Quality Service Marketing

New Book Preview: Share of Mind, Share of Heart - Marketing Tools of Engagement for Nonprofits

One of the reasons I love working with nonprofits is that they are so mission-focused. When you’re passionate about your mission, it’s easier to feel good about your work. But having a noble mission doesn’t guarantee organizational success!

Effectively managing a nonprofit on a daily basis is a challenge that involves:

• planning and delivering mission-based programs in response to constituent needs
• securing scarce resources and funding to meet ever-increasing needs
• developing and maintaining good relationships with the board, staff and volunteers
• ensuring governance compliance, etc. 

These are just a few of many critical tasks facing nonprofit professionals. With so many responsibilities, it’s easy for nonprofit leaders and managers to get caught up in operational issues and lose sight of what matters – and what matters is the tremendous impact every employee and volunteer has on the organization’s brand.

This is why I wrote Share of Mind, Share of Heart: Marketing Tools of Engagement for Nonprofits – to help nonprofits better engage their employees and volunteers. The book is scheduled for release this June, but here’s a sneak peak at what’s inside. 

Part 1: Nonprofit Marketing and Engagement

Ch. 1. Understanding Nonprofit Marketing and Your Brand

Ch. 2. Why Nonprofit Marketing Needs to be Different but the Same

Ch. 3. Taking Care of the People Who Most Impact Your Brand

Part 2: Marketing Tools of Engagement

Ch. 4. Introduction to Internal Marketing Tools of Engagement

Ch. 5. Connecting to the Organization

Ch. 6. Connecting to Customers

Ch. 7. Connecting to Other Employees and Volunteers

Part 3: Facilitating Your Nonprofit Engagement

Ch. 8. Keeping People Engaged

Ch. 9. Making It Happen – Your Internal Marketing Plan.

Special Pre-Release Offer: Share of Mind, Share of Heart: Marketing Tools of Engagement for Nonprofits will be published this June, and I'm pleased to offer a special discount of 20% off the retail price before the book's actual release. Click here to reserve your copy now!

 

Why Nonprofits Need Engagement-Part 2

Upon learning about my new book, Share of Mind, Share of Heart: Marketing Tools of Engagement for Nonprofits, my friend was puzzled. “I don’t get it,” he said, “especially when nonprofits are so mission-driven. Aren’t the people who work there more engaged than those who work in the for-profit sector?”

My friend’s presumption about nonprofit engagement is a common one. Regardless of whether an organization is profit-driven or mission-driven, the quality of workplace engagement depends on the organizational culture and how its people are treated. Nonprofits can’t claim any advantage based on employees’ and volunteers’ passion for the mission. 

As nonprofit employee and consultant Jinna Halperin wrote in Voices from the Field: Nonprofit Workplace Culture – Why it Matters so Much to Us:

“All nonprofits are dysfunctional in some way or another and figuring out where to hang your hat requires one to assess whether the level and type of dysfunction is personally tolerable …

“I am no longer driven only by the mission of the organization. Having so many issues about which I feel passionate and on which I have worked, I have come to believe that employment happiness at nonprofits is more about how one is treated and whether one’s contribution is respected …”

An inspiring mission may attract talent employees and volunteers to an organization, but it takes much more to get them to stay. People need to feel they matter as much as their work. 

Note: To get a look inside my new book on nonprofit engagement, stay tuned for next week’s post.

 

Why Nonprofits Need Engagement-Part 1

My love of nonprofits started in my teens when I volunteered to work at a summer camp for intellectually disabled children. Since then, I’ve served a variety of nonprofit organizations in a range of roles that include frontline volunteer, committee member, advisory member, board member, board chair, and in a professional capacity as a marketing & organizational advisor.

Here’s what I’ve learned based on my personal and professional experience:

1. Mission matters – it provides organizational focus and intention. It also brings together the people who share a passion for the mission and want to do something about it.

2. The people behind the mission also matter – the employees and volunteers who carry out the mission through their dedication and commitment.

3. People’s passion for the mission should not be taken for granted – employees’ and volunteers’ passion for the mission does not guarantee their continued commitment to an organization.

These valuable insights are the basis for my new book that I’m excited to introduce here. I wrote Share of Mind, Share of Heart – Marketing Tools of Engagement for Nonprofits to help nonprofit leaders, executives and managers better engage the employees and volunteers who carry out their organization’s mission.

My book will be published shortly. In the meantime, I’ll share more about nonprofit engagement and my new book in the next two posts. 

