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Hey there nonprofit leaders. If you're looking to expand and elevate your impact in 2025, this is for you. On February 12th at 2pm Eastern Standard Time, Rhea is hosting the 2025 Major Gift Playbook webinar where she'll break down the strategies, tools and confidence building techniques you need to secure transformational gifts that fuel real change. And it's free. No more guessing, no more awkward asks, just a clear, actionable plan to bring in the major G that will move your mission forward. Seats are limited, so don't wait. Register now@reawang.com events and get ready to level up your fundraising. That's February 12th at 2pm Eastern Time online register@reong.com events now back to the show.

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Welcome to Nonprofit Lowdown. I'm your host, Rhea Wong. Hey Nonprofit Lowdown fans, it's Rhea with you once again with Nonprofit Lowdown. It has been a week, in fact, a crazy couple of weeks. So if you are in the nonprofit field and you've just been whipsawed by all of the threats to federal funding and all of the different executive orders coming down, and Elon Musk doing his very best to violate everybody in Washington, friend, let's take a deep breath. It is. It's a lot. I'm not gonna lie to you, it is a lot. But we have to maintain our equanimity for the long haul because if we lose ourselves in despair and outrage right now, we are going to quickly burn ourselves out and it's going to be a marathon, not a sprint. So for all of you out there who are feeling what I'm feeling with what's been happening the last couple of weeks, I'm with you. Let's take a deep breath, let's keep calm and carry on. Because what other choice do we have? But we can do what we can to protect the ones who need us the most. With that being said, I wanted to talk a little bit today about marketing in 2025, particularly because I think a lot of us have really fallen out of love with social media and the billionaire oligarchs that are lining up behind Trump. And it just feels exhausting. Right. I don't want to do a million posts on Facebook and Instagram and TikTok if it continues to exist. And Right. Feeding the content beast is just exhausting. So I wanted to do today's episode to talk a little bit about what I think we are going to see in 2025 and what you can do to make sure that your work is out there that you're being seen, but you are not burning yourselves out. Today we're getting into some real talk about nonprofit marketing in 2025. I want to talk about what's actually working and what's just a waste of your time. Now, before we get into it, I want to share a little story with you, and this is not an uncommon story. I was at a cocktail party last night and I was with a room full of the most exciting nonprofit leaders in New York City. These were folks who are running smaller nonprofits, all education or youth serving. And this is not an uncommon question because I'm going to get all up in people's business because I have that nosy Chinese auntie energy. And I heard uniformly across the board, Ria, we have an email list of 2,000 1,500 people. We're barely using social and we only email once or twice a month. Now let me tell you, this is not uncommon. I totally get it. You are overworked, under resourced, completely constrained. Posting on social or writing to your email just feels like another thing to do on your list. But today I'm going to break down the bigger marketing trends for 2025 and how you can actually use them to grow your audience, build relationships, and ultimately raise more money, which is the name of the game. So let's talk about what's changed in marketing in 2025. So the way people engage with marketing is shifting fast. Like faster than your last fundraising goal got changed mid year fast. Here's what you need to know. 1. People aren't following a straight path from seeing your message to making a donation. Instead, they bounce between platforms. They look at all of your different socials and your website. They may talk to their friends before they commit. Younger donors, especially Gen Z, are changing the game. Gen Z tends not to trust traditional advertising or traditional methods of social media outreach. They're looking for authenticity, they're looking for real stories, and they're looking for human connections. So three, Even if your donors aren't, Gen Z is setting the tone for behavior shifts. So because marketing trends trickle upwards, what younger audiences demand today is what everyone will expect in a few years. So what does that mean for your nonprofit? It means relying on old school spray and pray. Marketing just won't cut it anymore. You need real connection, real engagement and a strategy that just doesn't talk at people, but with them. So here are the top marketing strategies for 2025. 1. Ditch the one size fits all email strategy. If you're only emailing once or twice a month, you're ghosting your own audience. Not in the cool, mysterious way, more the forgotten about X kind of way. Here are a couple things that you should do. One, segment your email list. So send different emails based on engagement level, past donations or event participation. Not all donors should get the same email. I'm reminded again and again of this restaurateur here in New York City named Danny Meyer, what he said, and this was the secret to his success. Imagine that everyone is walking around with an imaginary sign around their neck that says make me feel special. Now, it doesn't make me feel particularly special if you send me a generic email that does not demonstrate what my connection was to your organization. Two, Increase your email frequency smartly so you don't have to send daily emails, but at least weekly is the new standard. And no, it won't annoy them if your content is actually valuable. So I want to talk a little bit about what constitutes actually valuable. This is a question that I got in my last mastermind. Someone asked, what if I just get these weekly emails? But I just think that they're clutter, they're not really providing value. How do I know what is valuable to my audience? Such a good question. So a couple of things that you want to do. One, if you have done your donor avatar interviews, which I have advocated time and time again that you do, that's when you can ask your donors, what is it that you find valuable? What is it that will get you to open up an email? What is it that you think is worthy of your time? That kind of content is the kind of content that you want to produce more of. Two, this is where your numbers can be very handy. If you're sending out email newsletters, you have to do some kind of regular analysis, let's call it once a month, where you're looking at your numbers. Which of these emails got the most click throughs? Which of these emails got the most opens? Which of these emails seem to stimulate some kind of reaction on the part of your audience? 