Stop viewing marketing as a traditional FTE “in house staff position” on payroll with potential costly benefits. Shift to project-based marketing that is outsourced, and focused on a particular goal (increase viewers, attract sponsors, increase SEO). This approach to project-based marketing with help increase your revenue without bogging your budget down with traditional staff positions. Get more done for less.

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NONPROFIT SPOTLIGHT: African Wildlife Foundation

Podcast Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):

Welcome to On Air with Amber Wynn, where nonprofit leaders learned to fuse passion and commitment with proven business strategies to create long-term funding, impact, and sustainability. And now here's your host and resident Philanthrepreneur Amber Wynn. 

Speaker 2 (00:29):

Hey fam, it's Amber Wynn. You are on air with Amber Wynn, Philanthrepreneur, your biggest cheerleader and fan. And we are continuing with our series A Nontraditional Approach to ... Today's topic is a Nontraditional Approach to Marketing. Now, marketing didn't used to be so big in the nonprofit sector; we really just focused on delivering social services, yada, yada, yada. But in the advent of social media and how it's used, and what it's used, it's really become very important for nonprofits. So today we're gonna dive in and we're gonna talk about a nontraditional approach to marketing right after this sponsor break. 

Speaker 3 (01:24):

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Speaker 2 (01:59):

Welcome back. This is Amber Wynn and you're On Air with Amber. We're talking today about a nontraditional approach to marketing, and I want you as a nonprofit founder and executive director to just really listen to me right now. When I do my workshops and I do my professional development training, I hear the same thing. I ain't got time for that. <laugh> I’m tired. I can only do so much, right? I'm trying to deliver programs. And I hear you. Been there, done that. I have the t-shirt. And what I want you to know though is in order for your organization to be sustainable, you need to generate consistent funding. And in order for you to get consistent funding, you need to have followers and supporters and donors. And the only way for you to get followers and donors and supporters is if they know that you exist. Therefore, marketing is a very important part of your fund development strategy. 

Speaker 2 (03:05):

You can't just deliver programs and services and expect money to come in. People have to be aware of the great things that you do. And so traditionally, the purpose of marketing for profit companies, of course, is to get visibility so that they could sell their products for you. There's typically really three reasons for you to use marketing. One is to educate. Some nonprofit organizations are specifically just for advocacy, but for you, maybe you want to advocate about special needs or what's going on with youth and sex trafficking, whatever you wanna educate your people about what it is that you do. The second thing you may wanna use marketing for is recruitment. You wanna get people to come in and avail of your services. And then thirdly, you want to use marketing to fundraise. You want people to travel to your website and to click on the donate button. 

Speaker 2 (04:13):

You want people to come to your events. So those events are located on your website. So marketing is extremely important, but as we know, in order to market, you know, need a person who's driving it. I'm here today to tell you that your goal is not to fundraise so that you could hire a social media person or so that you could hire a marketing person. That's going to exponentially stretch out the amount of time that it's going to get you to your marketing because now you gotta fundraise, you gotta hire this person, you gotta pay them every month, and that's going to stop you, right? Because here's the reality, You are probably self-funding your nonprofit. So, what I want you to think about today is a nontraditional approach to marketing. And what does that look like? That looks like project based marketing. And I found this resource that I'm gonna share with you today because I want you to think about how you can quickly, effectively, and efficiently get to your end game. 

Speaker 2 (05:22):

For example, Giving Tuesday is really huge in the nonprofit community. And you say to me, Well, Amber, I know that, but I just don't have the time to do it. There's this resource, it's called Acadium, A C A D I U M. And it is a website that does two things. Number one, it helps aspiring freelance marketing people get experience so they can build up their portfolio and really just dive into the marketing world. They do things like SEO, social media management, they build out campaigns, all of those things marketing, they do. The other thing that they do is they help nonprofits for profits, but I'm nonprofit. They help our organizations identify quality freelance people. So they have a program, it's an apprenticeship program where you work with them for three months, meaning the apprentice and your role is to mentor. So you give them a project, they look at it, they do the work, then you look at it and you give them feedback and it's to help them to become better freelancers. 

Speaker 2 (06:44):

Now, the beautiful thing about that is for the three months that you're working with them, you get to work with them at a discounted price. Now, these freelancers are not novice. They are people who have skills. Maybe they're trying to break into the industry. So because they don't have a portfolio, they don't charge the going rates. For me, I've subcontracted out marketing and I've paid $400 for the month, right? With Acadium, you can get an apprentice for $400 for three months. So you see the value there. And if you saying, Amber, that's all good and great, I don't have $400 for the three months. I want you to think about this. If you spent $400 and invested in a marketing apprentice and that apprentice was able to bring you a person who donated a hundred thousand dollars, was it worth the investment? If they create a system where they're posting your social media and that's getting you the visibility and that puts you in front of a funder, is that worth the investment? 

