Order article reprints, eprints and NXTprints.

advertisement

Raising Money Are Ire On Labor Day

The typical American is exposed to more than 1,000 messages each day. If the average person gets seven hours of sleep at night, that's nearly 60 messages every hour. And, that's just talking averages here.

Moreover, just two of those messages are accepted -- and one has a negative response.

"Direct marketing has a huge cultural impact in how we sort our mail -- over the recycling bin," joked Bill Toliver, executive director of Seattle-based The Matale Line. "Public relations professionals can now provide precise measurements of meaningless things, like column inches and 'mentions.' Billions are spent each year trying to help people rid their lives of advertising and sales messages. Basically, the track record of 'marketing/PR strategists' sucks. It sucks."

According to Toliver, "movement builder" is a better moniker for the position of marketing professional. "Awareness is not the answer," he explained. "Your job is not to get people to act. It is to get them to commit. To commit to things that are not in their obvious best interests." Toliver went on to discuss the latest American fad of jumping from emotion of the month, for instance the Asian tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, and more recently, Darfur.

"Your job is to build a database. It is to build a base of support, no matter what's in the headlines," added Toliver. "They should want to run a marathon with you, not just a series of sprints."

Toliver offered the following do's and don'ts when building a movement through marketing:

• Don't group donors into categories. "What is 'Woman, 25-40'? I can't say there's a heck of a lot -- except for a love for Oprah -- that groups them."
• Don't dumb down messages into sound bytes.
• Don't try to appeal to donors' basest instincts and simplest wants, or to donors' knee-jerk emotional responses.
• Do look to the community. "Every now and then, we transcend the divisions we've been assigned and we act collectively. This is when we profoundly change things," said Toliver. "Even if you're a small organization, you can choreograph a large response within your community."
• Do know the elements of a movement:
  • Central Cause -- A strong sense of shared values, of similar world views and beliefs. Your cause must avoid the emotional traps of who you serve. It must get deeper into the why. It isn't so much your story as it is the moral of your story.
  • A sense of belonging that transcends the obvious players - Constituents have to feel like they're a part of your movement.
  • The ability to choreograph behavior - Leaders are supposed to lead. You must accept your role, both personally and as an organization, and tell your constituents what you need them to do.
  • An evangelist - Not a Nelson Mandela. The keeper of your story. Must be there to remind your CEO every day of the mission.

***
This article is from NPT Weekly, a publication of The NonProfit Times.

Subscribe to The NPT Weekly eNewsletter or any of our other enewsletters and get the latest nonprofit news and stories delivered to your inbox.