2 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template

Published by Prosper Strategies

116 W. Illinois St. 3E-B Chicago, Illinois 60654

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, this publication may not be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in its entirety or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Design by Prosper Strategies. It may be duplicated and used as a template as long as changes are not made to the original document. Visit our website at www.prosper-strategies.com.

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

3 of 77

For a surprising number of organizations, the answer to that question is no.

Maybe you’ve been too busy responding to day-to-day marketing needs to take the time to focus on strategy. Perhaps you haven’t developed a marketing plan because you aren’t sure where to begin or you aren’t convinced that anyone outside of your department would even care. Or maybe you have developed a plan, but it functions as little more than a laundry list of tasks and tactics. It’s not aligned with your organization’s strategic plan, and it’s not advancing your mission, at least not in a way you can measure.

No matter which of these camps you fall into, you can’t deny the fact that the absence of an effective marketing plan is holding your organization back from achieving its full potential. You simply can’t stay focused on what matters most to mission and responsibly advocate for the budget you need to achieve your goals without one.

That’s why we created this template. It is designed to introduce you to our proven 4-D System for marketing planning, which is tailored to the realities of the modern nonprofit. Work through its pages and you’ll have the starting point for a marketing plan that can truly transform your nonprofit’s mission impact. Let’s dive in.

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

77%

of nonprofits say they do not have an effective marketing plan in place*

* Survey during Prosper Strategies nonprofit marketing planning webinar, February 2018

Yes

Does your nonprofit have an effective, mission-aligned�marketing plan in place?

77%

I don’t know

18%

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

4 of 77

Through our work with hundreds of nonprofits, Prosper Strategies has developed a proven 4-D Process for nonprofit marketing planning and execution, Now, we’ve built it into a 4-D System you can use yourself at your own organization.

It includes the following four phases, which we’ll introduce you to through the pages of this template:

Discover data, goals and messaging that will serve as the foundation for your marketing plan�
Design the campaigns and tactical approach necessary to achieve your goals�
Drive your plan into action with a marketing calendar and clear accountability�
Deliver results, track them with a KPI dashboard and share them with your team

While we can’t possibly share everything we do with our clients in each of these phases within this template, we can introduce you to some of the most important components from each and give you a starting point from which you can begin rethinking your marketing plan. We’ll also show you areas where you can “go deeper” through a partnership with our team.

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

An Introduction to the 4-D System

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

5 of 77

Part 1:

Discover

Discover the messages, data and goals that will serve as the foundation for your marketing plan.

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

6 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

1.0 | Design

1.0 | Discover

Mission &

Vision

1.0 | Discover

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

7 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

Mission and Vision

1.0 | Design

Every part of the marketing plan you’re about to create must stem from your mission and vision.

A mission and vision are so much more than just statements. They’re the grounding principles that define the future your nonprofit is working to create and the work you’re doing every day to get closer to that reality.

They determine the strategic priorities your organization sets, and those strategic priorities guide where you should direct your marketing and communications efforts. It’s all inextricably tied.

In the pages that follow, simply write your nonprofit’s mission statement and vision statement. This will ground everyone who interacts with this plan in what matters most.

1.0 | Discover

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

8 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

Our Organization’s Vision Statement

1.0 | Design

1.0 | Discover

Write your nonprofit’s vision statement here.

A vision statement expresses the future you hope to create as a result of accomplishing your mission. It is a guiding statement that should inspire your supporters and provide perspective on what the world would look like if you achieved all your goals.

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

9 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

Our Organization’s Mission Statement

1.0 | Design

1.0 | Discover

Write your nonprofit’s mission statement here.

A mission statement expresses what your organization is doing now to bring your vision into reality.

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

10 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

GO DEEPER: Mission and Vision

1.0 | Design

1.0 | Discover

This is more than just messaging work. It’s strategic planning and organizational development work that will guide the direction of your entire organization.

“

”

This template assumes you already have an effective mission and vision in place, but many organizations don’t.

Many of our clients come to us with mission and vision statements that are outdated, ineffective, or misaligned with their current strategic direction.

When that happens, we facilitate mission and vision workshops that help our clients discover truly powerful mission and vision statements they’ll use for many years to come. This is more than just messaging work. It’s strategic planning and organizational development work that will guide the direction of your entire organization.

If your mission and vision need a tune up, contact us here to learn more about our Mission and Vision Workshops.

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

11 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

1.0 | Design

1.0 | Discover

Marketing

Audit

1.0 | Discover

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

12 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

Marketing Audit

1.0 | Discover

Before you begin to determine where you’re going from a marketing perspective, it’s essential to evaluate where you’ve been.

Whether your nonprofit’s marketing function is robust and sophisticated or small and nascent, you surely have access to at least some marketing data and insights that will inform your plans moving forward.

On the following pages, we’ve left space for you to fill in information about your web traffic, social media engagement, email engagement, and overall marketing activities. These are some of the things that most nonprofits are able to audit, even if they’ve never had a formal marketing plan. We suggest auditing these areas with a consistent set of dates in mind (typically the most recent full calendar year).

