September 8, 2014 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Recognize when the public already knows about your cause.
Some nonprofits maintain their focus on getting attention—even though their cause has permeated the national consciousness. Nonprofit leaders, experts say, need to know when enough awareness is enough and when to move supporters toward action, or simply to move on.
“Charities that continue to search for awareness where there’s already plenty of it need to go out of business or cede their ground to groups that focus on leading-edge research, or on novel and impactful ways to achieve social justice,” says Brian Reich, a marketing consultant to several nonprofit groups.
Focus on the specific services your group has to offer.
Some charities have moved from educating people about a disease or problem to informing them about what the organizations can do to help them overcome it. Making such a move can keep a group’s approach fresh and relevant.
“Our biggest challenge isn’t getting people to know who we are or what cancer is. It’s getting them to know how we fight cancer, how we can help them do that, or how they can help support it,” says Hilary Noon, a vice president at the American Cancer Society.
Hold your group accountable.
Organizations should set goals for what they want to achieve with their attention-getting efforts, use data to determine whether they are succeeding, and then publish the results, says Nancy Brown, chief executive of the American Heart Association. If they aren’t reaching people, they should change what they’re doing or stop.
The Heart Association has used surveys to learn whether one of its goals—doubling the number of women who are aware that heart disease is the leading killer of women—was being reached. “Every charitable organization needs to put it on the line, say they will measure their success, and report it to the public,” Ms. Brown adds. Otherwise, she says, groups could lose credibility or appear frivolous and concerned only with broadcasting a problem, not solving it.
Think strategically about what comes next.
Campaigns to drive attention to a cause can raise large sums of money. But what happens after that? The ALS Association is putting together a team from its chapters across the country to study the best ways to use donations from the summer’s ice-bucket challenge. Possibilities include expanding patient services for patients with ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and spurring new approaches to research into the disease. “We’re determined to do the right.
