An Essential Investment in Outreach

Effective outreach through marketing and communications is essential to a nonprofit's success. Often, however, nonprofits hesitate to spend time and resources marketing themselves or developing their organization’s brand. Many organizations tend to ignore their communications functions, both internal and external. This approach can be costly in the long run.

Developing a thoughtful and robust marketing and communications plan is one of the best investments an organization can make. Ultimately, these activities strengthen the organization and support the advancement of its mission. Through marketing and communications activities, the nonprofit makes its stakeholders aware of what it does and the value of its work. When an organization's constituents are fully aware of its achievements and value, they are more likely to support it - financially, politically, and programmatically.

Know Your Stakeholders

Every nonprofit has many stakeholders - staff, board, customers/clients, donors, funders, partners, the media, local community, volunteers, and the public at large. All of these constituents must receive honest, consistent, accurate, timely - and customized - messages regarding the organization's mission, services, value, and accomplishments. In order to cultivate and strengthen the support of its constituents, the nonprofit must also create and maintain two-way communication channels. Nonprofits must implement feedback mechanisms to learn about and understand the interests and needs of its constituents, and measure its success in meeting these needs.

La Piana Consulting helps develop and implement practical, customized marketing and communications plans that effectively promote the nonprofit with all of its constituents, supporting the advancement of its mission. We emphasize the importance of two-way communication channels. These help the nonprofit assess its effectiveness - overall, and specifically, with respect to its marketing and communications functions. Nonprofits can use this information to improve their services and enhance their value.

Our marketing and communications services include:

• Branding and enhancing how your donors, constituents, funders, or customers perceive your organization
• Marketing and communications plans, and the necessary systems and processes to support these
• Marketing message development for better outreach
• Training programs to help staff develop and maintain marketing and communications functions in-house

We can also develop proactive or responsive marketing, public relations, and internal and external communications strategies to support organizational change and help ensure its success.