What Book Has Changed Your (Professional) Life?

(Editor's Note: Today we're featuring a request from fundraising consultant Nancy Schwartz.)

I’m hosting the May Nonprofit Blog Carnival, and on May 31 my blog post will feature links and summaries to the best of the event. Here’s the theme and how you can submit your post.

What's your one book?
A few weeks ago, long-time colleague Steve Damiano, director of professional development at New York City’s Support Center for Nonprofit Management, asked me to recommend a few marketing books for his nephew, soon to graduate with a marketing degree. Four titles quickly came to mind, a flow that made me realize that this is an ideal topic for the May Nonprofit Blog Carnival.

And now, I’d like to develop my reading list from your recommendations. What single book (not blog, not conversation, not Facebook page) has changed your life as a nonprofit staffer, consultant or vendor? Plus the why and how. Submit your one book today, while it’s on your mind.

For bloggers, please post your response by May 27, then enter your submission in one of two ways.

• Fill out the carnival form here.
• E-mail the link to your post to nonprofitcarnival@gmail.com.

For others, share your response here.

The book doesn’t have to be directly about your work but should have generated new ideas, understanding and/or excitement on the topic for you. One book only.

My “changed my life” book is a classic textbook — "Marketing Management" by Philip Kotler. The text is traditional in its overview approach to the topic and its dense layout — pretty much like the textbooks you’ve known. But it opened up a new world for me, and I live in that world now. NOTE: I’m pointing you to the inexpensive 12th edition, two editions ago, because that will serve your purposes. Turn to this guide for core principles, not updates on innovations and new tools best sourced online.

Kotler’s guide introduced me to all facets of marketing and, most importantly, to the idea that when they are integrated, the product is far more than the sum of the individual components — a holistic marketing system.

But the most critical concept I learned is the difference between marketing and communications:

• Marketing incorporates all steps of the process from research (from your situation analysis to communications audit and focus group), to planning, building leadership support, executing the strategies (communications), measuring progress versus defined benchmarks and revising the plan to reflect what you have learned from previous efforts.
• Marketing includes communications, but communications doesn’t include marketing.

This definition provides me with a clear, accessible framework for what to do when, how and why. And the imperative to take a few steps back and see marketing as a large, interconnected system, rather than a series of communications.

Kotler’s text is definitely worth an initial read and is a great resource to keep around for ongoing reference. Get it today — for marketers, it’ll reshape your outlook and refresh your execution; for other nonprofit staffers, it’ll give you the insight you need to put marketing to work most effectively for your fundraising campaign, programs or other initiative, and to work most productively with your marketer colleagues.

Nancy Schwartz is president of consulting firm Nancy Schwartz & Co. and publisher of the Getting Attention blog and e-newsletter.