Non-Profit Chas

I’ve long wondered just what the penetration of feeds (RSS or Atom) might be among different audiences. Especially among non-profits and in higher education. Do college students understand and use feeds? How about staff and faculty? Alumni? Non-profit workers? Donors?

I’d love to do some research on this. If anyone has data, feel free to share it!

In the meantime, I can look through some of my clients’ stats and gather some data. One site in particular is a great example of the changing landscape in web content consumption.

Here are their web traffic stats, via Google Analytics:

And here are their feed subscriber stats, via Feedburner:

Whoa! Huge difference. The web traffic is pretty even. They publish daily during the week, so the drops in traffic correspond to the weekends (when there’s no new content). But the feed subscribers are a huge part.

Interesting note: the main audience for that site is University alumni, typically older faculty. So it’s not surprising that over 90% of these subscribers are actually using the email feature within Feedburner. They don’t use a feed reader at all.

While they don’t necessarily understand the concept of feeds, they certainly want the main feature: to consume content the way they want.

Your mission, as a not-for-profit organization, is something other than profits. But if you don’t have enough money coming in, you can’t keep sending money out. This means creating income streams to offset your costs. For most non-profits, that’s fundraising. But for many, fundraising isn’t enough. And this means charging for your service.

Charging a fee for your work is basically the equivalent of company charging for their product rather than giving it away. There’s a major hurdle when you convert a free service to fee for service.

Yay, More Problems!

It’s not the fact that you’re asking for money. People are used to this – they pay for stuff all the time and are often wary of anything “free.”

The hurdle is your customer base—can they afford your service? The answer lies in two words: pricing and segmentation.

Pricing is the art and science of maximizing profit. Since your goal isn’t necessarily profit (though many non-profits may be working hard to establish a surplus for growth or stability), you might consider pricing in terms of maximizing mission. What price allows you to serve the most customers in a sustainable way?

Uh oh, some people can’t afford it. So what do you do when you need to charge for service, but you want/need to provide the service to people who can’t afford the service?

Imaginary example

Let’s imagine your product is priced at $10. While many people will pay $10, some people would be willing pay $14 and some will only pay $7. But how can you get people to pay as much as they can/will pay?

One approach is to simply ask people to pay what they can. This only works as long as people are honest about what they can afford, and even then most people aren’t honest with themselves about what they can afford. It’s also not very predictable.

Another approach lies in something called price discrimination. This isn’t a negative thing, it’s just the term for charging a different price for different customers. Give customers a way to pay less than the full price and the ones who can’t afford full price will take those options. It’s also an excellent way to balance out a price increase, in case you’ve already been charging for your service.

Give me real world examples

One example is coupons: people who clip coupons are less likely to afford your full price. They use coupons to bring prices down to an affordable level for their budgets. But people who can easily afford your service will rarely bother – it’s easier to just pay full price.

Another example might be an “earn your way to camp” approach. At Camp Fire, we offer ways to earn money toward camp through various fundraisers – a car wash, selling pizzas, etc. You don’t have to do these things, but they’re fairly easy ways to cut the price down. Another way is through referrals, where each referral results in a discount.

Finally, we offer the campership program for our customers who have demonstrated financial need yet wish to come to camp. We’ve worked hard to raise money for this program. I’ll write a post about this later, but it’s all part of our pricing plan.

The Role of Fundraising

As a non-profit, one of your advantages is in pricing. As you’re not focused on profits, you may charge less than a for-profit counterpart (if such a thing exists). Fundraising is one way to balance this. If your annual operating budget is $100,000 but you can bring in $30,000 from fundraising, then you can knock 30% off the price and still break even.

The Moral

Pricing and “price discrimination” are important concepts to consider as you charge for your organization’s services. As a business focused on your mission, you have to develop a healthy source of income. It doesn’t make sense to charge for all services – some just won’t work that way. But many can find a healthy mix of fundraising and fees to build a stable, growing organization.

We don’t have a newsletter. We’ve done them in the past (several years ago), and we’ve talked about them for a about six months. But we haven’t actually sent one out.

Marketing, like comedy and investing, is a lot more effective when you have good timing.

What’s the point?

