LIVE from New Orleans: Put the Good Back Into Marketing

2:17AM May 5, 2023

Speakers:

Becky Endicott

Jonathan McCoy

Noah Barnett

Keywords:

marketing

nonprofit

love

podcast

conversation

community

feather

sector

report

organization

noah

working

today

impact

mission

friends

talked

people

aligning

world

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Hey, I'm Jon.

And I'm Becky.

And this is the We Are For Good podcast.

Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.

We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an Impact Uprising.

So welcome to the good community, where Nonprofit Professionals, philanthropist, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.

So let's get started. Okay, so we're here at AFP. I time with the legendary Noah Barnett from feather and feathers. Welcome to their booth. Like we're like kind of taking over the booth, like you and I are here. Interviewing podcasting live from the feather booth. We're having lots of conversations, we're given lots of hugs around this conference center. But there's just some cool data that's coming out. And Noah, y'all have been like on the cutting edge of this. I love this that y'all have doubled down into marketing, specifically, what is the nonprofit world seeing right now? And you've launched this new report, but first introduce yourself? And then let's jump in? Yeah,

no, we're excited to share the insights we learned from the state of nonprofit marketing survey that we did. But the reason we did that is because feather is the nonprofit marketing platform. And we're really focused on helping to elevate the narrative of nonprofit marketing, from just being a service order taker in the back room, to being really a strategic growth partner. And so for us to do that, well, we needed to understand how people are thinking about marketing today, inside their organizations. Where are they investing in? Where are they pulling back? What are they prioritizing, especially as we continue to move into this uncertain future. And so I am Noah Barnett, I'm the VP of Marketing here at feather. And I'm someone that just is curious. I love collisions. So I'm grateful to be here on the podcast, and just value being able to be an advocate for nonprofit marketing. I started my career in nonprofit marketing. And it's great to be back being a partner with nonprofit marketers, to help them grow their impacts.

I love that you described yourself that way. Because the thing I would say about you that I value so much other than your unmatched support and love for we're for good is that you are just naturally curious. And know is gotta be our most trusted adviser who's been pouring in, and then curious about where for good. And he makes these recommendations. And he sends these articles. And I just feel like you have your finger on the pulse of what's working right now. So I know this report is absolutely insane. It is got such rich detail about what is happening right now in the sector. We are in the middle of a data revolution, a digital evolution of what is happening, not only a nonprofit, but really around the world. And so Noah, like dive into this report a little bit, lift one or two things that you all are seeing that can be applied today by nonprofit listeners who are listening.

Absolutely. And the only reason we actually know what's going on. So I appreciate the kind comments and we mean them in comments. But we have the opportunity here at Feathr to work with over 1500 nonprofits and associations. And so we wanted to reach out to them and really, basically get feedback from them, instead of us just speaking out and saying this is what we're seeing. We wanted to hear from nonprofit marketers. And there were five emerging trends that we observed in the responses, with the number one trend being that we're operating on fumes, as

I mean, I hear that almost every conversation I hear that

absolutely. And it's not exclusive to just marketing like we as a sector as a for good with a capital G sector are struggling. And you know, it's everything from confusion and reporting to burnout to retention declining to constant change, lack of visibility and even knowing what's working, but ultimately comes back to the human side. And what I love about you, Jon, and you Becky, and this podcasting platform is yours. You showcase that you elevate that and say hey, it's about the people More, and we need to be caring about our people. And so over 68% of respondents said that the biggest challenge that was impacting their growth was lack of time, resources and budget.

I believe it.

68%. Yeah.

Now, I think what's interesting about this, as we've looked at the data closer, is, I have a question and maybe more of a challenge for the sector. Is that is our lack of budget and resources a true limit? Or is it a prioritization issue? on what's important, and something we talk about a lot here at feather is that marketing is good with a capital G, it's not a means to the good. And typically, it's budgeted and resource for as though it's a cost center that we have to do when we see it and our constituents and our customers see this as well, is that it's part of the mission of the organization.