�Feel free to skip (and delete) any pages you’re unable to fill in, and add additional pages for other areas you’d like to assess, such as PR, events and community outreach.

For each area of assessment, we suggest you highlight a key observation based on the data you’re sharing. Doing so will make this section of your marketing plan easier for others to digest.

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

13 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

Marketing Audit: 2017 Activities

(Successful and Unsuccessful)

1.0 | Discover

To fill in this page:

Consider the key activities you or your marketing team spent time on in the last year and write them down the left column. Specific campaigns and events make sense to include here. So do ongoing efforts like blogging or an engagement with an SEO consultant.

Then, for each activity, give a simple yes or no answer to the question “was it successful?”

Finally, in the third column, explain why it was or was not successful. Try to use metrics where possible to back up your answer.

This will help you begin to see patterns and identify things you should stop doing. You may want to duplicate this page numerous times.

Note: you can come back to this page and add more insights after you complete the rest of the audit.

Marketing Activity	Was it successful (Yes/No)?	Why? What metrics back up your answer?
Launched volunteer newsletter	Yes	Click rate on e-newsletter version is 44% Volunteer return rate is up 21% over 2016

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

14 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

Marketing Audit: 2017 Web Traffic

1.0 | Discover

Unique Web Traffic : ##,###

Total Web Traffic : ##,###

Insert a screenshot of a graph from Google Analytics here.

To fill this page in:

Go to your nonprofit’s Google Analytics account�
Navigate to the audience tab�
Set your desired date range (and compare to previous period if possible)�
Look at the users number for unique traffic as it shows how many individual users were on your site�
Look at the sessions tab for total web traffic as it shows how many total sessions were initiated during that time period�
Compare to the previous year to fill in the highlight area below the graphs and give context to changes

Unique web traffic grew more than

##%

between 2016 and 2017

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

15 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

Marketing Audit: 2017 Web Traffic Sources

1.0 | Discover

Biggest source of web traffic: fill in

To fill in this page:

Go to your nonprofit’s �Google Analytics account�
Navigate to the acquisition > overview tab�
Set your desired date range (and compare to previous period if possible)�
Observe which sources, such as organic search, social media or email drove the most web traffic�
Compare how traffic from that source or other, �previously active sources has changed over the last year in order to fill in the highlight area below the graph

Organic search drove more web traffic than any other source in 2017 and grew by

##%

between 2016 and 2017.

Insert the “top channels” graph from Google Analytics here

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

16 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

Marketing Audit: 2017 Most Popular Web Content

1.0 | Discover

Most popular page on our website: fill in

To fill in this page:

Go to your nonprofit’s �Google Analytics account�
Navigate to behavior > site content > content drilldown�
Set your desired date range �
Rank by pageviews by clicking the arrow on top of that column and make sure it’s pointing downward. Your 10 most popular pages will display in descending order. �
If your most popular page is something other than your homepage, add some interpretation about why. If it is your homepage, add some interpretation about other pages that did well.

Page name was the most popular page on our site in 2017.

This is likely because fill in with your interpretation here.

List your ten most popular pages in order of total traffic here. If possible, include links, not just page names. List the number of users (unique visits) next to each

10.

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

17 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

Marketing Audit: 2017 Most Popular Web Forms

1.0 | Discover

Most popular form on our website: fill in

To fill in this page:

Your organization likely has some sort of contact us form on its website. You might also be using forms to capture newsletter subscribers, to gather donor information, or to grant access to a download (such as your annual report)

Depending on how your website is set up, these form completions might be tracked on the backend of your website, or in a third party tool like Mailchimp

�Navigate to your tool, set the date parameters to your desired date range and then list your most popular forms. Add some interpretation below the list.

Form name was the most popular form on our site in 2017.

This is likely because fill in with your interpretation here.

List your five most popular web forms in order of total completions here. List the number of submissions next to each.

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

18 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

Marketing Audit: 2017 Most Engaging Emails

1.0 | Discover

Most clicked email: fill in

To fill in this page:

Navigate to your email tool (Constant Contact, Mailchimp, Hubspot etc.)�
Navigate to sent emails or reporting tab�
Set the date parameters to your desired date range�
Sort emails from that time period by clicks or click rate�
List your five most engaging emails, from most clicked to least, here�
Add some interpretation about why those emails performed well below the list�

Note: we suggest tracking clicks or click rate rather than opens or open rate to get a clearer sense of actual email engagement

Email name was the most popular email we sent in 2017.

This is likely because fill in with your interpretation here.

List your five most clicked emails in order of most clicks to least here. List the number of clicks or the click rate next to each one.

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

19 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

1.0 | Discover

Most active social network: fill in

To fill in this page:

Navigate to each of your social networks and note the total follower/page like numbers�
Then, log in as an admin and navigate to insights or analytics to see how much each community has grown over your targeted time period

We also suggest running a trial of True Social Metrics to determine overall engagement rates.

Note: you may have other channels that do not appear here. Edit this page accordingly.

