Marketing in the 21st Century

The following are categories with comments that may be helpful for inviting increased donations to your program.  

1.  Donation ability – consider providing a place that explains how much a donation would make an impact on the organization.  Example – “your contribution of $100, will enable us to do XXX”.   Put the donation button in a larger format and in a more prominent place on your web site.   If rated or ranked by any charitable ‘watchdog’ sites, put this prominently on your home or about us page.  If part of a United Way or Federal Giving program, put this information on all donation forms and appeal letters.  

2.  Financial Presentation – provide a place on your web site for people to view the financial summary page from your audit or annual report and post them up on GuideStar.  At a minimum, your ‘about us’ section should include some facts related to the size of your budget, length of time in operation, number of staff, and size of Board for folks to get a sense of the scale of the operation.  

3.  Messaging and Branding – take 1-3 sentences of your case statement and / or vision letter and reiterate themover and over in appeals, presentations, annual reports, and web site home and ‘about us’ pages.   Provide a strong brand image that is consistently placed on all materials.  Position quotes on home or program pages from clients, donors, and Board.  Your website should be accessible and easy to use.  Make sure your links are working, especially  ‘read more’ or ‘click here’ links.  

4.  Leadership Promotion – provide deeper messages about your Board in either profile form or quotes about why they serve as a volunteer.  Showcase where the ED is speaking or honored more prominently and have quotes from attendees who hear her speak.   

5.  Volunteer or Donor Engagement – consider showcasing quotes from donors about why they give in website and print materials.  List ways that donors could be ‘active’ in the issue you are working on that is not about funding so they can feel engaged.  Examples include: sign a letter to their city council to improve services, donate clothing or supplies, read about the issue you are working on, write a letter of encouragement to one of the women or families you serve, create a wish list of products to donate to your programs, order YOUR services, etc.  Each of these would have a link or sample for them to see.   Compile a links and resources section that offers related information about your work.  

6.  Search Engine Optimization/Increase traffic– post a Wikipedia entry of your organization and/or your founder.  Sign up for google analytics, make lists of keywords, rank their popularity at http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/  and make sure your content reflects this.  Give images and pages names with keywords or your organization name where relevant.  Post comments on blogs where your audience goes.  Put links on your page and ask folks to reciprocate.  Post frequently on your site and post articles to ezinearticles.com to link back.  

We stand for social change for women and girls.
 We are all bound to this purpose – and to one another – by these simple but powerful beliefs.