9 Nonprofit Marketing Resources You Need to Bookmark

As a nonprofit worker, I know that it can be tough to keep up with limited resources. There’s never enough time, money, talent, and energy to accomplish the big hairy audacious goal set by the mission. Yet, we have to do our best to change the world. Because of this, I’m always on the lookout for the best resources to make the most of the time and money we do have.

Over time I’ve compiled a list of tools I have found helpful that you might help you as well.

9 Nonprofit Marketing Resources You Need to Bookmark include:

1. Canva for Nonprofits
2. Hootsuite
3. Mailchimp
4. The Storytelling Nonprofit
5. Nonprofit Finance Fund
6.  Text to Give
7. LinkedIn Nonprofit Program
8. Google Ads Nonprofit Program
9. The Chronical of Philanthropy

All of these reputable resources which will help you to stand out in the competitive world of nonprofits and offer you multiple occasions of usefulness.

If you love to research, these 9 resources will excite you more than Christmas morning! They will also make your life less stressful because you won’t be doing tedious things that could be managed digitally, organized through a database, and functioning for you while you sleep. Get ready to dive into these fascinating resources, and be sure to bookmark this tab while you’re at it!

9 Nonprofit Marketing Resources You Need to Bookmark

Bookmarking these pages will only save you time because you’ll be using these resources a lot!

To show you that I’m here to help and offer you quality nonprofit marketing resources, I’m going to provide you with a freebie right out the gate.

First up is a list of resources from Nonprofit Marketing Academy, your first go-to for a site packed full of excellent sources that can be used in all phases of your business practice.

That link includes pages like:

• Upwork – a freelancing site where you can find creative freelancers to create content for you. Post a listing, “Nonprofit looking for a graphic designer, copywriter, branding specialist, and SEO specialist” to find the best of the best at an affordable rate that you determine.
• Donor Engine – an all-in-one donor management tool that helps you integrate all areas of your interaction with donors.
• Benefit – No-Cost Fundraising App that will help you start bringing in donors.

And much more. I recommend you start with that link and then move forward to the next nine resources. If you’re ready to get a lot more out of a little work, prepare your bookmark button to get some heat!

1. Canva for Nonprofits

Canva is one of my favorite sites to use in any business practice.  It will help you create free marketing materials that look like a professional graphic design artist who completed it for you!

Their nonprofit sector offers a free section to philanthropists because they want to help you do more good in the world.

Why it’s Useful? Because your promotional and marketing materials are a reflection of your nonprofit’s brand. If it’s not communicating trustworthiness, you risk not looking your best for donors. When money is involved, people like to be wowed. You won’t impress them with that flyer you made in Microsoft Word. But you will impress them with Canva.

Examples of How it Can be Used:

• Facebook ads – they have sizes and templates for your Facebook banner, Facebook stories, posts, flyers, and anything else you can do on Facebook.  And it’s all in the proper resolution size for Facebook.
• Instagram formatted templates for stories or posts.
• Utilize the sections – like Halloween flyers, real estate flyers, educational flyers, to make it easy for you!
• It can help you create a logo and give you a framework for all promotional marketing items digitally.
• Easy to create infographics.
• It can also facilitate print marketing and ordering materials.

2. Hootsuite

Allowing you to have a one-month free-trial, this is undoubtedly a resource worth at least trying. Hootsuite will simplify your entire social media game by allowing you to, as they put it,

“Keep your social presence active 24/7 by automatically scheduling hundreds of social media posts at once, across your social accounts.”

You can schedule across any platform and even post directly from Hootsuite. You will need to post to Instagram manually, but imagine how much time you would save if it were all ready to go for your weeks ahead of schedule?

Why it’s Useful? You can sit down on one determined day to game plan all of your posts. Doing so will help you to more effectively see the long-term direction your social media is moving in and how it’s working together to promote your message. This will make it a million times easier for the next few weeks when you wake up and have content already posting while you have you’re having that morning cup of coffee.

