How Fund Raisers Can Use Marketing Techniques to Promote Their Causes

Brandraising: How Nonprofits Raise Visibility and Money Through Smart Communications
by Sarah Durham

Many nonprofit organizations make the mistake of treating communications as a short-term priority rather than thinking about how they want donors, policy makers, and others to view them in the long run, writes Sarah Durham, principal of Big Duck, a communications firm in New York that works with charities.

Ms. Durham urges them to think not about fund raising but about “brand raising,” a technique she describes as “the process of developing a clear and cohesive organizational identity and communications system that supports the organization’s mission.”

She says that as part of the process, charities must figure out how their supporters and potential donors want to learn more about a cause. She urges charities to conduct research on what language and communications media certain types of people favor, set a communications calendar based on the best times to reach a charity’s likely constituents–and not around an organization’s schedule or fiscal year–and to acquire software that allows groups to keep track of how each supporter wishes to be reached.

Publisher: Jossey-Bass, 10475 Crosspoint Boulevard, Indianapolis, Ind. 46256; (800) 762-2974; http://www.josseybass.com; 190 pages; $35.00; ISBN 978-0-470-52753-5.