Special Request Over My Summer Blog Break

Note to my loyal blog followers:

It’s time for my annual break since blog traffic is typically slower in summer. What’s special about this year’s break is that I’ll be using the time to research and write my new book for nonprofits: Engaging Nonprofit Employees, Volunteers, and Consumers: A Manager’s Guide to Inside-Out Marketing (the “working title” at this stage).

Please let me know if you want to share any good or bad examples of internal marketing in nonprofit organizations. The “good” examples of nonprofits that effectively engage staff and volunteers (including board members) I choose to use in this book may include the organizations’ names, pending their permission. However, I won’t name nonprofits with “bad” examples of what not to do when it comes to engagement or, conversely, how to alienate staff, volunteers, and (ultimately) consumers.

Note to new readers:

Welcome! I hope you’ll take a few minutes to explore my blog that offers an abundance of thoughtful content – more than six years worth! I also invite you to share good and/or bad examples of nonprofit engagement.

See you in September

I’ll return to posting this fall with new content – including updates on my new book. In the meantime, enjoy the summer!

What's in YOUR Office Library?

In the spirit of observing National Library Week (April 10-16, 2011), I want to thank libraries and librarians everywhere for their invaluable service in encouraging reading for enlightenment and enjoyment.

I love libraries – public, school, corporate, and private. Over the years my husband and I have created our own home library with a collection of books on art, management, business, food, investing, historical biographies, local history, religion, classic literature, and fiction. We’ve even kept a few of our favorite college textbooks.  

I also have my own business library that reflects my professional interests. My book shelves include books on:

• Marketing and branding, with emphasis on services marketing
• Employee engagement and HR/talent management
• Nonprofit marketing, management, and leadership
• Facilitation and training
• Writing reference and grammar guides (my favorite is J. I. Rodale’s classic, The Synonym Finder)
• Humor and creativity (mostly cartoon collections from the New Yorker  and the Far Side; Gordon MacKenzie’s Orbiting the Giant Hairball is another favorite)

What types of books do you keep in your office?

Why Nonprofits Need to Look Backward as Well as Forward

Talking about nonprofit marketing with colleagues recently sparked an interesting discussion on using an organization’s history (aka “heritage marketing”) - for example, celebrating a notable anniversary of a nonprofit’s founding to kick-off a fundraising drive or reinforce an organization’s longevity and brand.

Given the dynamic pace of change today, some might question whether this approach is outmoded. Shouldn’t nonprofits focus on the future rather than the past?

My answer is that an organization’s history shouldn’t be ignored because the past is tangible, the future is not. Through historic records, past meeting minutes and reports, photos, audio visuals, and printed matter, you can:

• revisit, review, and explore the past as a way to understand what worked and what didn't
• gain insight into how the organization, its mission, and its culture have evolved
• and leverage this knowledge to help the organization continue to evolve and adapt in a changing world.

It’s the reason we consider both the past and the future in strategic planning – to reflect on an organization’s history as part of a situational analysis and use it as a bridge to help envision the future.

Stop Fundraising!

Attention certain nonprofits:  

You already have me as a friend & supporter/donor, and I’m happy to send you a contribution once a year.

In the meantime, PLEASE stop sending me continuous solicitations!

• I don’t want/need frequent reminders to give to your cause.
• I don’t want you to send me any more pins, note cards, mailing labels, decals, etc.
• I don’t want you to waste any more paper and postage.
• Most of all, I don’t want you to waste precious time (mine and yours) – especially when you can take whatever time and expense you’re spending on these unnecessary mailings and reallocate them to  furthering your mission.

I’m not saying that you should stop all your fundraising efforts – just the multiple ones to me … unless you no longer want my contribution.

So I urge you to stop.

Consider this fair warning: donor alienation is just one mailing away.

Engaging Volunteers (6): Helpful Resources

Here’s a compiled list of resources I found in researching & writing this series on volunteer engagement and management. Since this list is far from comprehensive, I invite you to share additional resource links.

• Blue Avocado – an “online magazine for community nonprofits” … here you can find Susan Ellis's article on board responsibilities for volunteers.
• Corporation for National & Community Service – provides volunteer information and service opportunities
• Energize, Inc. – Susan Ellis’s website written “especially for leaders of volunteers”
• Stanford Social Innovation Review – “Strategies, tools, and ideas for nonprofits, foundations, and socially responsible businesses”
• Taproot Foundation – check out founder Aaron Hurst’s blog post & comments on different ways nonprofits use volunteers
• Volunteering in America – “Information on volunteering & civic engagement”
• Volunteer Value Calculator from Imagine Canada.

