My 5-Step Marketing Plan for a Friend’s Non-Profit

A few weeks back, a friend approached me with a marketing challenge:

He and his wife were starting a non-profit 💡
Their goal was to get to $8,350/month in recurring donations ASAP 💸
They needed a plan to help them hit that goal 📈

Even though we typically create marketing plans for for-profit businesses, I didn’t see any reason why we couldn’t apply our approach to a non-profit.

In this post, I’m going to show you the plan we created for them to hit their goal within 60 days.

Check it out and see what ideas you could steal for your own marketing plan. 🙂

Step #1: Get TOTAL clarity on the problem your company/product solves

I get it. This part doesn’t sound sexy. You can’t frame it as a “growth hack.”

But most marketing plans don’t fail because they don’t have the right growth hacks. They fail because the business never had clarity on the problem they solve (and who they can best solve it for) before they made the plan.

There are 6 questions you must ask before making any plan (apply these to your own product and company ASAP):

What problem does your product solve?
How are you solving the problem?
Who is your best fit customer?
What guarantee are you making your customer?
What is the goal of the organization?
What will the organization and impact look like in 3 years?

For example, here are the answers I came up with after talking to my friends about their non-profit idea:

Problem
- Refugees come to the U.S. in distress from war torn and persecuted countries. They live in tent cities for years and have seen many of their loved ones die. They are looked down on as pariahs by the U.S. government. The kids are traumatized and severely behind in education. This puts them at a large disadvantage in life. Job opportunities are lower. Stigma follows them. And they have a tough time assimilating to the U.S. culture and language. This creates a cycle that is hard to escape.

Solution
- Work with refugee kids in Nashville 1:1 to train, teach, and mentor them so they break the cycle (Job training, Spiritual development, Leadership, U.S. culture)
- Do this via these 3 programs:
  - 1:1 mentoring and training
  - After School program for school age kids
  - Summer camp

Best Fit Child:
- Refugee
- Lives in Nashville
- Under the age of 18
- Wants to learn and grow
- Doesn’t know how
- Hears about our programs and lights up

Promise to children: You will gain the skills needed to succeed in life. We’ll support, encourage, and empower you to be the best version of yourself.
Best Fit Donor:
- Hears about this problem and is immediately drawn to it
- History of giving to causes they believe in
- Wants to make a difference
- Believes in both of you as people and founders

Promise to donors: You will be the difference in 1 kid’s life. You will enable 1 child to escape the cyclical disadvantages that refugees face, and you will make a substantial difference in the world.
What they do: We help child refugees in Nashville survive and thrive in their new life by training and mentoring them.
Their goal w/ the organization:

- Fundraising: $8,350 per month in recurring donations.
- Donors: Have at least 1 touch point per month with 1 child.
- Children: Work with every child refugee in Nashville to have a better and more meaningful life (High test scores, job satisfaction, happiness, and community engagement).

These details have an amazing clarifying effect as you start mapping out a marketing plan.

Step 2: Hit Your Network (1-2 months)

The heart of the first 60 days is a manual 1:1 outreach campaign that targets highest potential donors first and then works down to lower donors. I believe this campaign alone can raise 50-100% of the monthly donations needed within 60 days.

Make a List with 3 Types of Potential Donors: The first step is for my friends to make a list of EVERYONE they know and sort it into 3 groups:
- High Rollers – People in their network who would be able to commit ~$300/month.

- Mid Rollers – People who would be able to commit ~$100/month.

- Everyone Else – Literally everyone else they know, kinda know, met one time, or are friends with on Facebook. This ain’t the time to get shy.

