Ep. 117: The Growing Power of Influencer Marketing in Nonprofits: Get in Before You’re Left Behind
EPISODE 117
The Growing Power of Influencer Marketing in Nonprofits: Get in Before You’re Left Behind
About the Episode:
Find out how your nonprofit can secure funding for the next decade! In this episode, I’m diving into the unstoppable rise of influencer marketing for nonprofits and why getting in on it now is critical—before you’re left behind.
My clients in The Purpose & Profit Club™ are seeing huge wins by leveraging influencer marketing and growing their Social Street Teams™. I’ll take you behind the scenes of the method I created and show you how to blend major donor outreach with an influencer marketing strategy that can transform your organization. This isn’t just a trend—it’s becoming the top way nonprofits can cut through algorithm barriers and get consistent funding for years to come. Start now, and ensure your organization thrives into the future!
I extensively teach The Social Street Team Method™ in The Purpose & Profit Group Coaching Program – you could experience some of the same wins that I chat about in this episode!
Topics:
The current landscape of nonprofit giving has changed: why moving from traditional paid ad campaigns to influencer-driven campaigns rooted in partnership is key.
How to find an influencer for your organization to partner with, tap into brand new audiences via their preferred platforms, and end fundraising silos
The Social Street Team Method™: What it is and how to use it ahead of Giving Tuesday and how to be successful no matter your current following and (lack of) partnerships
Training and supporting your Social Street Team™ so it feels nothing like board work and encourages retention year over year
The future of giving: partnering frictionless giving, forward-thinking and bold messaging, and influencer marketing to expand your giving
Think you’ve reached out to “everyone” in your network? Out of ideas to get noticed and get funded? Generate leads for your nonprofit or social impact business: https://www.splendidcourses.com/prospect
Christina’s Favorite Takeaways:
“Influencer marketing is quickly becoming the number one way for nonprofits to break through the algorithm constraints and get funded into the next decade.”
“Influencer marketing is not just a come and go trend. It is here to stay, and at this point, you're falling behind if you're not developing the critical skills for you and your team to look at this as part of your fundraising strategy.”
“It doesn't matter if you yourself have a small following, that doesn't matter, because when you tap into the creator economy, boom, you will start to see that momentum and that ripple effect.”
“A Social Street Team™ should not feel like board work.”
“There are influencers who serve your niche, just no one's asked them, right? Influencers who care about your niche, but no one's asked them. So the time is now.”
“When I think about the future of fundraising, I know for certain that influencer marketing is a huge part of your success.”
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Christina Edwards 00:00
Welcome everyone. We're going to start off today's episode with a couple of updates, and then we're going to dig in to this one skill, this one strategy that I don't want you to be left behind on. Okay, so before we do, I'm going to share a couple of wins. So as I'm recording this, I have been doing a lot of like head down work inside my program, the purpose and profit club, and working through a lot of my client successes. And I want to share two of them with you today. The first is one organization who came to us with a solo Ed doing it all, having a couple of admin folks, a couple of volunteers, but really just a solo staffer. She just brought on a fractional fundraiser and marketing team like what and we are only maybe five months in. I'm gonna have to do math here to figure that out, but she's already done that. She came to us and she was not in the place to scale up and hire, and I'm just like, oh my gosh, that happened. You did that. You wouldn't have been able to fund that before the club. So that's the work we're doing. Another client, I was going through one of my clients and her win, and we have this Multiplier tool inside the club, which will help you kind of see, what did they say? The forest through the trees, you can see in your current donor base, in your current pipeline of constituents, where you can access and tap into to upgrade donors. That means you don't have to add more donors. They're already there. And she took a donor from $5,000 a year and upgraded them to $20,000 think about that transformation for your organization. All we did was use the donor Multiplier tool that's in the club and then refine her pitch process, and maybe a little bit of bully fork along the way, right? That's it. That's what it takes. Now I'm going to talk today about how you can think about something like that, where you are really just doing individual major donor outreach, and how that can work in tandem so beautifully with growing this influencer marketing strategy, growing a social street team for your organization, and how the two can work hand in hand, because they can, because your influencers, your digital street team, should be made up of what we're going to call micro influencers, the average folks on your list, those are ambassadors and then like, big ticket influencers. Okay, so I'm gonna give you a behind the scenes look at this method that I created and why I think it's so important for your organization to prioritize starting a street team or adding to your street team today and not next year. So influencer marketing is quickly becoming the number one way for nonprofits to break through the algorithm constraints and get funded into the next