Marketing Audit: 2017 Most Active Social Channels

Total page likes: fill in

Page growth over last year: fill in

Total followers: fill in

Follower growth over last year: fill in

Total followers: fill in

Follower growth over last year: fill in

This network gets the most engagement/has the biggest community.

This is likely because fill in with your interpretation here.

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

20 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

Marketing Audit: 2017 SWOT

1.0 | Discover

To fill in this page:

Based on the audit you just conducted, analyze your organization’s biggest strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats from a marketing perspective.��We’ve included one example under each area.

This audit may be richer if you tap the rest of your marketing team or your leadership team for their take.

Strengths

Our web visit > contact conversion rate is very strong

Weaknesses

Our email database isn’t as well-segmented as it should be

Opportunities

Drive additional revenue by marketing our new social enterprise arm to the right targets

Threats

Increasing competition for donor dollars and attention

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

21 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

1.0 | Design

1.0 | Discover

Marketing Goals &

Priorities

1.0 | Discover

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

22 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

Marketing Goals and Priorities

1.0 | Discover

In the pages that follow, we’ll walk you through a process for using what you learned from your marketing assessment to set goals that align with your organization’s mission and strategic plan.

Through our work with hundreds of nonprofits, we’ve noticed a common mistake when it comes to setting marketing goals; most organizations set their marketing goals in a vacuum. They do not begin with their strategic plan and mission in mind and then set aligned marketing goals that will drive both forward.

As a result, they end up with goals that sound good on paper, but do not make a strategic and thoughtful use of the organization’s time, budget and brainpower.

This part of the Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template is designed to change that. First, it will help you come up with marketing goals that align with your strategic plan. Then, it will help you prioritize between those goals based on the size of your team and marketing budget.

While pages 23-33 are intended to be used workbook-style to help you narrow down your goals (and can be removed from this deck before it is shared with others) pages 34-39 are an overview of all your final goals and should remain within the final version of your marketing plan.

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

23 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

Marketing Goals and Priorities: �How Marketing Can Serve Each Organization-Wide Goal

1.0 | Discover

Organization-wide

Goal 1:

Fill in here

Ideas for ways marketing can advance this goal:

Fill in everything you can think of here, then come back and start trimming�the list when you reach pages 29-33.

Possible marketing goals:

Fill in here after you’ve crossed out items above (see page 29).

To fill in this page:

Find your organization’s strategic plan or other guiding document. Within it, you’ll likely find a set of organization-wide goals your leadership team and board have agreed upon. �
Start with your first organization-wide goal. Fill it in on the left column.�
In the top right column, brainstorm a list of ways marketing could advance that organizational goal. Don’t limit yourself here, just aim to generate as many ideas as possible. �
Repeat for each of your remaining organization-wide goals. �
Read the directions on page 29-33. Then, come back to these pages, eliminate some items in the top right box and summarize what remains into the bottom right box (possible marketing goals).

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

24 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

1.0 | Discover

Organization-wide

Goal 2:

Fill in here

Ideas for ways marketing can advance this goal:

Fill in everything you can think of here, then come back and start trimming the list when you reach pages 29-33.

Possible marketing goals:

Fill in here after you’ve crossed out items above (see page 29).

Marketing Goals and Priorities: �How Marketing Can Serve Each Organization-Wide Goal

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

25 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

1.0 | Discover

Organization-wide

Goal 3:

Fill in here

Ideas for ways marketing can advance this goal:

Fill in everything you can think of here, then come back and start trimming the list when you reach pages 29-33.

Possible marketing goals:

Fill in here after you’ve crossed out items above (see page 29).

Marketing Goals and Priorities: �How Marketing Can Serve Each Organization-Wide Goal

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

26 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

1.0 | Discover

Organization-wide

Goal 4:

Fill in here

Ideas for ways marketing can advance this goal:

Fill in everything you can think of here, then come back and start trimming the list when you reach pages 29-33.

Possible marketing goals:

Fill in here after you’ve crossed out items above (see page 29).

Marketing Goals and Priorities: �How Marketing Can Serve Each Organization-Wide Goal

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

27 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

1.0 | Discover

Organization-wide

Goal 5:

Fill in here

Ideas for ways marketing can advance this goal:

Fill in everything you can think of here, then come back and start trimming the list when you reach page 29-33.

Possible marketing goals:

Fill in here after you’ve crossed out items above (see page 29).

Marketing Goals and Priorities: �How Marketing Can Serve Each Organization-Wide Goal

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

28 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

Marketing Goals and Priorities: Narrow Down Your List

1.0 | Discover

Now, go back through pages 24-28, and begin crossing out items that fit the following criteria:

Our current team does not have the capacity or skill sets for this�
This will definitely cost far more than our budget will allow�
This would be nice to do, but it’s not essential to achieve our overall organizational goals right now

Your list will likely shrink considerably through this process. Once you’ve gotten it to a more manageable place, start grouping what remains into goal-focused statements in the bottom right box on pages 24-28. Target 3-5 goal statements per page.