3. Look at your social media. Is there a particular post that got more engagement than the others? Are there any themes, are there any types of content that your audience is finding to be really interesting? And then four, people want really educational content. So if there's something that you know that other people don't know, just create content about that. So in this particular case, this person who asked the question happens to be an expert on admissions, private school, independent school admissions. Why wouldn't she just do a series about that? Why wouldn't she maybe give people the insider tip or what admissions officers are really looking for, or how to best position your kid if you're trying to get them into an independent school. Remember, you are an expert in something and people want to know what you know. So there's always more content available. Also, in the world of AI and ChatGPT, there's no reason why you you should not be producing. But we are living in a golden age of content creation. Now. I just want to be clear. I don't mean crap, don't produce more crap. We don't need more crap. But when you're using ChatGPT to expedite the process of creating content that is high value for your audience, it's easier than it has ever been. And then finally, use AI for email personalization so AI tools can help craft different versions of emails based based on donor interest. So no more Dear Supporter nonsense. Okay, next point, stop throwing money at ads and start building organic reach. Now, I don't know how many of you are out here using Facebook ads as a way to build your email list. And I'm not saying that ads are dead. Obviously they're not dead. I think meta had the best quarter they ever had and they added a whole bunch of new users. So clearly the ad strategy is still, still working. However, people say about ads, their effectiveness is declining. Why? Because people more than ever are skipping, blocking and scrolling past them faster than a bad Tinder match. So instead, organic marketing is where the real long term value is. So what do I mean by organic marketing? Things like social media that drives to email. Now I want to talk about this for a second. I didn't understand this for the longest time and now I do. And now it just seems so obvious. But when I was in ed, I thought of social media as just like an interruption. In my day I did not understand how to use it. The way that most nonprofits use social media is that they post just to post. And then they look at vanity metrics like how many likes did I get? Or how many people commented. They post just to post, however, and you heard this last week when we talked to Jess Campbell, every post should have a goal to get people to your email list, your event or a donation page. You want them to take an off platform action. Why? Because one Just because you have a lot of followers does not actually mean that you own any of them. So if you got kicked off of any of the platforms tomorrow, there goes your entire list. The asset is the email list. And so when you are on social, you are using other people's platform. So thank you Mark Zuckerberg for amassing this platform. And I want to take those people as much as I can and funnel them into my email list because I own that email list so often and you've heard me talk about this before, do not build on borrowed land. Facebook, IG, TikTok, YouTube, it's all borrowed land. So what we want to do is stimulate some kind of off platform action so that people add themselves to our email list. So what could that look like? Maybe you post something about the inspiring work that you're doing and you say at the end of each post the call to action is hey, want more inspiring stories like this? What? Or want more information about volunteering? Or want more information about this? Check out our annual appeal. You create the link for the signup to your email. Ideally on the back end you would also have an automated email sequence to welcome people onto your email list. But if you hear nothing else, hear this. Social media should be a top of the funnel mechanism to drive people to your email list. Okay? Leverage video. So when we think about using video, people don't want polished over produced ads. They want real stories, behind the scenes content and impact videos. So you don't need high end editing, you just need real and valuable insights. And for those of us who walk around with smartphones in our pockets, guess what? You have a mechanism to create videos. So the next time you're out walking the dog, pull up that video. Maybe create some insight or some thought that you had or some perspective that could be interesting to your audience. And then finally, in the world of organic rage, influencer and partner collaborations are key. So find local influencers, mission aligned businesses or partner organizations and cross promote. Your best outreach is through trusted voices in your community. I'd be willing to bet, and this certainly happened to me, had huge donations come in based on people just telling their friends. These weren't people that I had in a prior existing relationship with. It was just based on the say so of a trusted friend that a huge five six figure donation came through. So word of mouth is very powerful and we want to, as much as we can stimulate that word of mouth and that trusted recommendations that come from PE person to person. Okay, three AI and automation are your new best friends. Real talk. You are far too busy to manually handle every email, social post and inquiry. So you should be using AI tools to help you work smarter, not harder. So what does that look like? For example, you could be using AI chatbots on your website to answer donor inquiries. So chatbots just aren't for answering FAQs. They can guide potential donors, qualify major gift leads, and even suggest the next best action based on past behavior. 