decade. So if you're not building influencer marketing partnerships now, you're already falling behind, all right, so there's some tough love, and let me set the stage about next steps and the power of these influencer campaigns. So I want you to think about this whole episode today, about how could I have my Ice Bucket Challenge moment? What is my micro moment that my organization could have, because you do not necessarily need Cameron Diaz flipping a, you know, ice bucket over her head to have a hugely, wildly profitable influencer marketing program. It'd be cool if we could have her. Beyonce Taylor Swift, that's not what you need, and that's not the process I teach. But how can you have like a micro moment? Because those micro moments will unlock hundreds of 1000s of dollars of funding, visibility, awareness, support, influence your organization. Okay, so we're seeing a shift, and I've been seeing this shift for many, many years. And for profits. Know this. Okay? They know this. They've seen this shift. They've invested in influencers for many, many years of the Creator economy, Okay, moving from AD driven campaigns to influencer driven campaigns, that just means creating those partnerships the way that I teach it. You're not paying for those partnerships. So I want you to think about somebody that you follow on Instagram or your Tiktok or your favorite social platform of choice, and I want you to think about that person. Now I'm going to do this exercise with you. I'm going to think about a interior designer that I follow that has like a really cool esthetic, because she she merges modern and antique design. So it's like this eclectic vibe. So. She has over a million followers, and this is her, she has creator economy. This is her full time business. Now many, many nonprofits do not realize that there are people like her all day, every day, who have a mission driven a purpose driven piece to their heart, to their business, who have simply been not been asked to partner with them. Okay? So, for example, she may, in her in her content, start to dip her toe into the environment and saying, You know what? I care about a sustainable, sustainably made furniture. Oh, now I've got a flag. Now I've got a leg in if my organization is an environmental nonprofit. So the point here is you have to find mission alignment. Again, it's not about Beyonce. We love her, but unless there's mission alignment, it doesn't work. Okay? So the process I teach is about that mission alignment. So it is really, really essential to think about, okay, million plus followers. That sounds amazing, but I want you to, like, zoom way out, and I want you to think about who's right here, right now, in my audience today. That would be an amazing partner, an amazing street teamer, because they exist. They are your volunteers. They are your engaged followers. They are the people that pick up the phone, that come to the events, that talk about you anyway. Those are fierce advocates that should be part of your street team. Okay, they have a platform of choice that they can help you fundraise on. Okay, so this isn't about having Susan come onto your platform and talk about the work you she she does, or why she loves your organization. No, this is about having Susan go on Facebook or Instagram or her preferred platform, lift you up and fundraise with you. This is how we end the fundraising silos. Okay, then it's about partnering with those other influencers who have 20k 300k those are my those sweet spot y'all. They don't have PR teams yet, okay? And partnering with them, partnering with them, tapping into their capacity, tapping into their engaged audience. Think about this. Think about like a trail runner. Okay, so a trail runner who's like, super outdoorsy and really into all of the things that come with that I don't even know. Their audience that follows them is also super outdoorsy. So if you are a nonprofit that serves the environment, maybe that serves some sort of community centric, hyper local piece that would be an amazing mission alignment, if they also live in your community. You with me, here's the thing, influencer marketing is not just like a come and go trend. It is not. It is here to stay, and at this point, you're falling behind if you're not developing the critical skills for you and your team to look at this as part of your fundraising strategy. Did you hear me say fundraising and not marketing? It's both, but it should be part of your fundraising strategy. So if you come to me and you say, Christina, giving us down. Christina, giving us plateaued. Christina, we're going to the same group of people again and again. Where's your street team? Where are they? Okay? Now, the process I teach makes it very, very simple. So this does not feel it feel like board work. This does not feel like community work or committee work. And instead, this is about building a community of super fans who are like, How can I help? What do you need? At the time I'm recording this, there is a lot of disaster relief happening. So locally, we've seen a lot of hurricanes, and so we see these nonprofits mobilize. Then what do we see? We see the people who know them mobilize. How do we help? Then we see the friends of friends of friends online, on Instagram, saying, I What organization do I donate to? How do I help? Right? That's that fire firework moment, that advocacy. Now you can have that without it being an emergency situation. You can have that without being a disaster. Okay, so now, several of my clients have created and launched their first street team for giving Tuesday, and this is a really fun way to do it, because we know Giving Tuesday is a noisy day online, but that doesn't mean you're gonna sit it out. That means you're gonna mobilize your street team of influencers and digital