Hatters.
Stop the madness, please! You’re driving your constituents nuts, you’re wasting resources and you’re weakening your brand in the process.
My first job in development I worked for a place that didn’t understand. It was a music conservatory, and development’s principle message was: “Develop the professional musicians of the future”. Marketing’s principle message was: “We have more concerts here than anyplace else in town”. Do you see the disconnect?The wisest folks who work in the sector get it. In fact, they recently formed an Integrated Marketing Advisory Board that recognizes we live in a world where integration engulfs every aspect of our communications – for-profit and nonprofit alike. In a recent Conversation on Integrated Marketing and Fundraising by Joe Boland in Fundraising Success (you can find Part 2 and Part 3 here) we learn there’s been an MBA in integrated marketing in the commercial world for a number of years. But in the nonprofit sector, where budgets and resources are limited, we’ve been slow to adopt best practices in this regard.
| Color my face blue |
Marketing and development are one and the same, and it’s time for us to speed up. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again and again – no doubt until I’m blue in the face. I have my theory as to why they were ever separated in the first place, but whatever caused this to happen in the past is no longer a cause for concern. That is, unless we live in a rabbit hole where the Mad Hatter keeps confusing the heck out of us and cats can splinter into pieces, including just a bunch of teeth. In the real world, people are whole and want to relate to us, also, as whole.
Our consumers (our donors) are ‘increasingly omnivorous’ in that they use all media channels in combination. This is an acute observation made by Michael Johnston, founder and president of Hewitt and Johnston Consultants, in Part 3 of the IMAB conversation to which I’ve linked (above):
… the citizen in the consumer sense is already getting a great integrated experience from a lot of companies in their retail lives. So they’re [the donors] turning around, and the donors are asking more and more why can’t I do that? Why aren’t you giving me choices and letting me choose how I interact with you over time?
Both marketing and development departments are charged with responsibility for creating positive customer experiences. They are both all about constituent engagement. They should be doing it together, not in silos. And this is possible! To quote myself (and I must, as my face is starting to get bluish):
We can no longer afford the luxury of separating development and marketing. It’s an inessential extravagance and a phenomenal duplication, and waste, of resources. Development has always been, fundamentally, the process of uncovering shared values (with gratitude to Kay Sprinkel Grace, fundraising guru extraordinaire, for elucidating this principle). This is also what marketing does. Whether for-profit or nonprofit, the organization has a “product” and “exchanges” this with the consumer who “values” it. The strategies we employed in the past to facilitate this exchange were easy to define and organize. It’s no longer easy. There are so many choices of media to get our message across; each choice results in an allocation of limited resources, including staff. We don’t want development reacting to marketing, and vice-versa. We imperatively want them acting and making decisions strategically, as a united front.
One solution I’ve suggested previously is for nonprofits to outsource in order to find guidance for integrating marketing and fundraising. This needn’t be a long-term solution, but it’s a great way to lay the groundwork. Thankfully, I’ve spoken with three nonprofits this week that’ve chosen to go this route (they are balancing out the “decouplers” I spoke of, above, thank goodness!).
Whatever solution you choose, it’s going to need to be driven from the top. Nancy Schwartz of Getting Attention has a great post on this subject :
If bridging the marketing-fundraising gap is the goal, the pathway to getting there has to be spearheaded by your leadership. Your organization’s executive director, supported by the board, must be the one to guide the two teams into active collaboration and ensure they stay there. Put more bluntly, “the heads of development and marketing have to accept that they are oxen pulling the same wagon, a wagon labeled ‘increasing community support’,” advises Tom Ahern, a leading authority on donor communications.
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| So blue in the face smoke is coming out my ears! |
Have I made my point enough times? Boy is my face blue!
What is your organization doing? Are you coupling or decoupling? Do you have development and marketing aligned or siloed? Are you content/discontent with the arrangement? Do you have tips for how to create change?
26 Comments
It's all story-telling. Communications (which embodies "marketing") and fundraising are inseparable. Otherwise, you are telling different stories from different offices within an agency (which is oh so common — and a disaster.)
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You may be at risk of opening a can of worms Claire.
As I come from a corporate sales and marketing background, over my last 10 years in the non-profit sector I have found a funny mix of terminologies and definitions being applied to try and avoid using the terms "sales". So that is why I figure the term "development" was concocted. Parallel with all these adventures in "terminology land" I have discovered almost expressions of terror when I raise the word "profit". Shock horror!
