4 Nonprofit Messaging Trends for 2015

To get a handle on what’s in store for 2015, NonProfit PRO rounded up some of the nonprofit industry’s finest, who were kind enough to share their nonprofit trends for 2015. Here are four trends on nonprofit messaging.

MESSAGING
Richard Perry, founding partner, and Jeff Schreifels, senior partner, Veritus Group
1. Increased efforts on the part of fundraising professionals to package their organizations’ budgets so the donating public can understand how the money is used and what funds are needed. More and more enlightened nonprofit managers will work harder to present their budgets to external publics in a form that is outcome- and results-oriented vs. finance- and accounting-functional.

Rich Dietz, senior product manager of digital fundraising, Abila
2. Storytelling becomes visual: Creating a narrative and sharing a story has always been important for nonprofits to successfully engage donors, but doing so in a visual way is becoming essential. Organizations will have to find creative and innovative ways to engage supporters in a world full of distractions, and visual components are key. Web posts with visuals drive up to 180 percent more engagement, and research indicates people process visuals 60,000 times faster than text.

Kivi Leroux Miller, president, Nonprofit Marketing Guide
3. Frequency of appeals — in both email and print — will go up. Over the last four years, despite conventional wisdom that frequency of print communications was probably falling and email was probably increasing, our data showed that both were actually flat.

However, in 2015, for the first time, we see a significant increase in the planned frequency of both print and email appeals. In other words, nonprofits are asking for money and other support more often. At the same time, their print and email newsletter frequency remains about the same as in previous years.

Wayne Luke, managing partner, nonprofit practice, Witt/Kieffer
4. Emphasize innovative and creative fundraising — A key part of organizational strategy should be innovative storytelling. With the growth of successful Internet-based not-for-profits, consider how to position your message creatively in order to tap in to different audiences, resources and markets. Rebranding and tailoring your message toward new “listeners” represents tremendous opportunities for your organization.