ambassadors. So it doesn't matter if you yourself have a small following, that doesn't matter, because when you tap into the Creator economy boom, now we start to see that momentum and that ripple effect. So one of my clients came to me. They had less than 1000 followers. They had zero social street teamers. In advance of GivingTuesday and GivingTuesday was. Always one of those have to, like we have to, but I don't want to online giving days, you know, you know the ones. And so what I said was, let's put together a street team. Okay? So we went through and said, Where's the mission? Alignment with influencers? What does that outreach process look like? What is the fundraiser that we want them to lift up and advocate for you, they 5x 5x their results. I had another organization come to me with this very similar thing, where they're like, Giving Tuesday is actually pretty good. Christina, it's pretty good. It's not too bad, but it could be a lot better, right? It could be a lot better. I was like, You're right. It could be a lot better. They were closing in on a million dollar year. They had some really, really great ambassadors, but they weren't tapping into them this way. They were using them for some peer events, peer to peer events. They were using them for some peer to peer events, but that was just like scratching the surface. When you have a street team and you mobilize them, it almost feels like a PR moment again. It's your mini viral Ice Bucket Challenge moment, and that's what they did. And I remember messaging them on GivingTuesday, and I was like, how is it going? And they're like, We doubled, we doubled our goal. They had increased their goal from last year, but they went ahead and they hit it mid day on Giving Tuesday, that is the power of the street team. You now here's why. I don't want you to wait. Okay, I don't want you to wait to create your street team, and by the way, call it something, give them an identity, make it as branded as your recurring giving program should be, and if it's not, send me a message, and I can help you with that. Okay, so you want to think about who should be on my street team. Who can I ask? What is the next step that I want them to take? Again? It should be very, very easy. We teach a process. We have a template for it inside the club where they get a digital toolkit. And I like to say it's like ordering off a menu versus cooking Thanksgiving dinner. That's the feeling that it should be when you're on a social street team. This should not feel like board work. Huge mistake. If you're listening to this and you've said, yeah, we've tried this, or Yeah, we already have this, I promise you, you don't if you're over ten million plus in funding, maybe you do. If you're a charity water level, you probably have a street team, but most of y'all don't. Okay, so there's so much opportunity. Now a key here is retention, one huge mistake I see nonprofits make when they dip their toe in this is the retention piece, meaning we see a lot of street teamers who are one and done, or we at you that you ask people to share a post and they're one and done. No, no. Want you to think about this like you're retaining your monthly givers. Okay? They should be part of your community. This is not year round work, but when it's time, you mobilize them and we go. So think about it this way, the longer you wait, the longer it takes to see the compound effect. Okay, so think about it this way, you launch your first street team, and maybe you have 10 influencers who join. That means this spring, when you have your spring event, and you know, giving is a little bit slower in the spring. Now we add 10 more to your street team. How many are on there? Now, 20. Okay, because we're going to retain the ones from your end. Now we have 20, so you're not the only one on the phone, sending notes, making calls, sending emails, sending direct mail. Instead, you're like all right street team, let's go. And they are using their networks of choice, their preferred networks, to lift up your cause, your mission, your fundraiser. Y'all, do not wait for this. Do not wait for this. The time is now to do this. And I have seen, because I've been teaching this method for many, many years, and it's worked for my clients for many, many years, I have started to hear and see people go, Wait, say more about that, whereas five years ago, people are like, no, no, no, no, we're going to do it this old school way. So I see that you're curious. I see that you've started with two, maybe three, maybe it's on your to do list. I don't want it to be two or three. I don't want it to be small and I don't want it to be on your to do list, because you're spinning out and doing all of these low ROI activities, when instead you could be focusing on. Major donors, cultivating and upgrading those. Remember, we started the call off with that and creating a street team. And think about how the two worked, hand to hand. So I had a client who was working on their street team campaign for year end. Just now here I have to cut a lot of coughs. So So I have a client who is working on their urine fundraising campaign. And I said, Hold up. I want you to go your major donor, secure a match. So secure a matching gift. They secured $20,000 as a matching gift. And then I said, Hold up. We're gonna use that for your street team fundraiser, right? Do you see how the two, right? Double your dollar, your dollar goes twice, twice as far. Now that's how the two go, hand in hand. Tell that donor about it. Be like, Dude, we're not the only ones. We're not the only ones. It's not just the organization. Check out our street team. Imagine a page. This would be my like wish for everyone. Imagine a page on your website. You've got your street team, and maybe it's called I'm gonna, I'm gonna shout