Many businesses in the world run on a not-for-profit (NFP) basis including schools, charities, medical providers, and trusts. However, much of the advice on how to achieve business success out there is designed for the commercial sector. Luckily, in the post below you will find five savvy strategies that can help not-for-profit organizations not only survive in the long term but thrive. Read on to find out more.
Need, emotion, and enthusiasm
Success as a not-for-profit organization is dependent on many things, but one thing that you must get right is to establish that there is a genuine need for the support you are providing.
Why? Well first, if there is no real need for your help, it makes your organization redundant, and you really need to consider why you want to set such an entity up or keep it running. Secondly, it will be impossibly difficult to tap into the emotions of the public and gain enthusiasm for a cause that is less than worthy.
In fact, it is often the emotional effect that a cause has on the individual that is used in marketing campaigns for not-for-profit organizations to make them as effective as possible. Therefore, without this, your organization is very unlikely to survive, let alone thrive in the long term.
Pick the right team
Next, remember that people are essential to your organization’s success. To that end, it’s best to carefully review applicants’ qualifications and history before inviting them for an interview. Of course, it’s equally as necessary to offer a fair wage, and decent reward package, especially if you want to attract and retain the best people for the job.
Also, don’t forget that investing in things that can help your team work more cohesively are essential as well. This may include training for those in supervising positions, so they are more confident in supporting and directing those under them with the tasks that need to be done.
Alternative it could about providing an opportunity for your team to bond on a more personal and emotional level, something that team building activity such as escape rooms and survival weekends can do.
Promotion and fundraising
Then, there is the aspect of promotion and fundraising that is vital to the ongoing success of not-for-profit organizations.
In particular, getting your marketing and promotional strategies right is essential for any charity, or other NFP organizations because your funding will come primarily from the public. Therefore, they need to know not only what you stand for and are trying to achieve, but also hold you in positive regard as well.
Concerning positive regard, it is crucial to avoid PR disasters, and more severe scandals to maintain a good brand reputation. It is also essential that you have an excellent board of trustees and many safeguarding measures in place to ensure that any wrongdoing is quickly detected and caught.
Also, an effective positive marketing strategy is needed to bring your brand to the public attention consistently. Great examples of this include video adverts such as Save The Children’s One Child campaign that you can see below.
Then there is a more integrated approach such as the Race for life campaign used by Breast Cancer Awareness. A campaign that not only brought the brand’s name to everyone lips but also tapped into the current obsession for fitness, while allowing people to do something constructive for a cause, rather than just hand over their own cash. Something that made it incredibly successful.
Of course, it’s not just the primary campaigns that are important here, but all the promotional and marketing materials that go with them. Especially, as these can be given out to individuals to motivate them, as well as allow them to show their allegiance to your particular cause.
In particular, wearable objects can be an excellent choice for promotional materials and can include t-shirts, caps, and button badges. You can even get some smart button design ideas and tips, by clicking on the link. Something that can make coming up with compelling designs for your promotion, super simple.
Partnerships
Partnerships, especially ones with the commercial sector are also hugely important in ensuring your NFP thrives in the long term. Luckily, if you do things right, you won’t have to do much convincing here at all.
The reason being that it is an excellent PR opportunity for them that will demonstrate to both their staff and their customer that they are concerned with more than just money. Something that can, in turn, help to increase positive regard for their brand, and so contribute to improving their sales and profits as well.
Of course, you can make it even easier for a commercial brand to partner up with you by doing several things. One is to provide a page on your website that gives details of how they can express their interest, as well as what is involved.
It can’t hurt to lay out the advantages discussed above for them either to make things super clear. Don’t forget to get your marketing team to periodically proactively target some of the more prominent brands that would be a good fire for your NFP as well.
Volunteers
Lastly, the backbone of many NFPs are the volunteers that give their time for free to help your cause. Of course, managing and motivating volunteers is a bit different than what you will do with your employees because they are technically not on your payroll. What this means is that volunteers need to be handled in a way that is clear, and directs them but also appreciates the sacrifices that they are making to help you out.
In particular, offering small incentives and rewards for work well done can be helpful, as can creating a sense of a community for your volunteers to participate in. Then they will feel a part of something bigger than themselves, and this will ensure they maintain their motivation over time. Such a community can also be a fantastic source of new ideas and perspectives for you to use in developing and expanding your not-for-profit organization as well. Something that you will want to do if you aim is to keep thriving in the long term.