Speaker 2 (07:55):

I've told you before, nonprofit does not mean no profit. You have to invest into your organization, invest into those things, i.e. marketing, that's going to then give you a return on your investment. So think about that. But in the event that you're saying, Amber, I just don't have it. Acadium has this portal where you can do a request as long as the request is five hours or less. So if you have a project and it's gonna take less than five hours, you put it up there. And guess what? All of these different freelancers are going to submit something so that you can use it. All you have to do in return is give them feedback, for free. So think about it. If you needed a Giving Tuesday campaign, you posted in this portal, five people give you different ideas. You can use one, two, or all five. 

Speaker 2 (08:56):

And all you have to do in return is give them feedback. Now, full disclosure, when you pay for something free, there's a possibility, right? But there are some talented people out there and they have switching careers. They just need to build up their portfolio. So you can take advantage of this opportunity until you can create enough money to buy a person, not buy a person, <laugh>, buy the services of a freelance person to do the work consistently. Remember, we're taking a nontraditional approach to building out your organization. Are you going to focus on trying to secure all this money to hire somebody? Or are you going to strategically allocate funds so that you can generate more funds? That is the goal, right? So Acadium, I am going to put a link in my bio that's gonna take you straight to the page because of course that portal, you gotta dig for it. 

Speaker 2 (10:03):

So I wanna make sure that you can find it. So for those of you who are interested in just posting some things for free, and please make sure that you give them feedback. I went on there and it was just so rude. Some of these freelancers had posted their things and the people just took their ideas and ran. Let's make sure that we keep things reciprocal. The second thing I wanna share with you, I just mentioned one thing that you wanna do is to get people to come to your website. You want them to come to your website because you want them to see that you have amazing programs and that they can support you. Google has an Ad Grant program for nonprofits. If you are 501(c)3 and you meet a couple of qualifications, they will give you $10,000 worth of ads for free every month. 

Speaker 2 (10:59):

Nonprofits. Every month. Now I'm gonna tell you, as a for-profit consulting firm, that is amazing because I was paying $750 a month for ads, and that can be quite expensive. But Google has committed to the nonprofit community by giving you $10,000 worth of ads. So what that could do is that could put you a number one spot or that could blast you out to new potential customers, new potential funders. It's gonna give you the visibility that you need. People say, Oh, I don't have the time. You don't not have the time. That's a double negative, right? <laugh>, Google is giving you $10,000 worth of free ads so that you can increase your visibility. Now, here's the rub. They're just giving you the ads. Someone has to manage it. Who's gonna manage it? There are third party vendors out there. There's one out there called Project World Impact. 

Speaker 2 (12:06):

And what they do is they have three tiers. The first tier is $250. What they'll do is they'll set up the Google ad portal, they'll create the ads, they'll do whatever technical stuff they do to get you out on Google and all of that stuff for $250 a month. Again, I know my nonprofits are gonna say, I don't have $250 a month. So just so you know, that $750 was just for the ad spend. That wasn't for the management. So $750 was what I was spending. And then I had to pay an additional $450 just to manage it cuz I am not a technical person. So all you will be paying is $250 to potentially get people to come to your website and become donors. Remember, you're investing so that you can get a return on your investment. Now here's the thing, and I'm gonna be very clear about this. 

Speaker 2 (13:14):

Your results are gonna be based on the content on your website. If your website is janky, do not even waste your $250. You wanna make sure that you have a clear mission, a clear call to action that you've got measurable goals and objectives. You wanna make sure that your website is tight. If your website is a little shady and you're not sure if it's fund ready, go check me out www.amberwynn.net and I can help you get your website tight. I do a website audit and it'll tell you you need a stronger call to action. This is what a stronger call to action looks like. You need a mission. I will review your website first, make sure that you're funder ready and then you can move forward. And here's the thing, Project World Impact will manage it for $250. I am that person where I'm not trying to figure it out, I'm just gonna pay somebody who knows what they're doing so that I can get the results that I want. 

Speaker 2 (14:12):

So that's Amber Wynn. But under Acadium, they also have that portal so you can have them managing your different people because you can only do five hours, but if you get a freelancer to go in and manage your Google ad account, boom, there you go. So just two different alternatives for your marketing. Two resources that can allow you to do what you need to do as a business, which is promote, recruit, and solicit for funding, right?. So when you say, Well I can't do it, I don't have the time, or I don't have the money, you no longer have an excuse. There is a resource out there where you can either not pay, right? That's with the portal or you can pay a very small amount to do project based work. You can help somebody with their skills, improve their portfolio, and then we're just a win-win all around. Okay? So be sure to take a look in my bio cuz I'm gonna drop those two links. One for Acadium and the other for Project World Impact. And you can get your marketing on <affirmative> cause it's time. We are taking a nontraditional approach to marketing. But right now we're gonna pause for a station break and when we come back, Ask Amber. 

