STEP 1

Audit Your Past Nonprofit Marketing Efforts

As with any initiative you take on, it’s always best to look back on our successes and shortcomings. That way, we’re not starting from scratch and repeating those same mistakes. So, before developing a new marketing plan, we need to take a look at past marketing efforts to determine what’s worked (and not worked).

To conduct this type of analysis, draft a square that’s segmented into four quadrants, each devoted to a particular element of SWOT. Then, list different points under each heading that pertain to each. Here’s what each quadrant refers to:

• Strengths: Anything you list here should describe what your organization excels at and separates it from competitors. This might be strong brand awareness, unique services, a loyal base of volunteers and so on.

• Weaknesses: This is anything that prevents you from operating at maximum capacity. This might be inadequate revenue, vacant staff positions, a poor digital presence and so on.

• Opportunities: These are favorable external factors that could give your organization a leg up over the competition. This might include things like company sponsorships or recent legislation that positively affects your area of expertise.

• Threats: These are negative external factors that are out of your organization’s control. For instance, program costs are increasing, or there’s an effort to discredit your organization.