You’ve heard it before, but your goal-focused statements should be SMART: specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and time-bound.

Let’s take a look at an example.

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

29 of 77

Discover

1.0 | Discover

The Marin County Humane Society is a no-kill shelter in California.

They have a simple strategic plan for their organization that lays out five high level, organization-wide goals, which you can see here. Your organization’s goals might look a lot like these, or they might look quite different

EXAMPLE

30 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

1.0 | Discover

Organization-wide

Goal 1:

Ideas for ways marketing can advance this goal:

Publish studies and educational content about the state of animal abuse in Marin county in a content library on our website and share through social media
Start a letter writing campaign to local elected officials about animal welfare policy issues (would require policy platform)
Pitch our Executive Director as a source to media any time there is a breaking news story about animal advocacy or welfare issues in the county
Host free community events focused on animal advocacy and pet owner education
Start a podcast about local animal issues
Get our Executive Director to speak at a TED Talk about animal welfare issues

Possible marketing goals:

Become a leading producer of content on local animal welfare and advocacy issues and reach at least 5% of Marin County residents with our various content formats in 2018�
Host one animal advocacy event per quarter and attract a sizeable group of the right people to each

EXAMPLE

Here’s a look at the brainstormed list the Marin Humane Society came up with for ways marketing can advance their first organizational goal,

You can also see what they crossed out due to budget and team constraints or due to the fact that, after brainstorming, they identified the item as “non-essential”. Finally, you can see how they summarized what remained into two possible marketing goals.

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

31 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

1.0 | Discover

Organization-wide

Goal 4:

Ideas for ways marketing can advance this goal:

Develop a comprehensive campaign focused on attracting qualified leads for our new social enterprise obedience school
Grow annual appeal to include more touchpoints
Send “happy home” stories to our most important donors at least monthly to encourage larger gifts
Do more with our social media and email to shift the balance of online and offline donors toward more online
Improve opportunities to give small gifts at every event
Develop advertising to drive growth of dog licensing revenue
Launch a large-scale capital campaign supported by local media

Possible marketing goals:

Advertise revenue generating services (obedience school, dog licensing) consistently throughout the year and drive at least a 5% increase in revenue across those two programs�
Hire one new part-time marketing staff person dedicated to donor communications with a focus on digital communications

EXAMPLE

Here’s another example for organizational goal 4.

As you can see, the Marin County Humane Society eliminated “nice to haves” and ideas they couldn’t realistically pursue with their current budget. Then, they summarized what remained into two key goals. Many of their desired activities related to online donor communication and marketing, but they did not have anyone on their staff with the necessary bandwidth or skills, so they identified making a hire focused on those areas one of their possible marketing goals.

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

32 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

Marketing Goals and Priorities: Rank What Remains

1.0 | Discover

Even after summarizing your remaining ideas into goals, you likely still have more possible marketing goals on your list than you can realistically achieve. Use this chart to set your priorities.

� List each remaining goal below	2. Potential impact on our organization’s mission and overall goals (1-10)	3. Likelihood it can actually be achieved in the upcoming year with existing team and resources (1-10)	��4. Measurability (1-10)	��5. Total

To fill in this page:

List your possible marketing goals from pages 24-28 down column�
Rank each on a scale of 1-10 based on the criteria in columns 2, 3 and 4�
For each row, total the numbers in columns 2-5 and write it in column 5�
Observe the ranked list that emerges. Items with the highest scores are your highest priorities�
To figure out how many total goals you should have for the year, multiply the number of people on your marketing team by 2. That’s a realistic number of goals to shoot for. For example, the Marin County Humane Society has a marketing team of 3, and therefore chose 6 marketing goals. Everything that ranked below 6 on this chart was tabled for later.

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

33 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

Marketing Goals and Priorities:

Set Your Final Goals

1.0 | Discover

Marketing Goal 1:

Fill in final marketing goal here

Corresponds with organizational goal:

Fill in the organizational goal this relates to here

Priority Level

To fill in this page:

List your highest ranked marketing goal from page 33 here�
Refine it if needed to ensure it is SMART�
List the organizational goal it corresponds with below it�
Repeat for your remaining goals, setting no more than 3 per person on your marketing team.

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

34 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

Marketing Goals and Priorities:

Set Your Final Goals

1.0 | Discover

Marketing Goal 2:

Fill in final marketing goal here

Corresponds with organizational goal:

Fill in the organizational goal this relates to here

Priority Level

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

35 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

Marketing Goals and Priorities:

Set Your Final Goals

1.0 | Discover

Marketing Goal 3:

Fill in final marketing goal here

Corresponds with organizational goal:

Fill in the organizational goal this relates to here

Priority Level

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

36 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

Marketing Goals and Priorities:

Set Your Final Goals

1.0 | Discover

Marketing Goal 4:

Fill in final marketing goal here

Corresponds with organizational goal:

Fill in the organizational goal this relates to here

Priority Level

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

37 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

Marketing Goals and Priorities:

Set Your Final Goals

1.0 | Discover

Marketing Goal 5:

Fill in final marketing goal here

Corresponds with organizational goal:

Fill in the organizational goal this relates to here

Priority Level

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

38 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

Marketing Goals and Priorities:

Set Your Final Goals

1.0 | Discover

Marketing Goal 6:

Fill in final marketing goal here

Corresponds with organizational goal:

Fill in the organizational goal this relates to here

Priority Level

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

39 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

GO DEEPER: Marketing Goals and Priorities

1.0 | Discover

These tools will help you set more realistic and achievable marketing goals and prioritize them so you don’t overwhelm your team or set yourself up for failure.