Engaging Volunteers (5): The Volunteer-Staff Connection

“Without a disciplined and respectful approach to recruitment, orientation, support, assessment, and recognition, we will have lower performance and a disenchanted volunteer.”
   - Francis Hesselbein in Hesselbein on Leadership.

The same can be said of employees. 

Staff and volunteers require:

• an investment of time for training and ongoing communication
• attention in terms of feedback and recognition
• and the tools (applicable resources) needed to accomplish the organization's goals and advance its mission.

The challenge for nonprofit managers is that internal issues regarding staff engagement also impact volunteer engagement. Like it or not, volunteers pay close attention to the staff they work with and are sensitive to employee satisfaction cues. As one frustrated volunteer told me recently: “The organization seems to expect the volunteers to be a subset of their staff and we know how they treat their staff. So in retrospect, why do we expect them to treat us volunteers any differently?!”

Volunteer relations “mirror” employee relations - if your employees don’t feel valued, neither will your volunteers.

Coming up: in my last post in this series I’ll share a list of resource links for volunteer engagement and management.

Engaging Volunteers (4): When Volunteers are Brand Partners

What I’ve shared up to this point in this series applies to volunteers in most nonprofits. In some organizations, however, volunteers serve multiple roles that require different engagement strategies.

I can explain with this segmentation model from the Drucker Foundation Self-Assessment Tool for Nonprofits that identifies two types of nonprofit “customers”:

• Primary customers – the people and entities who benefit from a nonprofit’s services
• Supporting customers – the people and entities who help a nonprofit provide its services.

For example, a Girl Scout and her parents are “primary customers” of the Girl Scouts in that they all benefit as the daughter develops new skills from her scouting involvement. If her parents participate as troop leaders, help chaperone troop events, etc., they are also considered “supporting customers.” This segmentation model helps a nonprofit understand and recognize who its “customers” are (in one or both segments) so it can engage them accordingly.

But don’t let the simplicity of this model fool you as volunteer segmentation can be extremely complicated depending on the organization. It is particularly messy in professional membership associations that offer professional development and networking opportunities through national and regional (chapter) affiliation; e.g., the American Marketing Association, Society for Human Resource Management, Public Relations Society of America, etc. While all members of such organizations are primary customers, some may also be engaged as supporting customers on one or more levels as:

• Local brand ambassadors – recruiting and welcoming other members at the chapter level
• Chapter volunteer leaders – serving on committees/councils/boards and providing member benefits at the local or regional level
• National volunteer leaders – serving on national committees/councils/boards
• Volunteer speakers – presenting at association-sponsored conferences & workshops
• Volunteer instructors – training (for free or a small honorarium) at association-sponsored educational programs.

The important role these volunteers play in delivering member benefits at the local, regional, and national levels can be taken for granted. Beyond providing token recognition for their service, some associations overlook the fact that these highly engaged volunteers help generate revenues via new and retained member dues as well as from conference and program fees. That’s why these truly “supporting customers” need to be recognized, valued, and respected as partners in delivering the brand promise.

How do you engage and manage volunteers who are also your brand partners?

• Make volunteer involvement a focus of attention by the Board and executive staff. (See my previous post on Intentional Volunteer Management.)
• Recognize and acknowledge volunteer value. To truly appreciate the impact of their involvement, analyze your volunteers’ lifetime value. Note: most volunteer calculators measure this value in terms of manpower hour & benefit cost-savings. In addition, consider volunteers’ economic contribution to revenue generation. [If anyone has a formula or model for this, please let me know.]
• Keep volunteers informed of the organization’s vision and direction. You can’t expect them to serve as brand advocates if you don’t keep them in the communications loop.
• Be sensitive to how operational/policy changes impact volunteer efforts to deliver on the brand – you want to facilitate volunteer (and staff) efforts to deliver member value, not create extra work for them. Communicate all changes in operations or policy openly and honestly, sharing the rationale behind such changes.
• Proactively seek and respond to volunteer feedback & ideas.

Keep in mind that besides their individual and collective value as volunteers, these brand partners have strong influence on the frontline with access to fellow and prospective members who are your primary customers. Treat them carefully and with the respect they deserve.

In my next post I’ll address the volunteer-employee connection.