Nobody reads newsletters, right? According to various sources, you can expect about a 1-2% read rate on your direct mail. Because of our folks don’t read newsletters, they believe that nobody does. Is that return correct? Is it worth it? There are too many newsletters out there, we’ll just get lost in the noise.

It’s too expensive

Physical newsletters cost money to print and send. They cost lots of time in content development and design. We’d need to clean up our mailing lists. When there’s too much to do, a newsletter is an easy thing to forget.

So why do people do it?

Because that’s what they’ve always done. Like brochures and websites, newsletters are a tactic that many organizations employ. But too many of these organizations start off thinking tactically, when they need to start thinking strategically. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:

“Tactics are doing things right, strategy is doing the right things.”

A newsletter, like any other tactic, can be very effective. It requires thinking strategically and making sure that the newsletter fits in with your strategy. These are the questions that have led me back to doing a newsletter.

Audience

Who are you sending your newsletter to? Do they already care? A newsletter may not be the ideal first contact, but it is a great way to keep in touch with those who are already interested. My audience is going to include existing supporters and parents of participants.

Goal

What do you want to achieve with this newsletter? Be decisive in your objectives – are you asking for money? Are you seeking participants or volunteers? I have two goals, so I have two newsletters. The fundraising goal is going to be addressed by a newsletter going to our supporters and interested parties. It will inform them of the huge returns we’ve seen on all of their investments this year. The second goal is to increase awareness, so that newsletter will go to the general community. We will follow these newsletters up with another contact – an annual appeal for the fundraising and a program brochure for the awareness.

Message

Newsletters are just vehicles for content. They are only as successful if people want to read them. Create eye-catching headlines and tell great stories. There are a lot of resources out there on this – take some time to learn about them before you dive in.

Timing

Marketing, like comedy and investing, is a lot more effective when you have good timing. Depending on your programs, your needs, and the calendar year, some times of year work better than others. A newsletter that follows a news story about your organization (or your issue) will get more reads than a cold mailing. A newsletter that precedes your annual appeal by a few weeks should produce a better return on your appeals.

So what’s to do?

Well, we are working on a newsletter. Two, in fact. I have a specific, engaged audience. There’s a specific fundraising goal. It will be followed by an appeal about three weeks later. And it’s going to be chock full of great stories that we can’t wait to tell and people have loved hearing.

Here’s a story for you.

Ian McKee from “The Power of Influence” writes about how advertising can hurt your brand, specifically through the idea that “brands that have to rely on traditional advertising are not as good as ones that succeed through word of mouth.”

This is a fascinating idea, and I admit to having made this conclusion from time to time. From a producer’s standpoint, however, this is dangerous thinking. Word of mouth may be the best kind of marketing, but ultimately it requires someone to make that recommendation. What producers really seek is awareness.

Advertising is an expensive way to buy awareness, and non-profits rarely have the budget for such methods.

Jeff Brooks comments on the same article, and hits the nail on the head:

“If we get our cues from the advertising world, we probably make the same mistakes they make. But more important—and more likely—we should be asking ourselves if we’re offering donors something truly remarkable to do. Something that would actually spread through word-of-mouth, making advertising unnecessary.”

If you offer something truly remarkable, people will remark on it. You’ll get word of mouth. You’ll get press coverage. You’ll get the right kind of attention and hit the right constituents. And that kind of awareness is far better than anything you can buy.

I believe that fundraising and marketing are really about the same things: telling a story and building a relationship.

Having worked in a marketing world for my relatively short career, I volunteered to chair our new marketing committee at our Camp Fire council. This makes sense, as I’m far more experienced in this arena than anyone else in our organization. I brought in some volunteers with a variety of experiences, including writers, advertising, PR, and small business owners. We’re starting at ground zero. It’s going to be fun. More on this in another article.

In a much less logical move, I have also been appointed/volunteered to serve as chair of our fundraising committee. I have absolutely no experience with fundraising. Other than a nascent interest in the subject and an overwhelming desire to dive into a new subject and overextend myself again, there’s no reason I should be the one to take this committee on. Oh, and the fact that there’s nobody else to do it.

So what makes me think I can do this? Because I believe that fundraising and marketing are really about the same things: telling a story and building a relationship. Donors and customers don’t care about you, they care about the product. As a non-profit, your product is the benefit you create for them.