So as a commercial profit making capitalist who had a mid-life crisis and joined the non-profit sector, this is how I deal with all the above. Pretty much every aspect of what I have seen defined as "development" is just thinly disguised "relationship selling". It's also been known as "relationship fundraising". Fair enough. But whatever are the processes engaged in to persuade someone to part with their hard earned cash in favour of a non-profit, they pretty much parallel the processes long employed to sell something to someone.
The best and simplest definition of sales as separate from marketing I have found is this. Marketing is the view from 10,000 metres, sales is the view from one.
I find much of the confused terminology has evolved as a result of people coming into non-profit "Marketing and Development" often with zero commercial acumen.
My solution is not to separate non-profit marketing from sales – er – I mean "fundraising" (or do I mean "development"?) and combine them into a "fundraising enterprise". That way the "good cause enterprise" can get on and do what it is expert at doing and the fundraising enterprise do likewise. When a marketing issue arises in the good cause enterprise they knock on the door of the fundraising enterprise for help. And as the fundraising enterprise only has one client – the good cause enterprise – then they are very inclined to be co-operative.
This approach also helps to address another major complexity evolving from your original statement Claire: that of organisational culture. The kind of person you need to recruit to an effective fundraising enterprise tends to need to function in a cultural environment aligned with, but not equal too, that of the good cause enterprise…
Oh dear… I suspect I'm starting to rant… apologies all. It's just that I'm currently writing a book about all this and the topic interests me immensely..
The subject is immensely interesting Malchemist, I agree. And if it is a can of worms we are opening, it's probably good to let the worms free to explore the terrain. I've never been much for the status quo, nor an enemy of curiosity. I'd rather pique it than kill it. And I've been curious ever since I left law for the nonprofit world as to the meaning/origin of the use of "development" within philanthropy. So… would prefer to think of this not as a can of worms but as a barrel of monkeys. Let's enjoy ourselves, and maybe learn something in the process.
So… this monkey likes your definition that "marketing is the view from 10,000 metres, sales is the view from one". It could similarly be said that "philanthropy is the view from 10,000 metres, fundraising is the view from one." We start with trying to uncover needs/values. Then we try to fill the need/engage the values. Once we've found a potential donor who shares the values our cause enacts, then we simply "make a match" by asking for an investment.
It's definitely true that those who work as fundraisers are servants of philanthropy. Fundraising is not an end in and of itself. It serves the end goal: That of furthering the philanthropic organization's mission. Fundraisers cannot do their job unless all the preconditions are in place. This is where it gets cloudy. SOme folks think the preconditions are met by "development"; others by "marketing". That's why I think they're one and the same.
Thanks for the comment. I imagine your book will be quite interesting.
Storytelling describes it well. And if we have siloed departments telling different stories, we risk confusing the heck out of our constituents. For example, t.v. viewers tend to prefer shows with consistent story lines and character portrayals. When the characters begin to act out of character, and the story lines don't make sense, we say the show has "jumped the shark". We don't want to be shark jumping or our donors may jump ship!
For me, marketing is one thing, but, Communications is another. I think that the two cannot be separated out and I have never completely understood organizations that treat these two as distinct silos.
The definition of marketing is defined by the AMA as "the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large."
For me in my work, Communications is more than that, it is about Communicating with the donor to build relationships through cultivation and stewardship. Something that feels more ongoing and less transactional in nature.
But, hey, potato or…
Robin L. Cabral, CFRE
Principal @ Development Consulting Solutions
Robin L. Cabral, CFRE
Principal @ Development Consulting Solutions
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Interesting point of view, Claire. I worked in development for many years and now I help nonprofits with their social media marketing.
Nowadays, Marketing and Development should be closely connected. Marketing messages need to always keep fundraising in mind. By that I don't mean pitching constantly but you need to make sure that there's a next step, a chance to feel more engaged about a gift, or be more involved in an organization.
Development needs to realize that marketing can be a great way to connect with your donors as well as touch new ones.
The problem I see is that many nonprofits have combined the departments but also shrunk the staffs. The smaller group gets overwhelmed and either marketing or development suffers.
I think there needs to be more training opportunities for nonprofits to retool their staffs to perform both functions well. Too often I see development staffs suddenly told to "do marketing" or vice versa. Cost cutting measures like these can really damage an organization.