Pitch High Rollers: This group has the highest upside, so they’ll do the most time-intensive types of pitching here. ALL of it should be done in person. Schedule lunches, dinners, coffee meetings, etc. Tell them about the project and ask if they know anyone who would be interested in supporting it. They should be able to get 6-12 committed at this donor level.
Pitch Mid Rollers: Schedule in-person meetings with people in this group when possible, but at the very least get them on the phone. They should be able to get 15-25 committed at this donor level.
Pitch Everyone Else: Last but not least is everyone else in their network. The donations here are small (probably $15-50/month) but it’s the largest group. It’s not worth meeting with everyone individually in person, but the outreach should still be 1:1 and personal. Mass Facebook posts and email broadcasts don’t count and won’t be that effective. These are DMs, individual emails, text messages, phone calls, etc.

What to Do When People Say No: Thank them for responding and ask them to join your email list for bi-weekly updates on what you’re up to. Don’t send them a link to an opt-in page. Just ask for their best email address so you can send them bi-weekly updates. When they send it to you, manually add it to your email service provider. This should bring your email list to 500-1,000 by the end of this campaign. This is important. (Note: Do this for people who say yes, too)

Potential Results: On the low end, they should be able to raise around half of their $8,350/month goal from this manual campaign. On the high end, they raise all of it. As a stretch goal, $10k/month is possible.

Step 3: Build Relationships (Every 2 weeks)

This step begins after the first two weeks or so of manual outreach. By then, they’ll have their first wave of donors and email subscribers, so they need a simple content plan to keep them engaged:

One email every 2 weeks

Each email contains simple updates, stories, and tips on how to help

They can discuss kids they are working with and progress updates on the programs they’re starting

Each email reinforces the difference you can make by donating

These emails will increase retention because current donors will have a tangible reminder of the difference they’re making.

Meanwhile, the potential donors on the list will keep getting reminders to start contributing.

Step 4: Start Speaking Publicly and/or Virtually (2x per week)

Long term, speaking will be the engine that drives donations (whether it’s virtual or in person). Both founders need to be in front of a crowd 1x per week telling their stories.

Create a Dream 100: This is a list of the 100 organizations, influencers, events, podcasts, etc. that have audiences full of their Best Fit Donors. They’ll start by listing out any that existing donors are affiliated with—churches, companies, clubs, etc. The remaining targets can be found by researching where other local non-profits have been featured.
(You can get our complete Dream 100 template + our system for filling it up in this blog post).

Pitch Dream 100: Starting with the targets they already have a direct connection to, they’ll pitch them on a 1:1 basis. Depending on the target, they may be pitching a speaking engagement, interview, Zoom meeting, webinar, Facebook Live session, etc. This will be tailored based on how the target typically features organizations to their audience.

Start Speaking Once Per Week: Each engagement, regardless of the format, should end with a specific CTA. For example, they could start by experimenting with a CTA to sponsor 1 child for $100/month. Something simple that allows each donor to see their impact. As a secondary CTA, they should create a lead magnet to get attendees to join their email list.

Step 5: Pour Gas on the Fire (Q4 2020 / Q1 2021)

Over the next 1-2 years, constant speaking engagements will be the single biggest source of new donations. But there are also several things they can implement in the background that will accelerate growth once they have a firm foundation in place.

New Subscriber Offer: This is a basic email sequence that lets all new subscribers that learn about their Sponsor 1 Child program. It will ask them to donate within 2 days of signing up. While this campaign will allow them to pick up some evergreen donors, it’s biggest value is that it will frame up every new subscriber to be ready to donate when they run a bigger campaign.
You can swipe dozens of New Subscriber Offer email sequences in our free tool DripScripts.

Monthly Webinar: Every month, they’ll feature one child/family to their email list on a webinar. It will show their journey and how the organization is helping. At the end, they’ll let people know there are more kids who need sponsors. Goal is to get 5-10 new donors per month from this.
1 Big Promo Drive Per Year: They’ll run a big live promo drive to their email list 1x per year. The list will be the engine, but the goal is to broadcast EVERYWHERE. Utilize any available channels so that everyone in earshot, every place they’ve ever spoken at, and anyone who has ever donated will hear about it. Repeat every year for 100-200 new donors.

That’s the marketing plan we came up with.

What would you do differently?