However, even with the right tools, it can sometimes be difficult to set your own, unbiased goals and accurately rank your priorities, especially when you’re intimately involved in the work that will result from them.

That’s why we go deeper than simply working through these worksheets with our clients. We scrutinize every goal they propose and help them determine if it’s actually the right one, and the most important one, for their organization’s overall strategic goals, mission and vision. We also challenge false beliefs about what can be accomplished within the current constraints of our clients’ teams and budgets. Sometimes, this results on scaling back and getting more focused. Other times, it results in thinking bigger and pushing the boundaries.

Learn more about our strategic planning work here.

Sometimes, this results on scaling back and getting more focused. Other times, it results in thinking bigger and pushing the boundaries.

“

”

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

40 of 77

Part 2:

Design

Design the messaging that will weave through all your marketing and communications activities.

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

41 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

1.0 | Design

1.0 | Discover

Key Stakeholders

2.0 | Design

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

42 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

Key Stakeholders

1.0 | Design

Who are the people that influence your organization and its mission most?

Are they your program participants? Individual donors? Board members? Volunteers? Your local community members? The general public is NOT a sufficient answer to this question.

Getting a sense of your target stakeholders, and then working to develop a deep understanding of how they think, feel and act is a critical part of building an effective nonprofit marketing plan.

On the pages that follow, we’ve included a set of key stakeholder persona profile worksheets you can use to develop profiles of your most important stakeholders. These profiles can be used to help your staff put themselves in the shoes of your target stakeholders before interacting with them or developing marketing materials that are intended to reach them.

There are many ways to gather insights to inform your personas. You might start by thinking about 2-3 people already in your community who represent your ideal or typical stakeholder from a certain group, and then blend their attributes together to develop a fictional persona. Another popular technique involves joining Facebook or LinkedIn groups that your personas are active on and observing their interests and concerns.

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

43 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

2.0 | Design

What action(s) do we want them to take related to our organization?

What barriers might hold them back from taking those actions?

What do they know about us now?

What do we wish they knew about us that they don’t?

How do they influence other key stakeholders?

Why do they care about our organization? Why would they choose to interact with us?

Where do they find their information?

�

What marketing and communications channels are they most likely to pay attention to?

�

What are their challenges? What keeps this person up at night?

Age:

Gender identity:

Job:

Relationship to �our organization:

Key Stakeholder Personas: Stakeholder 1 Name

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

44 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

2.0 | Design

What action(s) do we want them to take related to our organization?

What barriers might hold them back from taking those actions?

What do they know about us now?

What do we wish they knew about us that they don’t?

How do they influence other key stakeholders?

Why do they care about our organization? Why would they choose to interact with us?

Where do they find their information?

�

What marketing and communications channels are they most likely to pay attention to?

�

What are their challenges? What keeps this person up at night?

Age:

Gender identity:

Job:

Relationship to �our organization:

Key Stakeholder Personas: Stakeholder 2 Name

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

45 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

2.0 | Design

What action(s) do we want them to take related to our organization?

What barriers might hold them back from taking those actions?

What do they know about us now?

What do we wish they knew about us that they don’t?

How do they influence other key stakeholders?

Why do they care about our organization? Why would they choose to interact with us?

Where do they find their information?

�

What marketing and communications channels are they most likely to pay attention to?

�

What are their challenges? What keeps this person up at night?

Age:

Gender identity:

Job:

Relationship to �our organization:

Key Stakeholder Personas: Stakeholder 3 Name

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

46 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

2.0 | Design

What action(s) do we want them to take related to our organization?

What barriers might hold them back from taking those actions?

What do they know about us now?

What do we wish they knew about us that they don’t?

How do they influence other key stakeholders?

Why do they care about our organization? Why would they choose to interact with us?

Where do they find their information?

�

What marketing and communications channels are they most likely to pay attention to?

�

What are their challenges? What keeps this person up at night?

Age:

Gender identity:

Job:

Relationship to �our organization:

Key Stakeholder Personas: Stakeholder 4 Name

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

47 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

GO DEEPER: Key Stakeholders

1.0 | Design

Developing a deep understanding of your key stakeholders is a critical first step in the design process.

As you’ll see in the pages that follow, it allows you to develop segmented key messages that resonate with each group your organization needs to influence in order to achieve its goals.

