Ready to market your nonprofit more effectively? Read on to learn about the nine must-have marketing materials for nonprofits, along with what you should include on each. Plus, we'll share examples along the way to help you market your organization better – and receive more donations.
Nonprofit marketing materials are a vital part of fundraising and donor outreach. Thanks to technological advancements, nonprofits now have access to vast marketing material. The trick is how to use them!
Whether you’re promoting your organization to the public, new donors, potential sponsors, or major donors, you must know what nonprofit marketing material to use and how.
This article will help understand your target audience and the nine must-have marketing options with insights on how best to use them.
Nonprofits need targeted marketing materials to reach a broad base of supporters. With each target market, they must develop different marketing tools and activities.
This helps address the needs of that audience, connect better, and increase the outreach (and in turn, donations) of the organization. Therefore, before we discuss the vital marketing materials for nonprofits, it is important to also understand who the target audience is.
Let’s take a look!
Many nonprofits start off thinking they must find grants to fund their programs and activities. The majority of grants come from government, family, or corporate foundations. Nonprofits must develop marketing material to contact and share their mission and programs with these groups.
The primary marketing material for foundations is the grant application. Nonprofits must ensure they send the application and required paperwork to the foundation by the stated deadline.
Many foundations will also look for information on your organization before you apply or before sending you a request to apply. This is where your website and organization’s profiles on third-party websites can come in handy.
Businesses work similarly to foundations. Many corporations have foundations themselves, so there are the same requirements.
For smaller businesses, you can’t count on them doing the work for you, so it’s best to create a business plan or fact sheet to send along with your sponsorship or grant appeal.
This fact sheet should include the following –
An undervalued market for nonprofits is volunteers. Volunteers are often the strongest supporters of your organization. When appreciated, volunteers can become long-time financial supporters and advocates.
Sending personalized letters to volunteers is vital. You can use these personal letters to recognize them for their help and to encourage them to volunteer again. You can also include a call to action that entices them to visit your website and become donors.
Many organizations must communicate with another crucial group. That group of individuals is that which uses the goods and services nonprofits offer.
If your nonprofit provides affordable medical services to families, you’ll need to send marketing pieces to past users and others in your community that can benefit from your help.
Major-donor marketing materials must also be personalized and include more details than other communication.
When first reaching out to major donors, a personalized letter from your board director or Executive Director should catch their attention. After that, you’ll want to send them proposals on how their donation can help specific programs.
Your nonprofit’s most significant target market is the public, which includes your current and potential donors. Nonprofits use marketing materials like websites, brochures, appeal emails and letters, social media, and videos to appeal to segmented groups within this market.
As you develop these materials, you must decide whether the cost is worth the return. Before spending money on marketing tools, ask yourself the following questions.
Nonprofit marketing material has different purposes and audiences. All organizations can use the following nine materials to broaden their reach to the public.
Nonprofits must develop a case statement for all target markets with different goals.
A case statement can be an excellent way to introduce your organization to new groups, share your organization’s needs, and explain why you deserve their support.
A case statement must include the following –
We have written two articles to make this process easier for you – a case for support that is an internal document to help you develop an effective case statement to appeal to donors.
Your nonprofit’s website is its most important marketing tool. Many call it your organization’s business card.
Websites can give a quick overview of your nonprofit’s mission and vision and then delve deeper into programs and the beneficiaries that require your support.
Websites also give supporters a clear and concise way to support your organization with online donation forms, volunteer sign-up forms, and other calls to action.
For example, we love what Lonely Whale does with its website. They have added relevant and high-quality videos that grab visitors’ attention right away and make them stay. Their entire website including all the pages is filled with important data, images, and CTA buttons.
Join Lonely Whale and thousands of other organizations in embedding Donorbox’s fully accessible and customizable donation forms in your website to boost donations with a faster checkout – and a better giving experience!
Many states require nonprofits to provide annual reports. These reports give an overview of your nonprofit’s financial status.
When nonprofits create annual reports, most will include four financial statements required by the IRS to share the organization’s income and financial position.
If you want to use your annual report as a marketing tool, you’ll want to add other details to appeal to a broader audience. These details include –
The below example is from the annual report of our valued nonprofit user, the Wellington Zoo. Their 55-page report includes every minute detail a potential major donor or sponsor would want to know about their work, impact, and financial data for the entire year.
