Serving Local Nonprofits
Serving nonprofits is an important part of the Stillwell+Co mission. If you’ve ever worked with, or inside a nonprofit, you know they have a lot going on - pretty much all the time. Most nonprofits that we work with tend to have a lot of anxiety about the efficiency of their marketing and program spending. Whether a nonprofit has a lot of money to lose, or not much at all, their important mission is at stake. The hesitancy we see in nonprofits is understandable, considering that even small unfunded nonprofit organizations are valued around $50 million to $80 million. With so much to lose, finding a partner who understands your unique needs and internal organization.
At Stillwell+Co, we partner with all different types of nonprofits. We find that no matter what kind of organization you are a part of, there are a lot of similar obstacles for nonprofits. If you’re a nonprofit, you might relate to these obstacles in your business.
Shared Obstacles
You might ask yourself, how do we increase our brand awareness as a local nonprofit? One of our best tips: networking. The trouble is, we experience nonprofits across all industries with employees and board members who are not always comfortable putting themselves out there at networking events. Often, we find that these board members and employees just don’t know how to make a networking group work to their advantage. This makes sense considering they are not networking professionals. Luckily, we’ve got guidance for that!
Your nonprofit might need someone who has a unique understanding of what your organization can do, and can create content that reaches people and grows your donor base consistently. Someone to shed the unique light on the good that the nonprofit does, grows brand awareness to help cultivate community involvement, and utilize other marketing tactics.
Lastly, nonprofits need a reliable team who can handle PR and press releases, write proposals, cultivate connections through funding sources like grants and capital. This is important for every nonprofit, as it heavily influences your cash flow and funding abilities for the year.
Providing Solutions
While all nonprofits are unique, we find there are a lot of common solutions that are very much the same. We provide a broad scope of solutions for nonprofits in need, but we mainly deal with the following things. Nonprofits need our help to develop campaigns and strengthen donor relations. This can happen by overseeing the growth and development of the appropriate social media platforms, as well as cultivating unique email marketing strategies. By extending oversight of internal projects, social media processes, content guidance, Stillwell+Co is able to create visual appeal and consistent branding. We head on logo redesigns, as well as brand guidelines and development, as we work to make the branding cohesive and easily recognizable.
Campaign development is and internal team relationships are critical to the success and longevity of a nonprofit. We help individual teams meet their goals and ensure they are making progress in the right direction. We do this by scaling our involvement in project management by taking on oversight of marketing projects and opportunities, budget management, analysis of ROI, tracking of analytics and engagement, and relationship building.
Partnership Spotlight: YMCA of Clinton County
When Krista joined the CCFYMCA board in September 2020, she was excited about the opportunity to utilize her distinct marketing and communications skill sets to drive lasting change in her local community. When approached by then-CEO Tristen Comegys, now the CEO of Bauer Family Resources in Lafayette, IN, she knew that marketing expertise was a need on the board given their new strategic plan initiative. This new strategy included pursuing grant-based initiatives the organization desperately needed.
With the onset of the pandemic and new leadership, additional transition occurred that rocked the entire Clinton County Family YMCA. For the next year, the organization began experiencing immense financial and operational difficulties that were capitalized by an aging building and hiring difficulties. While COVID hit the YMCA hard, Stillwell+Co shifted its focus on strengthening internal operations, performing strategic consulting, PR management, community relationship building, and reputation management. Another CEO transition occurred during the first quarter of 2022, and along with it, another massive shift of vision. This shift proved necessary to sustain the facility and its place in the community. Today, Stillwell+Co is happy to play an integral role in grant writing, partnership formation, campaign development, marketing oversight, and leadership development internally, supporting CEO Stephanie Cooper through a variety of event planning and communications activities.
We are glad to serve our community through partnerships with important nonprofits like the Community Foundation of Pulaski County, Clinton County Family YMCA, and the Indiana Angus Association.
Are you a nonprofit in need of some direction? It’s time to schedule a chat with our strategy experts.
