Smart marketing for nonprofits and tribal communities. Located in the heart of beautiful Pacific Northwest, Numa Marketing is a purposely small firm serving the strategic marketing needs of nonprofit organizations and tribal communities throughout the country.

To us, smart marketing means making every dollar count because your stakeholders, voters and donors want to know you’ve invested wisely. It means a results-driven, strategic approach that maximizes every dollar and leverages volunteer and free resources wherever possible. And, it is exemplified by well-designed publications that garner measurable results and a minimal carbon footprint.

Visit our service page now to learn more about our affordable, strategic marketing services designed specifically for the nonprofit.

Leveraging the Valued Volunteer, continued:

The cold hard fact is that volunteers impact your public image any time they interact with the public, your constituents, your customers or the media. The question is: what impact are they having? Are they prepared to answer that irate taxpayer with a bone to pick, or the reporter who shows up with a camera crew at your public event?  Do they know your top marketing messages, and are they consistently conveying what vital needs your organization is meeting in the community? 

To help assess the impact your volunteers are currently having on public perception, let’s see if any of these challenges sound familiar:

• Volunteers With an Agenda — Has your volunteer experience become a platform for your volunteers to express their political or social agenda? For many socially- or politically-based and/or lobbyist organizations this is a natural occurrence. People get involved because they have a passion to make a difference, yet the line between their personal goals and your organization’s goals can quickly become blurred.
• The Danger of Negative Exposure — How often are your volunteers taking part in very public events? Does the role of your organization or the way your organization is funded make it very possible that irate patrons may confront your volunteers on occasion? Your volunteers may have more interaction with your target customers and publics than your key leadership or even your communication staff. If your volunteers have a significant amount of public exposure, are you fully leveraging that to gain positive public support for your programs and organization? And further, are your volunteers prepared to handle those inevitable difficult situations with ease?
• Volunteer Recruitment and Retention — Many organizations really struggle with recruitment and retention of their volunteers, particularly organizations where volunteers make up a critical role in your service delivery. The truth is, you never know where the next volunteer with come from. Your existing volunteers are often in the best position to promote volunteering — they know first hand what’s great about the experience and how their role contributes to the community. Are your volunteers prepared to promote volunteering the next time they are out in the public?
• Volunteer Leaders Never Go Off Duty — For schools and public agencies with an advisory council and/or board represented by the very community you serve, your leaders are also active members of your community. The line between their personal life and their public life as your volunteer leaders is often blurred. Accordingly, volunteer leaders rarely “go off duty” and must be prepared to represent your organization at any time.
• Volunteers are Scattered in Large Geographic Region — If you recruit volunteers over a large geographic region (nationally, regionally or even statewide), you probably have an even bigger challenge getting your volunteers to communicate consistent messages about your organization. One of the biggest challenges is creating and maintaining a sense of community among your volunteers, and keeping them motivated to serve as Ambassadors.   

The good news is that it doesn’t take much time to give your volunteers the information and training they need to start generating Positive Public Support (PPS) for your organization. And, the rewards will substantially outweigh the cost of your time investment.

Take the Following Steps to Turn Your Volunteers into Ambassadors:

1. Evaluate Your Volunteers — What impact are they currently having on your organization’s position within the community or within your target markets? Are your volunteers increasing PPS? Is there a danger that they might be in situations where PPS will be compromised, simply because of their training level, or lack of accurate knowledge of the purpose of your organization?
2. Get Organized: Create a Formal Volunteer Ambassador Program — The key to an effective Volunteer Ambassador program is to formalize the program on paper. Our comprehensive Train-the-Trainer Handbook “Turning Volunteers into Ambassadors” provides everything you need to assess your volunteer’s training needs, create an interactive, high-energy Ambassador Training session, and design a customized Ambassador Toolkit that makes it easy for volunteers to consistently communicate your key marketing messages to the public. The Handbook even comes with a CD with all training materials, sample training outlines, and sample handbook pieces in electronic format — making it very easy to customize and complete your own program.
3. Train Them — A single 60-90 minute training session (using our Train-the-Trainer Handbook as a guide) will help maximize buy-in and address some potentially expensive gaps in training among your volunteers, such as interacting with the media, or responding to an irate taxpayer at a public event. Our Handbook helps you carefully assess the specific training needs of your volunteers. And our sample scripts give you the guidance you need to create a meaningful workshop regardless of your skill levels as a trainer.
4. Create a Volunteer Ambassador Toolkit — When you give your volunteers the tools they need to promote your organization right at their fingertips, it will be infinitely easier for them to consistently communicate your top selling points and key marketing messages to the people they encounter. It will also be easier for them to take advantage of promotional opportunities that may arise. Our Handbook walks you through every step of creating a customized Ambassador Toolkit. Your Kit can include key marketing messages, a simplified version of your organization’s communication policies/procedures, template news releases and tips for working with the media, templates for promotional flyers or presentations (if appropriate), and great collateral materials they can distribute like pocket cards that list your top five bulleted marketing messages.
5. Continue to Evaluate — Track the impact that your Volunteer Ambassador program has on creating PPS for your organization, as well as how it has impacted volunteer recruitment and retention goals. Survey your ambassadors every few months to see if there are additional challenges they’ve encountered related to promoting your organization, and/or additional opportunities they could seize in the future.