Speaker 4 (15:40):

Everyone's on social media these days taking photos of their food, following the latest influencers. But as a business, social can feel like a party you're not invited to. Some brands are out there sharing cool stuff, meeting new customers, and growing their business. So why not yours? With Hootsuite, you can join the party with one easy to use platform that grows with you and your popularity, schedule content in advance and see what's working across the social networks your customers use. You can also use Hootsuite with the tools and love like Google Drive, MailChimp, and Dropbox. Find new customers by joining in with conversations about your brand and automatically boosting your most popular posts to a wider audience. Easily create and publish stuff people will love by tracking trends and creating amazing content from a variety of sources and stock images. Then see the results of your social activity in one easy to understand report based on the numbers that matter to you. Hootsuite also helps you keep up with social, with access to free courses and articles that cover the latest trends, strategies, and tactics. Join the party. 

Speaker 2 (16:55):

Welcome back. You're On Air with Amber Wynn, your resident philanthrepreneur. And today we're talking about a Nontraditional Approach to Marketing, a series that I'm promoting because I feel like my nonprofit founders are getting stuck in that traditional approach to building out a nonprofit, which it keeps you in struggle mode because you think you're supposed to have a gala, but you can't have a gala because you don't have staff. You think you're supposed to get on TikTok and do a dance, you're not supposed to do that. So just looking at marketing from a different approach. Now it's time for you to ask me your most pressing questions. Ask Amber is a part of the segment where I make sure that I'm just in touch with what your needs are. I can talk about everything forever and always, but means nothing if it's not something that's meaningful to you. 

Speaker 2 (18:00):

So you can reach me on any of my socials and get in contact with me to ask me your questions. You can leave an audio on Anchor you can reach me on my website, my Instagram, my Facebook, my Twitter. Ask me your pressing questions. It can be anonymous if you want. So today's question is from Aisha in Compton. Hi Amber, this is Aisha from Compton. Thank you Aisha for reaching out to me. She actually sent me a direct email at amber@amberwynn.net. You say that you specialize in technical assistance and capacity building. What are those exactly, and how does what you do differ from other nonprofit consultants? Great question. So technical assistance is a buzzword, and capacity building is a buzzword that's saturating the airwaves nowadays. Sort of like back in the nineties when they created at risk, then everybody became at risk. So technical assistance from a regular consulting perspective is when a consultant with expertise comes in and helps to increase a skillset of the organization. 

Speaker 2 (19:16):

Capacity building is when a nonprofit consultant comes in and helps to streamline processes so that the founder has more bandwidth to work. Not that the founder does more work but has more bandwidth. So the difference between me and them is me. <laugh>, I tell you, I've done everything from emptying the trash to giving out money as a funder, and I bring that experience as an executive director, as a grant writer, as a grant reviewer, a program officer, as a funder, as a media outreach director. All of that experience makes me different than my competitors. Nine times outta 10, you're gonna get a consultant who specializes in just one thing and they're gonna be great at it. And that's amazing if that's all you need. But for example, when I work with my clients I can give the perspective of an executive director and a funder and everybody can't do that. 

Speaker 2 (20:21):

The other thing is I'm very aware of the challenges of nonprofit organizations from under-resourced communities. I'm from an under-resource community. I've come up in under resource communities, and so I just approach things a little bit differently. Sometimes consultants will come in and say, Oh, all you need to do is X, Y, and Z and that X, Y, and Z for a nonprofit in an under-resourced community, it's gonna take them seven steps to get to that. So I don't come in with that lens. I come in saying, you can increase your capacity. Meaning when I'm talking about increasing the capacity for a nonprofit, I wanna help them streamline their processes so that they do less. I'm not saying, okay, we've automated this and we've removed that so that you can do more work. No, no, no. For me, it's automated this, we've given this over to a staff member or a volunteer. Now you can have some work life balance. Now you can have some freedom. People tend to think with capacity, we streamline this, so now I have more time to do more things. That's not increasing capacity, that's increasing your workload and that doesn't help you as a nonprofit leader. So that's how I differ. 