Some (hopefully) familiar marketing concepts

1. Retention: It’s easier to keep a donor/customer than it is to gain a new one
2. Relation: Tell a story that relates to your donor/customer
3. Information: Keep your donor/customer informed about (and this is important!) what you are doing for them
4. Inspiration: Inspire your donor/customer to act - not by begging them, but by making it easier to say yes than it would be to say no

From this starting point, it starts to seem a bit more reasonable that a programmer/project manager/marketer/entrepreneur might try his hand at fundraising. Doesn’t it?

I recently posted a quote about non-profit marketing that got at least a few people thinking. It was really more about fundraising, but in a non-profit that relies on development work, fundraising is marketing. But because many (too many) non-profit workers have little or no marketing experience, I want to share how I’ve been marketing and some of the lessons I’ve learned.

Two years ago, my wife Amber started as the Camp Director for Camp Tannadoonah. It’s one of several programs in our local Camp Fire USA council. Simply by marriage, I’ve become free labor for Camp. Normally, this means helping clean cabins or doing handy work around camp. But because I can’t ever seem to turn off my business mind, I’ve taken the opportunity to help Camp Fire improve their programs and turnout. I’ll focus on Camp Tannadoonah, our largest program.

I don’t want to make this a Marketing 101 kind of post. Instead, I’d rather share my ideas (because ideas, without execution, are worthless) and experiences.

Introspection: What do you have?

We start with looking at our own program and how we got to where we are. With our existing program, there was a lot of history to consider. The camp is nearly 90 years old, and there have been huge changes over the decades. Luckily, my wife was a former camper and counselor, so one of the biggest historical records lies in her memory and the memories of the people she knows.

Next, we looked at the camp’s situation. We also have to consider the programming, the facilities, the pricing, the audiences, etc. Given our location, size, and offerings, we can compare ourselves to other camps.

Market Research: What does everyone else have?

Oops… I didn’t really do much research when it came to putting together a plan. I started with tactics. Mistake number one. I’ve seen the error of my ways, however, and now have a bit of knowledge to work with. There are also thousands of similar camps in the United States, not including the myriad sports and specialty camps. So we’ve developed a series of circles – local, regional, and national camps. The strongest competitors are the local camps – we have relatively few campers that come from outside of a 50 mile range. Inside of that local circle, there are a number of camps that directly compete with us for campers.

However, this comparison also allows us to see plenty of differences. Most other camps charge considerably more than we do. Of course, this means they tend to serve an audience in a higher socio-economic state. As such, they have implemented amenities and programming that cater to wealthier clientele. This actually works to our advantage – some parents consider air conditioned cabins a “resort” instead of a camp. We receive a fair number of campers that choose our camp based on the rustic factor.

One important thing our Camp Director does is to visit other camps and communicate with their leadership. Each summer, she (and the CIT director) take the CITs (counselors-in-training) to visit another camp. This gives insights into new programs, policies, etc.

Goals: What do you want to do?

Too many people start with tactics. “We need a website.” “We need a TV commercial.” These are tactics – and their success depends on how well you can measure them against your goals. If you’ve been reading my blog, this should be a familiar tune. What I encourage any client to do is to establish goals and then create the strategy to achieve those goals. Tactics are how you execute your strategy.

So here are our goals, based on my discussions with Amber and the Camp Fire leaders. With most businesses, the main goal is to increase profits. A non-profit is no different, except that the profit is x – the mission of the organization. In our case, the camp’s goal is to serve campers. This has two main components:

1. Increase camper turnout
2. Increase camper retention rates

Differentiating Ourselves

Now that we’ve looked at our own camp and taken stock of our competition, we have to find ways to stand out. As if things in the camping business weren’t difficult enough, our camp was struggling with some large changes and PR issues. The former Camp Director of several years had just resigned to work elsewhere. A string of declining years had given way to money troubles. Rumors were spreading that we were closing down and couldn’t operate the camp any longer. We were in a tight spot with little budget for big changes. Our reputation was on the line, and we estimated that we had but one summer to turn things around.

Luckily, Amber and I are very frugal and that doesn’t change when it comes to business. Marketing for small businesses is all about doing great things with little or no budget. We established this strategy to accomplish our goals.

