The pandemic has changed the world; nonprofits are changing too.

By Kyle Schnurbusch, Strategy Director

Nonprofits have had to adapt since the beginning of the pandemic, and many of those adaptations have served to allow nonprofits to not only survive but thrive over the past two years. As we’ve adjusted to the new normal, there are emerging marketing trends that not only serve to address the unique challenges of the pandemic, but allow nonprofits to leverage the new landscape to successfully market themselves and build community among donors. Here are the top three nonprofit marketing trends for 2022:

Increasing nonprofit brand awareness

Past years, nonprofits have prioritized engagement and conversation within their existing donor base. However, they have minimized the importance of awareness strategies that introduce nonprofits’ brands and impact to new people. Moving into 2022, nonprofits are looking to grow and serve more people and realizing the need for awareness to expand their donor and client audiences. Define your message for key audiences and elevate your brand creative to share in a variety of media channels, including digital, traditional and in-person, to reach your target audience. Create a media plan, structured by flights focused around key events. People need to see your message six to eight times to build familiarity and trust, which can move them into more meaningful engagement paths such as volunteering, donating and becoming clients.

Building community from a distance

It’s important to ensure that donors stay connected to your nonprofit’s mission and to each other virtually, even as things reopen and people adopt the mindset that the pandemic is over. The successes we’ve had during the pandemic creating digital opportunities will not go away. Nonprofits will need to continue hosting digital meet-ups to provide updates, recognize donors and have fun with their community. They will also need to include first-hand client testimonials in communications to further their impact. Finally, nonprofits need to provide value through resource sharing for donors and supporters to stay involved even if not fully in-person.

Reaching young audiences

There are new and compelling opportunities and channels through which nonprofits can reach young audiences. One thing nonprofits will prioritize is presenting advocacy, ambassadorship and volunteer opportunities for younger supporters not ready to give financially but interested in activism and volunteerism, which has changed shape due to social media. Nonprofits will need to prioritize in-platform giving tools on Instagram and Facebook, along with utilizing video fundraising through leveraging “stories” on social media such as TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.

Let us help you navigate these evolving trends; contact us to discuss how we can help you.