You probably already know a fair amount about your target stakeholders from your direct experience with them. However, if you’d like to go deeper and conduct primary research about your stakeholders, there are several methods you can explore, including:

Stakeholder surveys
Stakeholder focus groups
Stakeholder interviews
Market segmentation analysis studies
Stakeholder journey mapping

We employ a mix of these research techniques with our clients in order to inform their stakeholder profiles with deep data and insights. Learn more about our strategic planning process here.

If you’d like to go deeper and conduct primary research about your stakeholders, there are several methods you can explore.

“

”

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

48 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

1.0 | Design

1.0 | Discover

Key Messages

2.0 | Design

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

49 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

Key Messages

1.0 | Design

Key messages are the main points you need your stakeholders to hear, understand and remember about your organization. They create meaning behind the work you do, the issues you want to discuss, and the actions you want people to take as you work to advance your mission.

Many people at your organization likely have their own personal version of key messages they use in their day-to-day work, whether they realize it or not. They refer to these “de facto” key messages when meeting new prospective donors, welcoming a visitors and clients to your facilities, training new team members and chatting with friends at cocktail parties.

But there is a problem with these personal, informal key messages your staff and volunteers are using. They’re often inaccurate and they’re always inconsistent. Your team members bring their own personal experiences into the way they talk about your organization, but it’s not always easy for them to discuss the bigger picture behind what you do and why.

That’s why we always suggest our clients develop a set of organization-wide key messages as part of their marketing plans. As you might expect, these messages inform marketing elements like your website and marketing activities like media interviews. But they do much more than that. They also give everyone on your team guidance that helps them portray your organization accurately and consistently.

On the pages that follow, we’ll guide you through the process of creating a set of key messages segmented by stakeholder group. You can refer to these messages and loosely weave them into future marketing efforts. You can also distribute your final messaging matrix to all your staff and ask them to refer to it in their daily interactions.

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

50 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

Key Messages

1.0 | Design

Master Key Messages	Target Stakeholder 1	Target Stakeholder 2	Target Stakeholder 3
Key Message 1
Key Message 2
Key Message 3
Key Message 4

To fill in this page:

In the boxes in the first column, write four “master” key messages that represent the four most important points you need your stakeholders to hear, understand and remember about your organization. This might take quite a few tries to get right.�
Once you’ve solidified your “master” key messages, write the names of your target stakeholders in the boxes in the first row of the table�
Then, in each remaining box, develop a version of the key message on the left that will resonate with the stakeholder above. Keep your stakeholder profiles in mind as you do, and aim to get at what each stakeholder cares about most. Some messages may be tweaked only slightly for each stakeholder, while others will have three (or more) very different versions.

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

51 of 77

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

GO DEEPER: Beyond Key Messages

1.0 | Design

While key messages are the most essential brand messaging element we develop for the nonprofits we work with, they’re definitely not the only one.

Other brand messaging elements we work with our clients on include:

A positioning statement: a statement that clearly defines why your nonprofit exists, the problems you are addressing, the impact you are aiming to make�
A point of difference: the aspect of your nonprofit’s offering that is relatively distinct from the offerings of competitors (and yes, your nonprofit does have competitors)�
Core values: ways of being that define what your organization stands for and highlight an expected set of internal behaviors and attitudes.

Together with your mission, vision, and key messages, these brand messaging elements serve as the foundation for every story you tell about your nonprofit and every marketing touchpoint you create.

To learn more about the work we do around brand messaging in the Design phase of our process, visit our website.

Together with your mission, vision, and key messages, these brand messaging elements serve as the foundation for every story you tell about your nonprofit and every marketing touchpoint you create.

“

”

The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template ©

52 of 77

1.0 | Design

1.0 | Discover

Tactical Selection

2.0 | Design

53 of 77

Tactical Selection

1.0 | Design

Ah, the fan favorite of the design phase: tactical selection. Most of our clients want to jump right into this part of the marketing planning process. However, it is absolutely essential to do the work detailed in the previous pages before you can successfully tackle this part of the Design phase.

Now that you know what you’re trying to achieve (your goals), who you’re trying to achieve it with (your key stakeholders), and what you need to say to them (your key messages), you can choose the vehicles to make it happen (your tactics).

On the next page, you’ll find our tactical selection funnel. This funnel illustrates the four phases most stakeholders move through when deciding to take a desired action like volunteering, donating, or signing up for one of your programs or services. Within each phase, we’ve given you a menu of tactics to choose from. While this list is not comprehensive, it represents the tactics we’ve found to be most successful for most nonprofits. You can feel free to add to the list based on your own experiences.

Study the funnel, and think about which tactics are most likely to help you achieve the goals you established on pages 35-39. Then, choose a few tactics to focus on in each phase. For most nonprofits, we recommend no less than one and no more than three tactics per phase.

As you work through this step, you might notice that most (if not all) of the tactics you’re currently using fall into the “awareness” phase of the funnel. That’s pretty common, and it’s part of why this exercise is so important. It will help you ensure that you’re selecting the right mix of tactics to move your stakeholders all the way through to a desired action.