1. Increase camper turnout

Because a camp’s reputation is the biggest asset (or liability) to bringing campers, we decided we needed a strategy of communication. As a strong believer in the Cluetrain Manifesto, I feel that communication and transparency create trust and better customer relationships. Parents must trust us if they’re going to send their kids to us for a week.

This helped counter many of the rumors of our insolvency. It also established that new leadership was helping to turn things around. Though Amber brought strong loyalty to the traditions of Tannadoonah, she also brought fresh perspectives and connections. She used her connections to reach out to Birch Lake. The lake rumor mill all but ceased.

Here’s how we executed it:

• Communication
  • Postcards Amber and Lori (the assistant director) wrote postcards to parents each week. Sent early in the week, the postcards thanked parents and let them know the kids were having fun. Each postcard was signed and invited parents to contact them if they had any concerns.
  • Counselor Letters Counselors from the cabins were asked to write brief letters about each camper, addressed to the parents, and delivered at checkout. This gave parents a view of what their child did throughout the week, what they enjoyed, and if there were any concerns. Giving this responsibility to the staff personalized the experience.
  • Staff Profiles In the local newspaper, run by a lake resident, we featured profiles about each staff. This continued throughout the summer, letting people meet the people who were taking care of the kids. We made sure to promote their qualifications – Amber was a Ph.D. candidate, and most of the staff were college students.
  • Dinner with Campers We allowed lake residents to visit for dinner once a week. The visitors sat at tables with the kids and counselors, discussing what they all enjoyed most about camp. As the lake residents regained their confidence in the camp, visitors became more interested in volunteering at camp.

2. Increase camper retention rates

As most any business person knows, it’s cheaper to keep a customer than it is to get a new one. I was particularly concerned with retention rates – the best thing a camp can have is happy campers. They become evangelists (bring your friends!), and later, potential counselors and alumni. Amber is a perfect example of this. So to combine with our strategy of communication, we also wanted to engage parents and kids so that they felt a personal connection to the place and people of camp. We want them to feel like it’s their camp.

Here’s what we did:

• Engagement
  • Blog We set up a blog where Amber wrote about each week’s happenings. This was similar to the one-way newsletter Amber had been writing for the local paper, but with the added flexibility and RSS subscriptions. We began receiving positive feedback almost immediately from parents and campers that were keeping tabs.
  • Flickr photos Our most popular idea was the addition of a public photo gallery. Amber and I had just purchased a new camera and made excellent use of it throughout the summer. In all, we took several thousand photos and posted the best to a Flickr account at least once a week. Parents raved about the photos and campers often came back to see their photos. These showed the kids and staff having fun and being active – exactly what we want people to think about when they think of camp!
  • Survey At the end of the summer, we invited parents to participate in a survey about their (and their kids’) experiences of camp. It provided valuable feedback, as well as an opportunity to respond directly to parents with particular concerns. Customers appreciate the opportunity to make suggestions. As long as you are receptive to these, it helps create the sense of ownership we sought.
  • Birthday Cards One of my favorite ideas, Amber sends a birthday postcard to every camper. Keeping it simple, she wishes them a happy birthday and hopes that they will return the next summer. Kids and parents seem to love this – everyone loves getting mail!

Other factors

Staff Staff makes a huge impact on the reputation and quality of your camp. Counselors are often the first line of contact for kids and parents. A great camp experience can be ruined by a bad counselor. In 2006, we struggled to find quality staff and experienced some rough times (dealt with swiftly and appropriately). This year, we implemented an online job application site that increased our application rates nearly 200%. Amber has actually had to turn away qualified staff because interest is so high. We attribute this to Amber’s visits to recruiting fairs and to the easy application process.

Timing We got info out to campers and parents fairly early this year. We established programming and schedules months ahead of what had been done in the past. Not only that, but we launched an online registration tool to make it easier to register for camp. It’s still early, but the numbers are starting to look good.

Summer 2007

I am excited to see the turnout and retention numbers for this year. Given our hard work last year and the new ideas for this year, we are trying to create a foundation of trust and engagement that will pay off for future years as well. Meanwhile, our new executive director is working on the administrative side to ensure that we have a strong base within the entire organization. And this summer, we’re trying some new things that I’m really looking forward to.
This post has gotten me really psyched for Camp. I’m planning to elaborate on some of the specifics, particularly aimed at non-profits. As I read more and work on new ideas, I’ll share my insights.