With Donorbox, accessing donor, donation, and campaign data, creating donor reports and exporting them, segmenting data, as well as integrating with CRM tools like Salesforce, Blackbaud Re NXT, or HubSpot become easier – which will help you put together the perfect annual report for your nonprofit!
Major donors are individuals who can give significant amounts to your organization.
Nonprofits take more time and will use more marketing materials to find, connect with, and convince major donors to support their organization.
A major donor proposal provides the donor with the following –
Executive Directors and Board Presidents are responsible for promoting the organization to various business and social groups around the community.
When developing a marketing presentation for these individuals, you’ll want to include your nonprofit’s mission, vision, impact, and program details.
You’ll also need to have your organization’s branding colors, fonts, and logos. To save money and time, these details will stay the same for every audience.
You can then add and adapt smaller sections of your presentation to fit your audience, and remember to create a call to action that best fits the specific donor type.
The most common and recognizable nonprofit marketing material is a brochure or flyer. These marketing pieces are created to introduce the entire organization, a specific program, or to appeal to donors for an annual campaign or event.
Brochures and flyers must be eye-catching, easy, and exciting enough to skim through since most people who receive them don’t have a solid connection to your organization. Staying with your nonprofit’s branding is vital, so people recognize where they came from.
Nonprofits can save money with design tools like Canva which has hundreds of free templates. They can either print or add them to their website and social media accounts.
We have written an article on creating stunning fundraising flyers with 8 amazing ideas. Read it here.
Online donation forms and fundraising pages help them share links easily via email, social media posts, and other marketing materials. Which, in turn, is easier for people to donate.
These days, nonprofits are also using QR codes and text messaging to redirect donors to their donation forms and campaign pages. It’s just much simpler when it comes to asking for a donation – because the fact is nobody carries cash or check anymore!
Choosing the right fundraising platform is key to your success with this essential marketing material.
Donorbox lets nonprofits create customized online donation forms that make giving 4 times faster with digital wallet payment options. Our forms are also designed to be donor-friendly, which means we make sure they can give quickly and without having to click through too many steps! While also ensuring that you get to collect and store donor data securely in the Donorbox database.
You can either embed Donorbox donation forms in your website the way BluePath Service Dogs did in the example below or use the Donorbox-hosted fundraising pages to accept donations and market your campaign with donors. Read this step-by-step guide to learn more.
Create Customized Donation Forms!
Email is the easiest and another crucial marketing material. Nonprofits can send emails with donation appeals, personalized thank yous, regularly scheduled newsletters, and more.
Donorbox Donor Management securely stores your donor and donation data which you can segment to personalize your email messages to donors. Donorbox also integrates with Mailchimp to make email marketing more accessible and affordable for nonprofits.
But if you’re using Donorbox, you do not have to be limited to just one app – we help you connect with many other email marketing platforms like ActiveCampaign, Campaign Monitor, Sendinblue, Flodesk, and more.
By adding the organization’s branding and including links to its website and other marketing pieces, an email can receive one of the best responses.
Social media has made videos a necessary marketing tool for nonprofits. It has also made it much easier to create.
In the past, organizations had to pay exorbitant amounts to develop professional videos. Today, videos created with your phone or personal camera are the norm.
If you’re interested in adding videos to your marketing plan, here are a few ways you can use videos to promote your organization –
Marketing is necessary for all nonprofits, but it does not have to break your budget. The popularity of social media and technological advances has made this article’s marketing materials more affordable and easier to come by than ever before.
And at Donorbox, we’re always on our toes to help you with powerful integrations with CRM and marketing tools to help increase the effectiveness of your outreach and fundraising efforts.
Do you know an even better and easier way to boost your outreach in 2024? Try Donorbox Peer-to-Peer – it helps you leverage the power of your supporters’ networks and raise more money by reaching new people. Check out all our other products on the website.
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For more marketing and fundraising tips, explore our Nonprofit Blog. Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to receive the best collection of our resources directly in your inbox!
Kristine Ensor is a freelance writer with over a decade of experience working with local and international nonprofits. As a nonprofit professional she has specialized in fundraising, marketing, event planning, volunteer management, and board development.
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Kristine Ensor