Stealing Savvy (Green Tights Optional)

You might not be a swashbuckling outlaw with green tights and a band of merry men, but read the book “Robin Hood Marketing: Stealing Corporate Savvy to Sell Just Causes,” and you’ll feel like the lord of Loxley pilfering
precious gold from Prince John and the sheriff of Nottingham.

In order to help organizational leaders who might be unfamiliar with marketing principles, author Katya Andresen, vice president of marketing at charitable-giving site Network for Good, shares her own successes with stealing corporate know-how and applying it to good causes in the nonprofit world.

The book details the 10 key marketing principles that make up Andresen’s concept of “Robin Hood marketing.” Each principle occupies a single chapter and is illustrated by a corporate marketing effort. Andresen then analyzes how the principle has been applied by nonprofit organizations both large and small, and she ends each chapter by examining how other organizations can apply or have applied the principle.

Andresen also introduces readers to the idea of a marketing arrowhead — a series of steps designed to help nonprofit professionals develop their marketing efforts.

“By crafting a strong arrowhead,” she writes, “we will be able to hit our
targets and inspire them to action.”

A former foreign correspondent for Reuters News and Television, the Associated Press, and several major U.S. newspapers, Andresen also gives advice on how organizations can approach the media as a target market that can give voice to newsworthy stories that advance a cause.

“Imagine what would happen if we all became twice as persuasive as we are now,” Andresen writes in the book’s introduction. “How many millions more could we convince to join our organizations, volunteer their time, donate money or change their lifestyle? Don’t we owe it to our cause to try?”

“Robin Hood Marketing” provides nonprofit professionals with the tools to put in place strong marketing practices that enable them to harness the potential for change and mass involvement.

Jossey-Bass; $24.95.

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