54 of 77

Tactical Selection

1.0 | Design

To fill in this page:

Study the funnel, and think about which tactics are most likely to help you achieve the goals you established on pages 34-39�.
Circle the tactics you want to focus on in each phase�
Add in any tactics you know you want to pursue that are not already on our list��Note: For most nonprofits,, we recommend no less than one and no more than three tactics per phase. Including at least one tactic from each phase will ensure you take your stakeholders all the way through to a desired action and turn them into advocates for your organization.

55 of 77

Tactical Planning

1.0 | Design

Now that you know what tactics you’re going to use to achieve your goals, it’s time to decide exactly what you’ll do with each one.

We ask our clients to get as strategic and detailed as possible in this phase. For example, if you choose social media as your tactic, we’d ask you to do more than detail how many times a day you are going to post and on which channels. We’d ask you to identify private Facebook and LinkedIn groups you could interact with, to define the balance of paid and organic content you plan to strike, to figure out who would be responsible for interacting with others on social media each day and more.

On the pages that follow, you’ll find tactical planning worksheets that ask six important questions about each of the tactics you’ve selected:

What will you do with this tactic?
When will those activities take place?
Why is this important?
Who will be responsible?
Budget; how much do we plan to spend?
How does this tie to our organization’s marketing goals?

56 of 77

1.0 | Design

1.0 | Discover

Tactical Planning

2.0 | Design

57 of 77

2.0 | Design

Tactical Planning: Tactic 1

What:

When:

Why:

Who:

Budget:�

How this contributes to marketing goals:

58 of 77

2.0 | Design

Tactical Planning: Tactic 2

What:

When:

Why:

Who:

Budget:�

How this contributes to marketing goals:

59 of 77

2.0 | Design

Tactical Planning: Tactic 3

What:

When:

Why:

Who:

Budget:�

How this contributes to marketing goals:

60 of 77

2.0 | Design

Tactical Planning: Tactic 4

What:

When:

Why:

Who:

Budget:�

How this contributes to marketing goals:

61 of 77

2.0 | Design

Tactical Planning: Tactic 5

What:

When:

Why:

Who:

Budget:�

How this contributes to marketing goals:

62 of 77

2.0 | Design

Tactical Planning: Tactic 6

What:

When:

Why:

Who:

Budget:�

How this contributes to marketing goals:

63 of 77

2.0 | Design

Tactical Planning - Example

EXAMPLE

64 of 77

GO DEEPER: Tactical Planning

1.0 | Design

While the previous section outlines some of the tactics we’ve found to be most successful for nonprofits, you may have noticed that it doesn’t give you instructions about what each tactic entails or what you should do with it.

That is intentional. There are two reasons we kept extensive tactical instructions from this guide. First, marketing changes quickly. The things we’d recommend today for tactics like content marketing or SEO might be drastically different than what we’d recommend next year or even next quarter. Second, tactical planning is a highly creative and strategic exercise that can’t be effectively taught within the format of this template. It requires brainstorming, exploration and iterative development.

In our work with our clients, tactical planning typically takes several weeks and involves much more than simply filling out the worksheets here. It also involves the development of campaign concepts, stakeholder journey maps and more.

�If you want to go deeper, you can learn more about our strategic planning process here.

Tactical planning is a highly creative and strategic exercise.

“

”

65 of 77

Part 3:

Drive

Drive your goals forward through marketing tactics and campaigns

66 of 77

1.0 | Design

1.0 | Discover

Marketing Calendar

3.0 | Drive

67 of 77

Marketing Action Calendar

3.0 | Drive

This is the part of the marketing planning process where most nonprofits stop short.

They make it through goal setting, messaging development and tactical planning, but they fail to put the tools and systems in place to ensure their plans will actually be seen through.

That’s where our Marketing Action Calendar comes in. It gives you a space to plan out your marketing activities in fine detail, month-by-month. It also gives you a space to define who is accountable for what.

On the pages that follow, you’ll find a four-quarter marketing calendar that you can fill in with your own plans. Don’t feel that you have to take action on each tactic each month. Rather, stagger your activities in a way is manageable for your team and aligned with your goals.

You’ll notice the marketing calendar also has a spot to define messaging themes on a quarterly or monthly basis. These themes might relate to your key messages, or they might relate to something more timely like an upcoming event or current news item. The focus you choose should align with your goals, and you should then weave it loosely through all your activities, from your blog posts to your email campaigns.

Finally, be sure to fill in the final row (how will we know if we’re successful this month?) with details on the measurables you need to hit or the things you need to achieve each month to keep moving your goals forward.

68 of 77

Marketing Action Calendar

3.0 | Drive

	JANUARY	FEBRUARY	MARCH
Quarterly Messaging Theme
Tactic 1 Activities + Responsibilities
Tactic 2 Activities + Responsibilities
Tactic 3 Activities + Responsibilities
Tactic 4 Activities + Responsibilities
Tactic 5 Activities + Responsibilities
How will we know if we’re successful this month?

