Marketing for Nonprofit Organizations

Developing and executing an organization’s marketing strategy can be a complicated process, but is integral to raising money, increasing visibility, recruiting brand ambassadors/influencers/advocates/supporters – and building momentum to achieve its mission. It is also affected by issues of the day and time, whether the COVID virus, racial and social injustice, the political climate and world events. 

Nonprofits also compete with businesses and social entrepreneurs for attention, likes, hits, donations, and votes. This is particularly evident given the widespread use of digital tools and social media, which are critical elements of all organizations’ successes.

In order to be facile in this economy and time, all internal levels and functions within a nonprofit must be extremely well focused, must be flexible to alter their course on a dime and aware of the importance of working closely together to have an impact. In addition, many small organizations are also contending with limited staff and financial resources.

In this course, students will learn elements of a broad-based assessment approach to marketing and branding including assessing organizational strategies, branding, framing, cause-related marketing, and examining marketing campaigns with an equity-based lens. Students will then have opportunities to develop a marketing SWOT, SMART strategy, and creative stories for digital media and other uses. Special guests and drop-in experts will join the Professor to bring their expertise as students tap into knowledge about organizations with which they are familiar and expand their horizons by learning about others. The types of mission-driven organizations and entities explored may be in such areas as government; the visual and performing arts; health and human services; social, economic and racial justice; education; and the environment. All special guest visits are subject to final availability.