Examples of How it Can be Used:

• Schedule all Facebook posts for a month when you’re in a creative mood. When you don’t feel like being innovative, you post something which has already been drafted instead of churning out content that doesn’t have any heart in it.
• You can track your performance, and it will show you all engagement statistics in one place. Doing so allows you to see what posts worked and which ones didn’t do as well.
• Visually track your message and see if it has the fluidity or if it’s jumping all over the place. If Monday’s post and Fridays post have nothing to do with each other, this can be good or bad depending on how you’re developing the story. You want variation, but it all needs to stay connected.

3. Mail Chimp

Mailchimp calls itself an all-in-one marketing tool for your business. It works with your email to send campaigns out without having to be a coding-prodigy.

Why it’s Useful? If your newsletter needs some sprucing up (or perhaps it’s already stunning due to Canva’s promotional tools), now you need to reach people with that marketing content. Mailchimp is your savior for sending out emails to thousands without manually doing so. It is free for users that have less than 2,000 email subscribers or send less than 12,000 emails a month.

Examples of How it Can Be Used:

• Can send to thousands of donors at the click of a button – you don’t have to send thousands of emails one at a time anymore!
• The website allows you to track behavioral targeting and reach your audience in a more personal way. If you know who you’re marketing to, it’s much easier to solidify a connection.
• You can schedule all emails in advance like Hootsuite does for social media.
• Create an email campaign for the whole year and draft it all in one place.
• You can segment your list to be sure the right emails go to the right group. Maybe the dog lovers don’t want emails tailored for cat lovers.  List segmenting ensures each person receives information relevant to their interests.
• Mailchimp offers integration with most other apps and great CRM tools for managing customer relationships.

4. The Storytelling Nonprofit Blog

This is a blog that will inspire you with countless other nonprofits’ stories, offer you ideas and aid, as well as a community of similarly philanthropically minded souls.

Why it’s Useful? Stories are compelling and you will learn from the best how to captivate your nonprofit audience and target those that have a likelihood of donating to your cause. They offer classes, articles, videos, and many other instructive tools to help you feel more confident in the nonprofit world.

Examples of How it Can Be Used:

• Join a webinar or workshop to sharpen your skills in an area of nonprofits in which you don’t feel as competent as you would like to be.
• Find excellent advice for many common problems or questions you may need help with.
• Make meaningful connections with donors and learn how to speak in a marketing method that works for nonprofits.
• Use their consulting section for personalized guidance on your nonprofit. The blog owners want to work with you to help you see a higher success rate.
• Consider purchasing the Storytelling Nonprofit book as your guide – here.

5. The Nonprofit Finance Fund

This incredible resource is certainly one you’ll need to bookmark because of the variety of tools it offers nonprofits. They are a consulting firm that give their readers guides, reports, blogs, and personalized consulting to being nonprofit leaders. Not only this, but they also offer financing to nonprofits and all the tools to help you be a smarter businessperson.

Why it’s Useful? With over 40 years of national and local experience, they assist those that have a mission to enact real positive change. They offer a unique, reasonable, and very analytical perspective on running a nonprofit that you may not have considered utilizing yet.

Examples of How it Can Be Used:

• They offer to finance so you can apply to get more fundraising for you to cause and have a backer! Apply here.
• Utilize their reports section, which will teach you about the financials and ROI of running a nonprofit. These are things you may have wanted to delegate to someone else, but you need at least a basic understanding of your business’s financials, or you’ll never be able to expand.
• Read this article on The Real Price of Change from their blog.

6. TXT2Give

Did you know that people check their cellphones on average 85 times a day! This is why you need to be utilizing a resource that allows you to text someone for a donation.

Why it’s Useful? People feel less annoyed by texts than emails or calls. They don’t want to feel slimy sold, but if you text them in the same platform their friends and family do, it may feel less like a foreign entity. This company also has seen donations raise by 208%, so it is clearly effective.

Examples of How it Can Be Used:

• Sign up for any platform that allows you to text your prospects. If you don’t want to use Txt2give, here is a link to a multitude of other Text to Give Platforms to Consider
• Text them something short and sweet – be direct and don’t dilly dally.
• Say something like, “Reply with LOVE123 to send $1 to starving children in Uganda. Click the link to learn more.” Keep it short and have a link that takes them to a straightforward donation page.
• Keep the donation page relevant and short, always with a giving scale of different amounts to encourage higher donation rates, as well as a button that they can select for recurring donations.

