Fundraisers: steal these ideas
Book review: Robin Hood Marketing by Katya Andresen (2006)
You might call this book Marketing 101, translated for nonprofits. The idea is that we in the nonprofit world can steal smart ideas from the corporate world and use them in our own marketing situations. (I have one quibble with that premise: most of the corporate world is failing to use these marketing approaches. Maybe they need to read the book at steal these ideas back.)
This is a very practical book, full of real-life examples and ideas. It's built around ten "Robin Hood Rules" -- common-sense principles that will help you do better work in fundraising or any other kind of marketing. Here they are:
Robin Hood Rules
- Go beyond the big-picture mission and focus on getting people to take specific action.
- The most important values are those of our audiences, not our own.
- Recognize and react to the forces at work in the marketplace.
- Stake a strong competitive position in the minds of the audience.
- Build partnerships around mutual benefits or you won't be partnering at all.
- Case first, cause second.
- Messages establish a Connection, promise a Reward, inspire Action, and stick in Memory. (CRAM)
- To get to audiences, go to where they are.
- Approach the media as a target market, not as a mouthpiece for the message.
- Good marketing campaigns focus on spurring one audience to a single action.
If I had to pick just one of these rules to live by, it would be number two: The most important values are those of our audiences, not our own. If you can do this, you are going to do almost everything right. But don't let me oversimplify this book. Read it. It's worth it.
Available at Amazon (where there's a nice touch -- a product blog where you can discuss the book and its concepts) and at Powells.
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