69 of 77

Going Deeper: Beyond the Marketing Action Calendar

3.0 | Drive

For most nonprofits, the Marketing Action Calendar is only one pieces of a bigger puzzle.

“

For most nonprofits, the Marketing Action Calendar is only one piece of a bigger puzzle that must be completed to ensure that marketing goals become a reality.

We also regularly help our clients with the following in the Drive phase:

Setting up a project management system, where items on the calendar get broken down into clear tasks and to-dos with owners and due dates;�
Implementing an accountability meeting system to keep their team on track with marketing priorities and ensure everyone is held accountable to what they say they’ll do;�
Tactical execution, where we serve as an extension of our clients’ marketing teams and execute on some or even most of the tactics in their marketing plan on an ongoing, long-term basis. This can be a great option for organizations with significant skill and capacity gaps, as well as those that simply want to take their marketing efforts to the next level.

Learn more about our range of execution services here.

”

70 of 77

Part 4:

Deliver

Deliver your marketing results and measure your successes.

71 of 77

Marketing Measurement

4.0 | Deliver

In the Deliver phase, the focus is on one thing and one thing only: delivering results that move your mission forward.

This is where the rubber meets the road and you determine if all the tactics you’re pursuing and activities you’re engaging in are actually helping you achieve your goals. But don’t worry, the Deliver phase doesn’t exist to pressure you to perform. It exists so that you can learn what’s not working quickly, and stop doing it before it becomes a problem. It also exists to help you identify successes and quickly reallocate your budget and attention to the things that are working best.

On the pages that follow, you’ll define your approach to marketing measurement.

Some of the goals you set back on pages 34-39 might have had clear, measurable targets associated with them. Others probably did not. In this section, you’ll define a measurable target performance indicator for each goal that you can track on either a weekly or monthly basis.

Our most successful clients track their measurable target performance indicators weekly and discuss whether they’re on or off target during their weekly accountability meetings.

72 of 77

Marketing Measurement

4.0 | Deliver

Marketing Goal 1:

Measurable target performance indicator for this goal

Measurement frequency: weekly / monthly

Marketing Goal 2:

Measurable target performance indicator for this goal

Measurement frequency: weekly / monthly

73 of 77

Marketing Measurement

4.0 | Deliver

Marketing Goal 3:

Measurable performance indicator for this goal

Measurement frequency: weekly / monthly

Marketing Goal 4:

Measurable performance indicator for this goal

Measurement frequency: weekly / monthly

74 of 77

Marketing Measurement

4.0 | Deliver

Marketing Goal 5:

Measurable target performance indicator for this goal

Measurement frequency: weekly / monthly

Marketing Goal 6:

Measurement frequency: weekly / monthly

Measurable target performance indicator for this goal

75 of 77

Marketing Measurement

4.0 | Deliver

Marketing Goal 1: Tip the balance of online vs. offline donors in favor of online donors

Measurable target performance indicator for this goal

Measurement frequency: weekly / monthly

Weekly: 1,923 unique web visitors / 38 unique online donations

Marketing Goal 2: Successfully launch Oh, Behave obedience school, build awareness among qualified pet parents and get them to sign up

Measurable performance indicator for this goal

Measurement frequency: weekly / monthly:

Monthly: 9 signups/month through Q1 and Q2, 16 signups/month through Q3 and Q4

EXAMPLE

100,000 unique web visitors, 2% of which convert into online donors in 2018

150 signups for Oh, Behave Obedience School by December 2018

76 of 77

GO DEEPER: Marketing Measurement

4.0 | Deliver

Choosing the right measurable performance indicators is not an easy task.

It requires historical data or data from other, similar organizations. It also requires a certain degree of foresight. You need to be able to see how the numbers that indicate your success will shift and change throughout the year as your efforts in different areas expand and contract. Our clients often ask us to set their measurable target performance indicators, and thanks to our deep sector expertise, it’s something we’re quite skilled at.

�We also recommend that you develop a dashboard to track your measurable target performance indicators. Google Sheets and Geckoboard can both be helpful for this. We also design custom dashboards that get updated in real time for many of our clients using tools like HubSpot, DonorPerfect and Salesforce. We can even go a step further and help you tie your marketing efforts to mission outcomes.

To learn more about how we can work with you to help you measure the impact of your marketing, contact us.

Choosing the right measurable performance indicators is not an easy task...it requires a certain degree of foresight.

“

”

77 of 77

Congratulations, you’ve made it to the end of The Essential Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template.

By working through this template, you’ve done much more than create a comprehensive, mission-aligned marketing plan. You’ve set your nonprofit up to achieve better marketing results, and more importantly, a bigger mission impact.

Show yourself and your team some appreciation for the work you’ve done up to this point. Then, start putting your plan into action using your Marketing Action Calendar. Get ready, because you’re about to start seeing some pretty amazing results.

If you want to go deeper in the strategic marketing planning process or need help bringing your plans to life, we’re here. Visit our website or contact us at hello@prosper-strategies.com to discuss how we might be able to partner with your organization.

Here’s to your marketing success and mission impact.