7. LinkedIn Nonprofit Program

What I like about this program is that it provides more than resources; it gives you a community.

If you’re struggling to link up with new donors or you feel like you’ve already sucked them dry, try reaching out to new people through LinkedIn’s nonprofit program. They help to connect you to like-minded professionals and find new donors, partners, and community members.

Why it’s Useful? If you’re an introvert, meeting people can be one of the difficult challenges for reaching out to new donors or other non-profit owners.  The LinkedIn program gives you a safe space to break the ice and connect naturally with people that are looking for the same thing you are.

Examples of How it Can Be Used:

• Find people that are working in your cause, see if you can join their cause.
• Send messages to people saying something along the lines of, “Hey there, I like what you’re doing and would love to be apart of it. I have a nonprofit as well that focuses on helping XYZ. Perhaps we could work together and help both of our nonprofit projects!”
• Connect with potential donors be searching through sections of individuals as well as companies that may want to sponsor your cause.
• You’ll never know if you don’t ask. Don’t be shy, message everyone with a heartfelt and concise message on how it could be mutually beneficial to their success, and someone is bound to respond.

8. Google Ads Nonprofit Program

I bet you didn’t know that Google offers $10,000 to many nonprofits each month so they can advertise to more people. They are wearing their hearts on their sleeves by providing you this grant to recruit more volunteers, market to more prospects, and earn more donations.

Why it’s Useful? How is it not? It is giving you free money, and you can apply each month for the rest of your life if you so desire. You could get eyes from all over the world and thousands of dollars of free advertising for your cause. I think it’s silly not to apply! 

Examples of How it Can Be Used:

• Gaining more exposure to promote your mission and initiative. Share your story with the world.
• It can help you obtain more volunteers, sponsors, donors, corporate business attention, and other key players that you wouldn’t reach without the $10,000.
• Keep trying, and you may at least get noticed by their recruiting team. Even if you don’t get the grant, you’re still exposing yourself to more Google-genius-eyes that could get excited about your project. You don’t even have to win the grant; you only need more people to see the cause and get excited about it too. You never know what doors could open for your nonprofit.
• Google Ads will help you to target personalized donors that are more inclined to donate to you. With the power and brilliance of the Google team behind you, is there anything you can’t do?

9. The Chronicles of Philanthropy

This is a research and blog page that will help you keep up with current events and marketing trends in the nonprofit world. This is a very reputable website –being philanthropy.com, so they are at the top of most people’s go-to for Nonprofit resources.

Why it’s Useful? You’re hearing the most critical updates in nonprofit news from a highly reputable source. This respected, trustworthy site provides you with information about the latest trends.

Examples of How it Can Be Used:

• Research and gain an understanding of corporate support and how to obtain higher-status donors
• Understand technology advances and stay up to date on the best software you should be using
• Fundraising tips and tricks
• Many downloadable forms which you can print out and utilize

Bonus Resources That You Shouldn’t Ignore

Since you’ve stuck around this long, I want to give you the gift of extra resources!

Add these to your list and dive deeper in your own time:

• Classy Blog
• Wild Apricot Blog
• Thunderclap
• Grammarly
• Hubspot
• Bloomerang
• Association for Research of Nonprofits and Voluntary Action
• National Center for Charitable Statistics
• Urban Institute
• HuffPost Impact (Huffington Post’s Nonprofit page)
• Nonprofit Quarterly
• Nonprofit AF
• The Nonprofit Technology Network
•  The Nonprofit Times
• Nonprofit Marketing Guide

Google any of these to start utilizing them today. There are countless resources to make creating content easier, simplify technology, see what the trends are, and teach yourself how to run a nonprofit effectively.

Take all the advice you can get, and always stay open to learning. That is the key to a life-long body of experimentation and eventually for success.  And stay determined because the world needs more people who want to make it a better place.