I would be very interested in seeing how many of the ~1.4 million NGOs in the USA take advantage of this program, as it seems like a valuable resource to virtually any nonprofit.
#TO MOVEALONG FREE#
Google offers a free advertising grant to 501c3s, albeit with limited capabilities. It's starting to sound a little pipe-dreamy again, let me give a specific example. Ideally, the issue would be addressed en masse. Maybe you're right that forming my own NGO would not be the way to go. The problem I want to address is the lack of marketing knowledge, budget, and execution ability available at small NGO organizations. My problem is relevant to the comment made by /u/jackflapb, wherein he noted that for-profit companies' only vested interest is in increasing shareholder value.
![to movealong to movealong](https://s3.amazonaws.com/halleonard-pagepreviews/HL_DDS_0000000000176861.png)
And what you noted in the comment is probably the biggest barrier to creating a marketing NGO - identifying an alternative income source, like grants, is really hard to imagine. I can clearly see how for-profit institutions would have an income advantage affording them better pricing for nonprofits. That's a really great anecdote, point well made. Tldr Making a nonprofit version of a for-profit concept/company doesn't necessarily work all that well. We tried to keep things bare bones to save cash - only have one customer care person who's job is divided with other tasks, skimp on marketing ourselves, cut our training department - but we lost clients as a result.Īnyway, in the last 5 years, my nonprofit was absorbed by another and I know of a few similar organizations that failed entirely. Our org was most definitely the "cobbler with no shoes" - our database in particular was leagues behind what we were giving to our clients. Hopefully, as a marketing firm, you'll be able to set aside some of your staff's time to promote your own organization.
![to movealong to movealong](http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/Fd_van26V-4/maxresdefault.jpg)
You need to hire experienced development professionals in order to bring in grants and donations to support your lower rates for nonprofits.
![to movealong to movealong](https://pics.esmemes.com/move-along-folks-there-is-nothing-to-see-here-just-22735531.png)
You'll need to hire staff with the proper experience and skills, who, while they may be willing to work a bit under market rates because of your mission, you won't keep them long or attract good staff if it's too low (we had tremendous turnover at times). Just because you have 501c3 status, it doesn't mean that it's really cheap to run your organization. As much as some of these shops didn't provide the same expertise and care, it was hard for most of our clients to argue with the price.
![to movealong to movealong](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/f8WKrlBu3Vc/maxresdefault.jpg)
#TO MOVEALONG PRO#
Many also have grant programs where nonprofits can apply for pro bono work. Since these for-profit shops had for-profit clients paying them the big bucks, many could have a nonprofit rate that was lower than what we could afford to charge.
#TO MOVEALONG SOFTWARE#
Things however became progressively more difficult as time progressed, as every tech shop in town started offering a nonprofit discount and software vendors like Salesforce started giving great tools to nonprofits for free. While that's not the same as what you're talking about, I feel like it has a lot in common as it was the nonprofit version of something that exists widely as a for-profit.īusiness was great in the early years of their founding (late 90's), when there were very few for-profit firms who served or specialized in nonprofits. In my past, I worked for a nonprofit technology organization - a nonprofit that provided technology consulting, implementation and support to nonprofits.