Art museums also align development and marketing (including public relations) by combining them into an external affairs department. I ran such a department and with a good staff and the support of the museum director, you can achieve consistency and synergy in its communications and interaction with the media, potential audiences and donors. I don't agree that these are made up terms; rather it is a realization that an institution requires comprehensive strategies in dealing with external constituents.
These are all very interesting points. I personally see communications (including Marketing) separate from fundraising. The organization I work for has to "market" to not only donors and supporters but also recipients. In order to communicate with these two very different groups (one we are asking to give to us and the other we are giving to) there needs to be a big picture strategy and that is hard to do within one department concerned with only one of those groups. Follow? The communications team absolutely needs to work closely with development but in our case also with the programs department and to be able to communicate both needs equally, the departments must be separate.
Development requires marketing. Both require communicating both verbally and visually. As I see it, development requires long-term, consistent nurturing as relationships are built and then maintained. Marketing supports that. One way I see this is that properly-marketed events can serve to introduce the organization's values and goals to prospective donors, and then development builds relationships from there.
An integrated approach – with marketing and development working closely together or handled by the same person – allows for a cohesive message. And it makes it easier for the designer to develop effective visual communications.
Alvalyn Lundgren
Creative Director | Alvalyn Creative
http://alvalyn.com
Just discovered your blog. This is great, insightful, provocative content. I am stunned to see the extent to which we agree on some fundamental issues. Now I am going to dig back in to read more. And I will find the subscribe button so I can keep up with your future posts.
Responding to some of the comments from you and your readers…..I was taught that the word “development” was first adopted by an official at Northwestern University in the late 1940s as a benign and somewhat affirmative replacement for the more pointed term “fundraising.”
The fellow who taught me that also taught me that development and marketing are fruit of the same womb, with marketing being the somewhat older and more comprehensive sibling who makes the world safe and productive for the younger offspring.
The guy’s name was Dick Taft, As far as I know, he was the first to engage the topic that this blog has raised so thoughtfully. I wrote about Dick, starting off with the cry of anger from a college president “Damn it, Burke…Don’t EVER use the word marketing in my presence again!” That begins a true story about the resistance some folks have to "contaminating" the purity of their mission with what they perceive as a crass, commercial tool.
Here is a link to blog post which introduces a series of essays on the origin of marketing as a nascent, and much-resisted, discipline within the nonprofit sector. http://nonprofitbrandingblog.com/2011/08/nonprofit-branding-things-nonprofits-can-learn-from-for-profits-introduction/
I believe you will find that those essays, written 30-some years ago – support the theme of your blob. In that sense, both you and the original nonprofit marketing Guru, Dick Taft, are doing a great service for the world of nonprofit public service organizations.
Keep at it. I am a new fan….
John Burke
Communications are the key to any fundraising strategy. I couldn't agree more that our target audiences don't care what we call the departments and professionals who do the work necessary to make the missions and visions of the nonprofits we represent compelling. They need – and want – to be moved to action, to be inspired to donate their money and their time. So I also couldn't agree more that the development/fundraising and marketing/communications/PR teams at most organizations should be integrated.
Evelyn Becker
BECKER IMPACT LLC
http://www.beckerimpact.com
Great argument Claire for looking at these traditionally separate 'departments' in a nonprofit with a cohesive bent. It has been my experience that they are hand-in-glove when they work most effectively and efficiently! They both involve communications and relationship building…so why would we think of them as separate?
My former employer had an External Relations Division which included Development, Marketing, Public Relations and Special Events Departments that were all overseen by the same VP. Seemed to work very well. In my present position, the fundraising arm is actually a seperate foundation with its own board of directors, executive director and staff. The Marketing Department is part of the College. Does anyone have any experience integrating these functions under this type of an organizational structure?
Sue Kaiser
Major Gifts
Fort Lewis College Foundation
Development and marketing are integral to one another. The only reason I can think that some nonprofits have spun them off into separate areas is that they thinking "you market to customers," "you cultivate donors" and don't see the two as the same. And, because they've hired 'marketing professionals' who don't have the knowledge of, nor understand the complexities of, donor cultivation and stewardship. You market to grow your audience, inform your audience, and keep your 'product' front of mind. You cultivate to get your audience to become and stay donors, build relationships that deepen and last, and to grow their donation amounts. I've always seen it as step one, step two…or maybe a tango.
"The problem I see is that many nonprofits have combined the departments but also shrunk the staffs. The smaller group gets overwhelmed and either marketing or development suffers."