2. You can use AI for social media content As I discussed before, so tools like ChatGPT can create engaging social posts in seconds so you're never stuck staring at a blank screen. I have a prompt for how to have a prompt based on Justin Welsh's Content operating machine to help you create a month of social media and newsletter content in seconds. So if you want that, just click the link below and we'll send that over to you. And then finally, automated email sequences so you can set up a welcome series for new subscribers, a re engagement campaign for lapsed donors, and a thank you sequence that nurtures your donors over time. All automated so you could use the automation. Maybe you already have one in your CRM system. Maybe it's already in your email delivery system like a mailchimp. Or maybe you can use things like Zapier, which is a backend automation tool to help you to manage all of the people who are coming through. 4. Let's talk about your website. So your website and SEO need a major upgrade. Google has changed how it ranks websites and your old blog posts from 2017 aren't cutting it anymore. So what does that mean? This gets a little bit technical, but the first thing you want to do is optimize for zero click searches so people aren't clicking on search results, they just read the featured snippet at the top. So you have to structure your content in FAQ format so you appear in those snippets. 2. Mobile first design over half of your website visitors are coming from their phones. If your donation page is clunky on mobile, you're losing money. Finally, add interactive tools. Think about quizzes or surveys or even AI powered donor recommendation tools. Engagement is the name of the game when people land on your website. I'm also going to talk about a highly underutilized tool and it is this. LinkedIn newsletters. It is an underutilized gold mine. Now some of you have heard me talk about my love affair with LinkedIn. LinkedIn is my main squeeze. It is where I hang out the most. It is my social media platform of choice, in part because I think Reid Hoffman is the least evil of all of them, but also because that is where my ideal clients hang out. It tends to be older, it tends to be professional, it tends to be less troll y. I know a lot of us use it for when we're looking for jobs and we get feel like we get all of this like weird spammy advertising in our DMs. Leaving that aside, I actually think that it is pound for pound the best use of social media because of the fact that the people who use it tend to be a little bit older and wealthier. So it's not just for job hunting. Now there is a function in LinkedIn called Newsletters and it is a free way to consistently show up in your supporters inboxes without relying on email opens. So here's the advantage. They get sent straight to subscribers inboxes. Unlike your regular LinkedIn posts, LinkedIn newsletters don't disappear in the feed, they land in inboxes. They position you as a thought leader. You already have valuable insights on your cause, so share them and establish your nonprofit as a go to resource and they help you grow your email list so every subscriber to your LinkedIn newsletter becomes a follower of your page page, thereby expanding your reach. Finally, fundraising meets Marketing the Power of Micro Donations. So I'm seeing a lot of trends in this space that I think are probably worth highlighting. 1. Subscription based giving models. So by encouraging donors to set up small automated monthly donations instead of one time gifts, you get consistency over time you get to smooth out that revenue that revenue line and overall you're getting bigger dollars than if people were just giving one time. 2. Round up donations so you can partner with local businesses so customers can round up their purchase totals to donate the spare change and three Live fundraising on social media so you can do live Q&As, donor shoutouts and real time fundraising challenges which create urgency and engagement for your donors. So here are the final thoughts and call to action. We covered a lot today. If you're listening to this, here's your quick action plan segment and increase your email marketing. So stop ghosting your donors. That means emailing them more than once a month. 2. Focus on organic marketing. Ditch the ad spend for real engagement 3. Use AI tools to work smarter, not harder 4. Update your website and SEO for 2025 search trends 5. Start a LinkedIn newsletter to grow your credibility and REIT Start a LinkedIn newsletter to grow your Credibility and reach and 6 Implement microdonations for sustainable fundraising. Marketing in 2025 is all about authenticity, trust and smart automation. If you're still relying on once a month emails and hoping people just find you, you're going to get left behind. But you don't have to do it alone. Thanks for tuning in. I'm offering a free nonprofit marketing audit. So send me a DM on LinkedIn Ria Wong and I will get it to you. So thanks for tuning in. If this episode was helpful, share it with a fellow nonprofit leader who needs to hear it and click Follow wherever you are listening to this podcast. I will see you next time. Hey fundraisers. Looking to nail those big fundraising asks? Check out my Big Ask gift program@riawong.com bag. Say goodbye to uncertainty and hello to confidence with my program. Get expert strategies and personalized support to secure those game changing donations. Don't let fear hold you back. Join me and take your fundraising to new heights. We're enrolling now@riawong.com bag. That's riawong.com bag. So if you like big asks and you cannot lie, I'll see you in the program.