November 23, 2015 | Read Time: 4 minutes
Kristen Holgerson knows just how tough it can be for nonprofits to scrape together the resources to tell the public about their work. As director of marketing and promotion for WBUR, a public radio station in Boston, she’s used to dealing with local charities on shoestring budgets seeking promotional help.
Like just about every public radio station in America, she says, WBUR strikes partnerships with dozens of charities every year. “And they come to us and say, ‘Our whole marketing budget’s $2,000, and we really need to make sure people know about our annual gala,” says Ms. Holgerson. By serving as a media underwriter for their efforts, she says, “we try to make their dollars really go the distance.”
When WBUR sought marketing help this past summer, it also tried to stretch its resources. The station asked the ad agencies that submitted proposals for its new branding campaign to take half of their fees in barter. “When we put it out there, we thought that an agency would want to use the ads for themselves to grow their business, to get new clients,” says Ms. Holgerson.
But the winning bidder, a local agency called Boathouse, didn’t want to use its ad-swap deal that way. Instead, it wanted airtime for its own antipoverty charity, Small Can Be Big.
“It’s a great thing for them and for us,” says Corey Lewis, WBUR’s station manager. “Our donors want to know how we’re investing the money that they give us. And our higher-end donors that we’re having more intimate conversations with — more one-on-one — are always thrilled to hear that we’re eliminating some expense with our marketing, doing things in trade, so that more money can go to the news.”
Bump in Support
WBUR’s branding campaign, launched the first week of November, features striking visuals (a small girl swimming underwater with her eyes open, for example) and the slogan “Your World, in a New Light,” intended to capture how listeners can immerse themselves in the station’s programming. The hope is to draw new listeners to WBUR who may eventually become donors, so its impact on fundraising can’t be measured yet or easily, says Mr. Lewis.
Meanwhile, Small Can Be Big’s radio campaign, slated to run through the holiday season, is already having impact, says Vetto Casado, the charity’s executive director.
The organization, formed in 2013 by Boathouse’s founder, John Connors, connects online donors with local families in need. Several Boston social-service charities send Small Can Be Big information about clients. The organization strips out any identifying details and sends the information to its volunteers, who use it to craft compelling narratives to post on the website.
Donors can read the stories and donate money to specific people, a “give directly” model that is gaining popularity. The charity then keeps track of the beneficiaries and reports on how they fare after receiving support.
Two years after its founding, it has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for needy families, according to the organization.
Since WBUR began introducing its listeners to Small Can Be Big about three weeks ago, it has seen a small increase in donations (about $5,000) and a big increase in volunteers signing up to help write the case studies. About eight new volunteers have now joined, bringing the total to 35, Mr. Casado says, and some of them have mentioned hearing about the charity on the public radio station.
Added Benefit
Mr. Lewis isn’t surprised by those figures. When Boathouse suggested the ad swap, he says, he delved into demographic data about WBUR’s listeners, learning that they were 71 percent more likely than the average Boston resident to donate to social services. The notion that his audience would be the ideal one to receive Small Can Be Big’s message, he says, was “a wonderful added benefit” to the barter deal.
While only a select few nonprofits have an asset like radio airtime to offer in a trade, more charities should reach out to ad agencies to cut deals for marketing help, says Mr. Lewis. “I think nonprofits often live in a world where their peer groups are other nonprofits, so they’re surrounded by people like them,” says Mr. Lewis. “They’re surprised sometime to learn that not everyone in their community knows about their work. They need to find out who doesn’t know about their work.”
And they might be surprised at how willing marketing professionals are to help charities that are making a difference, he says: “The door, I’m sure, is open, and they should engage in conversations with those ad agencies in their community.”
