Nonprofit Communication Versus Development Roles – Understanding the Overlap

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“Communications Directors and Development Directors have conflicting goals. Development, of course, wants to retain and acquire donors. Communications wants to focus less on fundraising and more on brand awareness and engagement.” — Tech Impact, 2015 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report

In a 2015 Communications Trend Report, Tech Impact made the statement above. Similarly in an 2016 Nonprofit Communications Trend Infographic posted by Kivi Leroux Miller, the dissonance in priorities is addressed.

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The 2016 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report [Infographic]
If you’re like other organizations we work with, this may seem ironic since a nonprofit’s development versus communication roles often overlap on a small team. However, the conflict exists: even though your nonprofit’s main goal is to bring support to your cause, there are distinct ways of doing so, resulting in conflicting goals within a single nonprofit.

So how does this happen? It’s a chicken before the egg scenario. Your development staff seek donors and their continual support, resulting in money to market your nonprofit and increase its engagement. However your communication staff seek out brand visibility, allowing your donors to find your nonprofit in the first place. Each role depends on the other.

How to fix the diverging priorities within a single nonprofit:

Here are some questions we came up with for marketers to ask their sales team. This can be applied to nonprofits, as a conversation between the development and sales teams, geared towards improving the entire donation process and resulting in more effective marketing of your nonprofit.

1. What does the sales/donation process look like from first contact to closed sale/donation? 

You might understand the basics (i.e. the donor contacts you, you help them through the donation process, you follow-up etc.) however, we encourage you to dive deeper.

– How long does the donation process take?

– Why might a donation fall through? What are potential downfalls to the nonprofit?

– How does communication typically work? Email? Phone? Mail?

By really understanding what this process looks like, the communications team can better optimize their efforts with materials that address any of these issues. Their marketing campaigns can be aimed at directing potential donors to the most common form of contact, your content can point to reasons their donations are necessary, and you can understand how long a targeted marketing campaign should really be running.

2. Who is your ideal client/donor and why?

Everyone has a favorite type of person they like to work with – maybe they’re the kindest or most easy-going or the most devoted. Your communications team can target their marketing efforts around drawing in that specific type of person. If they build out a few audience personas (grab our persona guide here), and market directly to them, chances are your ideal donors will find you more easily.

3. What are the most common questions the potential clients/donors ask?

There is probably a large handful of questions the development team receives time and again. If this is true, it’s likely that this information has not been as easy to find as it could be on your site. The communications team can take advantage of these questions for effective content marketing. There won’t be a struggle finding that next blog topic if your team is working on answering these questions. Start planning your content marketing strategy around each.

Remember that your goals ultimately align, and budget time and money according to which side of this relationship needs more attention. To review more on the relationship between sales and development, take a look at our original 5 questions to ask.