Okay, he just literally reflected back. Trend number four of 2023, which is marketing is mission. And it's this thought that everything that we're doing now is marketing, it is not a line item, thank you for bringing that up. And dispelling that myth. Because everything we're doing an engagement with radical connection with messaging with storytelling, with the way that we're trying to amplify the good is marketing. And it's also about our world is no longer what's happening right now in our physical space. Our nonprofit missions are so global, they're so digital. And so I really love that you're aligning that. And I gotta give like one little shout out to feather because you were one of the first companies that came to us and started storytelling, about small nonprofits who could take a really modest amount of money, I'm talking like a couple 100 bucks. And you take that and you show them what can be done in the marketing space, whether that's with retargeting ads, or putting some serious focus on your digital campaign. And the return on that to us is not surprising, because we have seen this play out in the last 10 years as we've been trying to be kind of marketers disguised as fundraisers. And so I just want to encourage all of you out there, I mean, whether you have massive budget for this, or no budget for this, it is the future. And we need to be not only aligning resources with it, but time, creativity, innovation, I feel like you have really taught us that really well know us. So we'd love for you to riff on that or dive more into what that report is saying as it relates to that as well. Yeah,

the interesting thing is that marketing does is it really sits across the entire organization. So let's take a food bank, for example. Marketing has the ability to not only help that food bank, raise the profile of a key service in the community, and is something that those that care about the community they live in, should support the local food bank, it not only has the power to engage companies and corporations that are invested in the community to give sponsorships to give donations of supplies like gifts in kinds. It also has the power to recruit people to be volunteers to show up every day to make sure that that operates, it also has the power to reach out to the beneficiary population that needs to know that this food bank might not just be for those people it might be for me and my family. And so it has the opportunity it as we adopt good marketing practices, to have an impact on the entire organization's health and wellness, from program impact to supporter impact. And I think as we know as fundraisers, investing in connecting our supporters, to our mission, is part of the mission to the more people connect and get involved with our causes, the more they show up for other causes, the better our communities go. And so I don't see fundraising or marketing as a cost center or as you said, a lot just a line item. It is the mission, as you say, or in our case, it is good for the capital G.

I mean, it's just a different conversation. And I mean, you're talking to two people that define themselves as marketers disguised as fundraisers. And it's like, we've felt that for a long time. So I love that it's kind of coming to its own in that sense. But no, you know, there's a lot of scarcity in the sector, and it's easy to talk about it, but it's harder to put it into practice. Like what are you telling? What is your team? How do you coach people in the nonprofit space to not only just embrace this ideologically, but change the conversations is how you budget and how you show up, you know, throughout the year?

Yeah, absolutely. One of the focus areas we help customers of feather do and we see this show up in the report is the importance of moving from what I call channel first thinking where we basically say hey, we're doing In all of these marketing activities, we're sending email, we're working on social media, we're doing some advertising, we're sending some direct mail pieces, that's all great and good. And organizations should be using the channels that are best fit to connect with the audiences that they're trying to engage. But by moving from channel first thinking to community first thinking, we have the opportunity to better understand our audience. And marketing starts with understanding the market, we so often jump to the things, which is why then we say we don't have enough budget to do market it. Because we're so focused on things and not the market. And so I think there's an opportunity to really move from channel first thinking to community first thinking to identify who you're trying to reach. Let's say it's a population of your current donors that haven't given in the last six months. Okay, well, what do you know about them? What do you understand about them? Maybe it's actually a population of donors that you don't even know. But you should know. And the reason you should know them is because they look a lot like your best donors. So you're there your future best donors fit great. What do we understand about that. And now that we understand that audience, we can begin cultivating them through the right channels with the right content. And I think that's a big switch is if we move the conversation from channel first thinking to community first thinking, marketing, even in small ways, as you shared earlier, Becky can make a huge impact. Because we're aligning it to our goals, we're trying to mobilize a community towards a specific impact as part of our mission. And that's what marketing is, it's not about email, it's not about social or tick tock or telethons or billboards, it's about moving community, and mobilizing them towards some sort of impact. The things are just the things that we do to build those purposeful connections

that you had as a community at that point, because we really do believe it is everything is the final value of our company. And I just want to compliment you, and thank you, because you started off this conversation by saying we wanted to listen, and it wasn't about what we thought. And I think we get talked out a lot in the sector. And really, it's about how are we listening, and I was just in a session a little bit ago, with Mallory, Erickson and Donor Perfect. And they were talking about how do you build these donor personas, it's not enough anymore to go in look at somebody's demographics, or their giving profile, you got to look at their behaviors, you've got to look at their psychographics. And it's almost like this Venn diagram, you know, of how are we really seeing the human being? How are we looking at their motivations, and we're not just gonna guess we're gonna go and ask them and give them a voice in this conversation. And so all of a sudden, it's not just marketing that you're creating, and that is, perhaps maybe what your leadership thinks, or your or your board thinks. But the marketing becomes the mission, when your community rises up. And they give voice to what they see in the mission. They express it, they interpret it through their testimony through their own network through volunteerism, as you've mentioned before, through their giving through the way they bring others to the table. And so I just, this conversation is really resonating with me. And I just have one final question for you like, what would be a place that you would recommend somebody could start today, and we've talked about the mindsets, we've kind of talked about the action? What is one good thing that somebody could do today to start to lean into this collective effort of marketing?

