[GUEST POST] Making the Most of Advocacy Software for Your Nonprofit
Grassroots advocacy garners the support from the public that your organization needs to attract the attention of legislators, CEOs, or other decision-makers in your community.
However, these campaigns do more than that. They also help your organization further engage your supporters and provide opportunities for them to get involved with your mission. This supporter engagement information enters into your CRM and helps your organization build better relationships over time.
That’s the important part of advocacy campaigns that we’ll focus on in this article. In order to build relationships and further engagement, consider the following:
- How are you marketing your advocacy campaign to spread the word?
- Are you taking necessary steps to build relationships with advocates?
Before you can build relationships, you need to make sure you’re getting the word out about your opportunities. Otherwise, how will supporters get to know your nonprofit? General nonprofit marketing best practices will get you through the first part of your campaign. But let’s dive deeper into how to specifically work advocacy into your marketing strategy.
Advocacy Marketing Opportunities
How can your advocacy campaign be successful if your supporters don’t know about it?
Advocacy software often offers tools and features that will provide both the tech you need to reach decision-makers, and the tools you need to reach your supporters. When you’re investing in advocacy software or an advocacy app, look for built-in marketing features such as:
- Action alerts. Action alerts are automatically triggered emails or social media posts that are sent out as your nonprofit launches a new grassroots advocacy campaign. They inform your existing supporters about new opportunities that arise.
- Sharable content. When you create a new petition, click-to-call campaign, or other advocacy campaign, be sure supporters can share their involvement on social media. This word-of-mouth marketing technique reaches the network of friends and family surrounding each supporter.
- Event pages. Don’t forget that not all advocacy work is done online. Event pages are easily shareable and get the word out about in-person event opportunities to make a major impact on your attendance ratings.
It’s important that your nonprofit understand which of these marketing strategies are the most effective in advocacy promotion.
Look for a fully connected software system so that you can store data such as open and click-through rates for emails or the additional engagement opportunities taken by supporters. The natural place to store all of this important data is in your nonprofit’s CRM.
For more ideas about how to make the most of your nonprofit’s grassroots advocacy marketing opportunities, check out this marketing guide by SalsaLabs.
Building Relationships with Supporters
After you’ve gotten the word out about your organization’s advocacy opportunities, it’s time to take this engagement tool to the next level: encouraging even more involvement from supporters.
Using this engagement as a relationship-building tool is another reason why it’s important for your nonprofit to have a completely connected software system.
Hint: You can build your interconnected system by either investing in a comprehensive system or by researching the integrations between top software providers. This guide cites some of the top providers for nonprofit software, most of which integrate together.
When your system is interconnected, you can acknowledge the past contributions your supporters have made to your nonprofit, no matter what form it’s in. For instance, you might email supporters with the following messages:
Thank you for signing our petition to save the bees! Your voice will help establish legislation to support this important conservation mission. Are you looking to make an even bigger impact on your environment? Donate today to help us reach our goal to build 1,000 bee farms around the country.
Or, if you’re convincing a donor to get involved with your advocacy campaign, the message may look more like this:
Thanks for your donation! Bees are an integral part of plant pollination and farming processes. Further legislation from your county manager will help establish further regulations that will stop the needless harming of this key species. Help make this legislation a reality by signing our petition today!
Make sure to gather analytics about the effectiveness of connecting your advocacy and fundraising campaigns in this way. These metrics will help you further adjust your strategy in the future.
In addition to campaign metrics, make sure the engagement of supporters who participate in either campaign is recorded in your CRM. This DonorSearch article explains how you can use donor metrics to further inform your fundraising strategy.
Advocacy is a key tool to help your nonprofit build important relationships with your supporters. Make sure you’re making the most of the tools you have available to your organization.
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By Gerard Tonti, Senior Creative Developer, Salsa Labs
Gerard Tonti is the Senior Creative Developer at Salsa Labs, the premier fundraising software company for growth-focused nonprofits.
Gerard’s marketing focus on content creation, conversion optimization and modern marketing technology helps him coach nonprofit development teams on digital fundraising best practices.