The NonProfit Times - February 15, 2008 - (Page 11)

MARKETING National organizations are realizing a disconnect between chapters and the national office, according to David Lawson, vice president, market strategies for Kintera, Inc., based in San Diego. “This disconnect affects a disconnect with the donors,” he said. The answer for many organizations, he said, is to give the national office control of the message so they can have a coherent, consistent message.“A connected organization leads to connected giving,” he said.“Donors are starting to ask for this because they see this in their banks with checking and they expect the same when dealing with a nonprofit.” Donors want consistency no matter where they go and that means having systems that are different from many organizations, especially when an extreme independence breeds a love-hate relationship between chapter and the national office, according to Lawson. “Some national offices have moved away from local chapters to regional entities,” he said.“Part of the reason is for efficiency and part because of the formation about how to proceed. Major topics revolved around media relations, fundraising tools, and corporate sponsorship. Items included, what’s in it for the local chapter, how different would the operation be from before,how would media relations benefit the chapters, and how could the fundraising help grant more wishes in the local community. What happens when disagreements occurred? “We stopped at some point that was decided in advance and we made the collective decision to go forward with a senior leadership team,” Maher said. “It’s a process we try to improve each year by trying to get input as much as possible -- but you need communication internally to have a buy-in between the chapter and the national.” Lawson calls breaking the division between the national and chapter a silo-busting necessity. “It’s possible to see silos in different areas like efundraising, direct mail, major gifts, and planned gifts each having a separate world,” he said. “When we take that to a national level, the New York chapter may share some affinity with the Florida chapter although they probably don’t share information,” he said. “But the donor knows he might be giving to both the New York and Florida chapters so why not share needed information?” The answer needs to start at the leadership level. Boards both on the national and local level include business people dealing with the same issues. Leaders have to view the donor as seeing the national picture. “We make the mistake of thinking of donors instead of consumers or conMarketing, page 12 Leaders have to view the donor as seeing the national picture. realization that the donor may want to support at the local level where their winter home lies, but also where their summer home resides as well.” As you start to have a cohesive brand,“the constituency sees the look and feel of a brand of the mission,” Lawson said. “People can be thrown off when they expect certain colors and feel as though they are hit by a variation -- that’s confusing.” Make-A-Wish’s Maher brought the national and chapter offices on the same track by setting up teams from each to set goals for the national campaign.The teams were built to get the maximum mix of people from chapters. “We had a debate about the mix,” she said. “Some thought the makeup should be senior management, but we wanted different perspectives from programming, marketing, and production people to get better results.” Teams met to set goals that would be agreeable to the national and chapter people.Tool kits, called Campaign in a Box, gave teams short specific inFEBRUARY 15, 2008 THE NONPROFIT TIMES www.nptimes.com 11 http://www.dialvision.com/NPT http://www.dialvision.com/NPT http://www.nptimes.com

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The NonProfit Times - February 15, 2008

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