Speaker 2 (21:42):

I think it's important for nonprofit leaders to have the support that they need and just like a therapist or just like a doctor, consultants are different and you've gotta get the one that really resonates with you. So take that into consideration. And Aisha, thank you so much for that question. I appreciate it. Now it's time for the best part of the episode, in my mind anyway. It's when I get to highlight a nonprofit out in the community and I feature nonprofits around the world. This one in particular the African Wildlife Foundation is doing some amazing work. So I wanted to also just let you know, just like with the Ask Amber, if you wanna have your nonprofit featured, be sure to reach out to me. My email is amber@amberwynn.net. All you need to do is provide me with a video that's two minutes or less and contact information because I wanna be sure that people know where to contact you after they see your amazing reel. All right, let's talk about the African Wildlife Foundation. It's the African Wildlife Foundation's belief that if Africa does not quickly and directly tackle issues surrounding conservation and development, while the continent is still in these formative stages of economic development, then the potential positive socioeconomic, political and environmental gains could be short-lived. Let's take a look at African Wildlife Foundation. 

Speaker 5 (23:14):

The African Wildlife Foundation invites you to see Africa and its wildlife as it's never been observed before. For the past 20 years, AWF has been crafting unique safari experiences that allow others to experience this continent we work tirelessly to conserve. With more than 60 years of service AWF focuses on wildlife conservation, land and habitat protection and community empowerment through African ownership. When you travel with us, you will see that the health of these ecosystems directly contributes to local communities. We're all vital to a growing Africa, a modern Africa. We each have a part to play. During your time with us, you'll experience firsthand the work we do. You'll see some of the methods and tools used to keep this planet livable for everyone. There's no preparing for how all inspiring it is to be among wildlife. Travel on our safari and wake up every day to the wild outside. Here at AWF, we turn passion into purpose. You will return with so much more than memories and spectacular photos. You will gain a deeper understanding about the importance of conserving these landscapes, the species within them and the communities that surround them. To travel with us is to travel with purpose.

Speaker 2 (25:05):

If you are interested in taking a safari, or you wanna support this amazing organization. Check them out at www.awf.org. All right. And now it's time for Amber's Mindset Minute. It's when you spend just a minute with me just to talk about a different perspective. And today, since we're talking about marketing, I wanted to focus on you are what you say you are. Quite often, I get pushback from my nonprofit founders and I get it, they're tired, they're frustrated, they are overworked. But I get pushback because I call them out on what is. As I mentioned earlier, I do a website audit because nonprofit funders aren't any different than you and I. The first thing that a funder's gonna do is to Google you. They're gonna look you up. So if your website is outdated, if your website doesn't reflect your impact, then they're gonna move on. So I will, I'll call you out and I'll say, Okay, why is your social media inactive? 

Speaker 2 (26:22):

You haven't posted since 2019. It's because I'm only one person and I can only do one thing. Got it? But if this is how the funder is gonna determine how they select you, meaning how are you engaging with your audience? Right now, they expect that to happen through social media. So I'm gonna call you out on that because this is an eight second society. Soon as they get to your website, if it looks raggedy, they're gonna move on. So I want to get you to be who you say you are. If you say that you're progressive, if you say that you're committed to the community, if you say that you're making a difference, then your website needs to reflect that. Your social media needs to reflect that. Otherwise don't say it because then it's just the opposite of what you say that you are. And it's just not a good look. 

Speaker 2 (27:19):

Today, I gave you a resource, Acadium, check the link in my bio where you can get some either free or low cost support to help bring your website up to date, to help strengthen your social media, seo social media posts, whatever you need to do. But remember, a nonprofit is a business. It's just a business with a philanthropic purpose. And so you have to do what you need to do to be competitive. There are always more applicants than there is money. And when a funder goes to look at your website and it doesn't reflect what you say in your proposal, you're gonna miss out on an opportunity. So, we're taking a nontraditional approach to marketing. We're taking a nontraditional, nontraditional approach to a lot of things over the next couple of weeks. But just think about that. When you Google somebody and you're like, mm, da da da da da da da. 

Speaker 2 (28:22):

They're doing the same thing to you. And we don't want that to happen. I want you to get funded. I want your funding to be consistent, and I want you to live into that mission, the reason why you started your nonprofit. So yeah, that's all I got for you today, <laugh>. Cause y'all know I can go on and on and on, but I know you get what I'm saying, right? Alright. So next week we're gonna have another nontraditional approach to … But until then, make sure that you subscribe. If you found anything that I've said helpful to somebody in the community, be sure to share my post. Make sure you get an alert so when the next one comes out, you're ready to listen and tune in next week. And I want you to take care of yourself, like you take care of your community. Talk to you soon guys. 

Speaker 1 (29:15):

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe and leave a review on iTunes. Head over to www.amberwynn.net/podcast for the links and resources mentioned in today's podcast to see you next time.