This is exactly what happened at the non-profit I now work at. A Development/Marketing VP and three staffers who were overwhelmed with the amount of work to do, and a lot of employee dissatisfaction. I think both marketing and development efforts suffered. Marketing functions were moved over to Communications which they already had a VP for (focusing on media work) but not before the development staff quit and the VP was asked to retire. So, I am new, as is one other development employee and the VP position is still vacant.
My background is rooted in marketing communications, so it is taking some time to adjust to having another department handle those responsibilities, but at the same time it is a relief to not have to "do it all." We're a small-enough organization (40-ish employees) that working together to craft our messages is imperative and easy to collaborate on — their offices are just down the hall from mine.
I'm curious to learn from those organizations that have made it work with separate marketing and development departments.
Thanks so much to everyone for all these great comments. Evelyn, you raise a great point that we ignore the consumer perspective when we get stuck in rigid, siloed departments. For our constituents, it's ONE organization. Every interaction they have with us is part of their experience. A bad experience with anyone (receptionist, security guard, program director… whatever) can undermine all the work of the development officer). It's truly all about the way we frame things. We can "twist someone's arm" or we can "invite them to invest in positive social return". One is "ugh"; the other is "noble". Some call this ethical selling. I call it "making a match". Your organization enacts certain values. Your donor has values. When you can make a match, you do.
Sue, I love the idea of an External Relations Department, but find it tends to only be embraced by universities and hospitals. I wonder if others find it "too big for their britches"? I still see otherwise savvy charities decoupling (or failing to couple) their development and marketing departments. For that matter, It's really a larger issue that touches on everyone within the organization charged with relationship building (or customer service) responsibility. And isn't that virtually everyone?
Embracing the notion that we're all in this together — all in service of the same mission — requires a culture shift. Call it a "culture of customer service" or a "culture of relationship building" or a "culture of advancement". It's all the same thing. We do get stuck in our narrow definitions of marketing, development, fundraising, sales, you-name-it (and we all have different ones!). For an organization to be able to wrap it's arms around the big picture does require leadership from the top (although it can start anywhere as long as you have leadership willing to listen).
The bottom line, perhaps, for development professionals is that philanthropic behavior is motivated by values. This being the case, the manner in which a charity communicates these values is paramount. This is where problems arise if marketing and development aren't joined at the hip. We must organize internal systems, marketing and communications programs and community outreach to maximize the understanding of, response to, and impact of our values. Only then can organizations achieve full intersection with supporters, and engage them in a lasting and mutually satisfying relationship.
Rather than looking inward at how we structure departments — how WE feel/think, perhaps we should look outward at how our constituents perceive the entirety of their experience with us — how THEY feel/think.
This is so interesting John. Thanks for sharing!
It's definitely true that those who work as fundraisers are servants of philanthropy. Fundraising is not an end in and of itself. It serves the end goal: That of furthering the philanthropic organization's mission. Fundraisers cannot do their job unless all the preconditions are in place. This is where it gets cloudy. SOme folks think the preconditions are met by "development"; others by "marketing". That's why I think they're one and the same.
I think this is especially true for Arts organizations, which hire PR people to do marketing — without understanding that they are not one and the same thing.
You raise an issue that points to the wisdom of outsourcing for skills you don't have in house. This can be a valid strategy, particularly in a small organization that has no need for a full-time publicist. Ideally, assignments would be targeted and focused so as not to get in the way of ongoing development efforts. The caveat here is that strategic thinking should always be employed. Why is the P.R. person being hired? What will success look like? Is there a better way to get to this outcome? Who needs to be involved in the strategy?
Especially in a new nonprofit, or one that has never done development before, fundraising simply can't take place without marketing/communications/pr. It's the place to start, and if wisely planned, they stick together to "raise the water level" of an organizations (from IMAB article referenced in the above article). Neither will win if they are out to ensure the success of the department – they need to ensure the success of the organization.
Agree. A rising tide raises all boats. Thanks for the comment.
Keep your fans happy and make your donors like you.
I'm not sure we can "make" donors like us. But we can definitely delight them… help them… inspire them… engage them… and do all sorts of things that hopefully translate into involvement and investment at some point along the way. The key is to think in a constituent-centric fashion. And the entire organization must think this way. Which is WHY development and fundraising must be aligned. Otherwise we confuse… annoy… give mixed messages… disrupt… and otherwise do things that translate into apathy, mistrust and disengagement. Thanks for participating!