So the one good thing I would share is for organizations to identify what's actually working for them? The best benchmarks are your own data and learning. Prevention. I think it's important when we say, Oh, we don't have enough to do this. We don't have enough to do that. Oh, that's what big organizations do, or that's what other organizations do. Or as some I talked to you last week, say we're we're an invisible cause. How do we how do we really showcase our market invisible causes, you know, whether it's rare diseases, or whether it's a societal change that is hard to speak about, or policy change or environmental policy? And so I think what's interesting is a lot of times we we lean into what we can't do or what we don't have, but we all have something that's working unless you're a brand new organization, and really focusing on identifying what is working right now. Why is that working? You know, even if you only have five major donors, or you have 20 donors at all, or you have 2000 donors or 20,000 donors, something's working, someone is supporting your cause someone's getting involved in your program, someone's volunteering every day, and sitting down and saying, I see you you're a part of this organization. Let me understand why you're a part of this organization. What was your path to becoming a part of the organization the way you are? Because looking at those patterns of what is working, sometimes are the best path to actually then replicate so that you can continue Need to have growth and impact.

I love that, oh my gosh, every time we talk to Noah, we have these kind of like breakthrough moments. But you're building something that is uniquely beautiful for that organization that plays to their strengths. And it's going to cut through the noise, you know, in so many ways, too. So how do people get the report? No, I mean, someone listening who want to dive into this information, how can they find it?

Yeah, so the best way to find it is to click the link in the show notes. Especially if you're listening to this, regardless of where you are on the internet. Don't click on a yet, because you're probably driving or walking, finished. Finished grocery shopping, then yeah, you'll click on it later. And you can download a free digital copy. This is a great tool for listeners to not only dig into themselves, but to actually start a conversation with their teams, with their bosses, maybe with their board, on what the opportunities in marketing is. And that was our intention, we wanted to start a conversation on what the state of nonprofit marketing is. And I think there's an opportunity to use it to continue that conversation as well. And a lot of this we talked about is really high level. And the report really just touches on what people are thinking and how they're doing that. But another thing we're doing here at feather because we believe in the opportunity to showcase what actually is happening, what marketing truly is, is we have our good marketing unplugged podcast, where we do acoustic style conversations where we break down real campaigns, and we sit down with real individuals in disguise or nots, that are doing marketing, and talk about what's working, but almost more importantly, what didn't work, and what you can learn from that. So if you want to hear from others, doing the work, checking out the good marketing, unplugged podcasts, wherever you're listening to, this would be great. Subscribe to

it. I love it so much. Thanks for being here, Noah.

Brilliant, and I'm just gonna like piggyback on that and throw in a one good thing for myself here. And for everybody out there. This is a way to lean into Trend number seven, the share of 2023 be a change agent, which means go and check out this report. Read it, think about it. Think about it through the lens of your organization, and then knowledge share that, go take it to your board, go take it to your team at your staff meeting, go share what you know, because once we have an awareness of this, it doesn't become such a hard flow that we're trying to rage against. It becomes something that we're all in lockstep together. And aren't that shared sort of belief is going to move the needle further. And I just want to say no, thank you for opening your house to us here at AFP icon, I just value so much our partnership with feather in the way that you generously show up every single time we're for good as for a partnership, you have a culture of generosity, it's reflected in the quality of your product and the incredible clients you have are so grateful to be aligned with you. Thank you once again.

Thank you, friend. Thank you so much, Becky. Thank you, Jon. And I just hope one day we're sitting back, whether it's here, or at some future

and rocking chairs and our elders.

Were at the Charlotte airport, you know, in the rocking chairs for Cracker Barrel and backyard wherever we go. Yeah. And you all will sit down and say, We are marketers. And you won't have to say that we're marketers disguised as fundraisers anymore. That would be a huge impact. And I would love to see that and have this conversation again.

I'm here for that Becky. We don't have to hide anymore.

Like I'm about to cry. So beautiful. Me to manifesting that into the world. Thank you my friend.

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