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Aug 12, 2024
Why Development and Marketing Teams Need Each Other at Nonprofits
Nonprofit development and marketing teams share similar goals in an organization. Both want to attract and retain donors to further their nonprofit's cause. While the methods these teams bring to the table differ, nonprofit leaders can have the departments work together to enhance social impact. Collaboration also helps these departments make more data-informed decisions and avoid putting strain on individual coworkers.
Discover the benefits of collaboration between these teams and how they can help you further your nonprofit's mission.
Benefits of Nonprofit Development and Marketing Teams Working Together
Given their shared organizational goals, nonprofit development and marketing teams can benefit from strong collaboration. Working together allows each team to leverage the other's skills and apply them to projects. The organizational benefits are endless when these teams work together:
- Save time and money: In terms of nonprofit financial management, coordination can lead to cost savings through greater efficiency. By streamlining information-sharing, using management software, and joining the same meetings, these teams ensure each initiative requires less time and uses fewer resources to complete.
- Reduce burnout: When these departments help each other out, it can reduce strain on individual team members. By supporting each other, development and marketing team members can avoid harmful, unnecessary stress that can lead to burnout. Making meetings more productive with collaborative efforts boosts teamwork so everyone is driven toward your nonprofit's goals.
- Improve nonprofit management: By collaborating, nonprofit marketing and development teams can improve the overall management of nonprofits by sharing insights on programs and services that most resonate with supporters.
- Gain diverse perspectives: A collaboration between your development and marketing departments can increase diversity in fundraising campaigns. For example, you can build relationships across varying donor demographics and work with various stakeholders to enhance your efforts.
How to Foster Collaboration Between Nonprofit Development and Marketing Teams
Here are a few ways development and marketing teams can work together to benefit your nonprofit:
Understand supporter data
Development and marketing teams have critical insights into your donors. Together, they can form a more detailed picture of their target audience to create a more effective fundraising strategy.
Marketing staff can alert nonprofit development teams about the content supports engage with most, revealing what donors look for when interacting with your donation website or fundraising events. These teams can also share which nonprofit stories made the most impact on supporters, and the development team can incorporate similar concepts into stewardship activities.
At the same time, your development team can share research on potential supporters so marketers can implement communication strategies to reach the target donors. Development staff can also offer data on the average donation sizes so marketers can tailor their request amounts to meet donors where they are.
Coordinate campaigns
Nonprofit development teams often require marketing support for donor stewardship activities. To achieve shared goals, these teams can collaborate on fundraising campaigns and content calendars.
For example, you might hold two fundraising events during the year. Thus, corporate sponsorship might be required to cover the event's costs. Mapping out these events on a shared calendar ensures both teams have enough time to find and confirm partnerships to support the campaigns, motivate people to support them, and create promotional materials to elevate the event across platforms.
Attract more donors
You can attract and retain more donors by using customer-centric solutions and joining marketing and technology teams to safeguard it. Achieve the following by fostering collaboration between the departments:
- Technology can align better with your marketing strategies
- Nonprofit marketing teams can provide donor insights and harness tech to meet their needs
- Collaboration can allow marketers to streamline the donor experience using expert product knowledge
For example, say you're writing blog posts. You might hire an expert copywriter who fully understands the products, but they might lack coding skills to illustrate certain points in the article. Developers can share screenshots, how-tos, and other visuals marketers can use to educate, inform, and excite target readers.
Establish a common language
Both nonprofit development and marketing teams create copy, utilize data, and choose pictures that tell their nonprofit's story to donors. When these teams share their materials, they can create a more cohesive message and further their reach. Make the process easy by sharing folders between the departments of case studies, grant proposals, and other relevant items.
Host yearly meetings where the teams can share and update their materials. Discuss changes to your nonprofit's branding guidelines, color palette, and other topics to ensure staff are aligned.
Make data-informed decisions
Development teams are critical to your organization's success, as they can streamline tasks, optimize scale, and ensure tech is simple to integrate into the nonprofit. At the same time, your nonprofit would struggle without a marketing department that prioritizes the client experience and uses technologies to streamline it.
After consulting with the development team, marketers can take advantage of the most advanced technologies to create valuable assets and manage projects. They can become less dependent on traditional methods like emails and spreadsheets, instead relying on real-time analytics and digital platforms that save time and money.
The relationship between the departments can ultimately be constructive in nurturing organizational return on investment (ROI).
Communicate wins and pain points
As nonprofit development and marketing teams collaborate, schedule monthly meetings to communicate wins and pain points. Development officers and marketing leaders can share what strategies work and where changes are needed. Open and ongoing communication can help you refine development strategies while implementing storytelling to recruit and retain donors.
For example, suppose the development staff creates innovative products for your nonprofit. The marketing staff can help them determine the product market fit and understand the target audience. Marketing also provides insights into pain points so development can create better solutions that meet their needs.
Partner with GiveSmart to Grow your Nonprofit
Having your marketing and development teams work together is critical to your nonprofit's success. These teams share common goals while bringing different methods to the table to help you fully achieve them. When your marketing teams require advanced software to attract and retain donors, partner with GiveSmart. Our award-winning fundraising and donor management system was designed, developed, and refreshed to help you fuel your missions.
We have expert support and service teams who can help you achieve success through training, encouragement, and troubleshooting. Request a demo today.
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