[This book review originally appeared in Civic Intersection, August 18, 2010.]
Kivi Leroux Miller advises readers in the preface of her terrific book, The Nonprofit Marketing Guide: High-Impact, Low-Cost Ways to Build Support for Your Good Cause, that early in her career as a consultant she found that communications and marketing professionals at small nonprofit organizations were swamped. So she stepped in to take on additional roles (such as digitally refining photographs and designing websites), gaining experience as – in effect – a “nonprofit marketing department of one.”
She mastered this feat through trial and error: fearless experimentation and investing – hit or miss – in software, handbooks, and training classes. She has written her book to make that journey – learning to excel as a nonprofit marketing department of one – simpler, and less hit or miss, for communications and marketing professionals at small nonprofits.
The Nonprofit Marketing Guide is a pleasure to read. The writing is lively and inviting. The presentation is clear and accessible throughout. The book is wonderfully well organized – with a well grounded focus on the practical, while the index and detailed headings in the table of contents combine to make it a ready reference manual for the harried professional.
Every chapter in this step by step guidebook is replete with insights drawn from real world experience. Ms. Miller provides counsel on strategic planning, nuts and bolts advice on tactics, and clear context to give a big picture view that makes the topics comprehensible.
She explains why marketing (a word that Ms. Miller acknowledges many readers will not find appealing) is more than communicating, more than listening. It is an integral element in creating and delivering programs and services. “When you do marketing right, it helps you achieve your core mission in more powerful, effective, and efficient ways.”
Among the many topics discussed in this comprehensive guide: Defining your target audience; communicating with distinct groups within that audience; crafting a message with a simple, specific call to action; and becoming an accomplished storyteller. Ms. Miller explains what you can do on your own; what – and how – you might delegate to a board member or other volunteer; and what you simply can’t do in-house. She shows you how to wade into social media without getting overwhelmed by it. She helps you answer this critical question, “Should you eliminate your print newsletter?” And she explains why effective electronic communication is not just distributing your print newsletter via email.
I have worked in the nonprofit sector in development – mostly in annual giving and major gifts – for more than 18 years. While I have had a hand in crafting and refining appeals, proposals, case statements, and other communications, my professional experience is in fund raising, not communications or marketing. I read Kivi Leroux Miller’s Nonprofit Marketing Guide to broaden my horizons. I gained a more thorough understanding of strategies and tactics of marketing circa 2010 – and a stronger sense of the demands confronting small nonprofits from a critical vantage point.
As the book notes, everyone on staff at a small nonprofit – if only because they talk about their work and the activities of their organization – is a marketer. Nonprofit newcomers and veterans in marketing, communications, and other areas will learn much from this book. I would certainly recommend The Nonprofit Marketing Guide to fund raisers who work elbow to elbow with communications or marketing directors at small nonprofits.
The Nonprofit Marketing Guide: High-Impact, Low-Cost Ways to Build Support for Your Good Cause (The Jossey-Bass Nonprofit Guide Series) by Kivi Leroux Miller; forward by Katya Andresen. Ms. Miller has a popular blog.