The best nonprofit marketing ideas for 2020

Nonprofit marketing ideas seem to be very limited by budget. If you’re a nonprofit, I’m sure you’ve been in this boat before. Businesses that are for-profit can invest as much as they’re comfortable with, as long as their budget allows. But you, as a nonprofit, don’t have that luxury.

But it’s not all bad news here. In fact, this article is quite the opposite. Despite your limited budget, there are lots of cost-effective and even free nonprofit marketing ideas out there to help you thrive in a competitive environment.

Publish on Medium

If you’re unfamiliar with Medium, allow me to introduce you. Medium is a platform that allows anyone and everyone to create stories and articles to promote to the world. If the audience enjoys it, they can give it a “clap”. The more claps, the more the readers enjoy it.

You can take advantage of keywords and algorithms on Medium, just like you can on any other blog. The key here is to not be too promotional, but to bring something to the table that the readers can’t really get anywhere else.

For example, you could write about an interesting case study that your organization did. Instead of directly and obviously promoting the organization, you can indirectly link your main page there, instead.

Believe it or not, there are over 60 million users on Medium as we speak, and the numbers grow everyday. That’s quite an impressive number, and it provides plenty of opportunity to get your name out there. It’s so impressive, in fact, that even for-profit businesses (including us at Flipsnack) publish on there, too.

We published an article about the History of Michael Jackson on Medium, and we got loads of helpful feedback and engagement. So, from personal experience, it’s well worth it.

Publish on Wattpad

Wattpad is another free story publishing platform that is used by millions. Organizations from Doctors Without Borders to Coca-Cola have used Wattpad to publish stories.

When these stories are published, you will naturally gain an audience. The more followers you have, the more brand awareness you have, too, all for free. You know what they say, the best things in life are free. The same can be said about nonprofit marketing.

The technique on Wattpad is very similar to Medium, so we won’t dwell on it too much. But, with over 65 million active users, Wattpad will definitely help you gain a following with little effort. Check it out and test the waters by posting some interesting, on-brand stories. With the way the internet works nowadays, you never know what kind of stories might take off.

Sell merchandise with your name and logo 

One of the best ways to raise money for a cause and get your name out there is to sell merchandise with your name and logo on it.

When you take this merchandise to festivals, fairs, and other public gatherings, it gives you a chance to promote your NGO personally and directly to the people that might be interested.

So what do I mean by merchandise? Shirts, hats, lanyards, or anything, really. You don’t want to go out and blow your entire budget, of course, but the sky’s the limit nowadays with merchandise. 

To top it all off, once someone buys your merch, not only are they learning about your NGO, but they’re indirectly promoting it wherever they use what they’ve bought. Anytime they wear your shirt, use your coffee mug, or slip their hat on, people will see and get more familiar with the organization.

Look into the Donate Now’ button on Facebook

It’s no secret that nonprofits don’t have the marketing budget that most other brands do. It’s all about saving that money for better use elsewhere.

Many nonprofits rely heavily on generous donors, many of them launching campaigns specifically targeting donations. That’s why one of the best nonprofit marketing ideas is to utilize the ‘Donate Now’ button on Facebook.

In truth, not everyone qualifies for this button. But many NGOs do. Once you’re able to receive donations through Facebook, it’s as simple as driving traffic there. For that, you can pick any number of strategies. The important thing here, though, is that people have a quick, easy, and familiar way of donating to your cause.

Flipsnack

At Flipsnack, we see a lot of nonprofit marketing materials come through, and we’re always so excited to see more. These nonprofits choose us to help them create, publish, and promote their materials because there’s nothing out there quite like our platform.

Without tooting our own horn, we welcome you to try out our platform to create your brochures, catalogs, magazines, and anything else you can think of. Take your newly created work of art and embed it directly to your website, download it and share it digitally, or print it out.

If you want to, you can even upload an already created PDF file and make it interactive, and distribute it in the same ways. Flipsnack is the all-in-one digital publishing solution for nonprofit organizations, and we couldn’t be more proud to offer our support.

With our free templates, you can have any sort of nonprofit marketing materials done in an instant. But talk is cheap, right? I think so too. So here are a few examples of our free templates that you can use for your nonprofit marketing right now:

Fundraiser Event Flyer Template

This fundraiser flyer template is perfect for any organization that’s hosting an event to raise money. It’s a simple design that allows the content to get straight to the point. If you aren’t having a clothing sale, you can edit the template to meet your exact needs.

Nonprofit Annual Report Template

Let’s be honest here… who doesn’t love a cute dog picture? This nonprofit report template is incredibly impactful if your NGO works with animals. It has all the white space you could ever want, which means that you can fill it up with all your content. Or you can keep the white spaces for a cleaner look. Either way, this template is a winner in my book.

Colorful Volunteer Flyer Template

A lot of NGOs are constantly looking for volunteers. Even if it doesn’t feel like it, this is still considered to be nonprofit marketing. 

This template is perfect for reaching out to volunteers. It has all the room you need to explain your NGO to anyone that wants to sign up. Plus, if you choose to keep this digital, you can add call to action buttons where the volunteers can click and be taken directly to the sign up form.

On our Flipsnack template page, we have plenty of templates ready to go for your nonprofit marketing needs. Anything from magazines and catalogs to flyers and brochures are all free to use. There are no hidden tricks or fees. Just professionally designed templates, and a lot of them.

And don’t forget, if you like any of the templates above, just click on them to use them for free!

Wrapping it up

Although nonprofit marketing is a little different than traditional marketing, it doesn’t have to be difficult. There are lots of resources out there to help you get the job done.

Perhaps the biggest tip anyone can give you in your nonprofit marketing endeavours is to utilize free things. Like I stated above, nonprofits don’t have the marketing budget that most other businesses do, so free things are your friend. 

I hope this article helped in some way or another. Remember that for all of your nonprofit marketing material needs, Flipsnack is here to help.