out one of our amazing clubbers, who she serves the cat population, and she's starting her street team. They're the meow ambassadors, which I love. That name. It just makes me like, smile every time. Imagine a page on your website with the meow ambassadors, and it says who they are, what they do, and then there is just this list of all of the meow ambassadors, right where you're like, oh my gosh, this is a moment. This is like, taking effect. I want to be one. How can I help look at all this social proof. You show that to a major donor, and you're like, Listen, I'm gonna make you, I'm gonna I'm gonna make a bold ask. Here, we're looking for a 40k match this year. Can you be that person? Right? Look at what we're creating. Look at our big fundraiser. Look at the people who will be lifting us up. Think about that value proposition against what you normally might say, Right now is the perfect time to put your focus, build your first 10, launch your first fundraiser, make your investment back, and then some when you join the Club. By the way, when you do that and build a pond it because I don't want you to go, well, I'll do it next year. And then the your niche, your sector, becomes crowded. Right now. There's no one doing this. We have another organization in the club who is working on their mission alignment for one of their programs that serves burn care in Central America, okay, burn care. And what they found, and what I've helped them see, is there are a lot of advocates on Instagram, on Tiktok, who they themselves have experienced severe burns, right, and now they're vlogging about it. They're lifting up. And now they're vlogging about it. They're lifting up organizations. They're clearing up a lot of misinformation about the about that they're advocating. Like it's such an opportunity. So if they reach out to a vlogger, somebody a thought leader, who is experienced and is using their preferred platform, using Instagram, using Tiktok, using YouTube, I'm going to talk about YouTube for this. They're going to be a yes. They're going to be like, that's the whole point of my platform is, I want to make you know somebody survivors of burns, something that is not that is that is normalized. I want to make survivors of burns something that is advocated for, right? I want to dispel any rumors or myths about it, right? And they're going to be a yes, right? Now, there's no one doing that. And I promise you, there's very few or no one doing that in your niche. Sometimes we do super there may not be anyone doing that. You any. By when I say anyone, I mean any nonprofit partnering with influencers in your niche. There are influencers who serve your niche, just no one's asked them, right? Who care about your niche? But no one's asked them. So the time is now. The time is, don't wait. So if you're sitting here and you maybe you are nervous about a board meeting coming up, or maybe you're looking at your financials, or maybe you're on the heels of a board meeting and you're like, I don't know how we're going to do this. I don't know how we make up this gap in funding. I don't know how we make the budget next year? This is your answer, because there are two things that we really focus on, on The Club. This is the first thing is, this is how we attract, create trust, loyalty, endorsements and funding using a street team. The second thing is, we use bold, motivating messaging to tap into your. Current donor and subscriber base. When you have the two together, we easily see another 50k another 100k another 200k come in, in funding. Okay, it's possible for your organization, if you're small, it's possible if your organization, if you're over one to 2 million plus, this works really, really well. When you're over a million plus, you can have a lot of fun with your straight team. There are a lot of activations that we could do, and It just ends up having that viral micro moment. You I so when I think about the future of fundraising, I know for certain this is a huge part of your success. I was at a event recently with a couple of big name nonprofits, very modern, very forward thinking, less than 10 years old, who have seen a lot of growth in a short amount of time, almost like a Silicon Valley, if Silicon Valley backed nonprofit right, just had a very modern approach, several of them, and they're doing this right. This is on their radar. They know they're like, We are tech forward. We are making our donor relations as frictionless as possible. We are making our messaging very forward thinking very bold, and we know we are not fundraising in silos. You have to be doing this. So this is really, really important. I want you to think about, what can I do today? Who are the people already in my world today, I can ask, and what do I want to ask them to do? What is the next step? Because remember, it's not allowed to feel like board work. It's not allowed to feel like committee work. How do I make this easy? How do I make this fun? And if you need help with that, then you need to book a call with me. You need to join the Club. I can help you with that. Okay? Because when you do this process, it will make fundraising feel so much easier. And by the way, we didn't even talk about how it does make marketing feel so much easier, because suddenly you have these marketers, you have these content creators who are talking about your cause, lifting up your cause, positioning your cause in front of their audiences in a way that you're gonna have these light bulb moments where you're like, I love the way they said that. I'm gonna repost that. I'm going to share that, right? So good. All right, I will see you next time. In the meantime, I am rooting for you. I'm cheering for you this year end. Do not lose steam. This is our prime time. This is our Super Bowl time. So regardless of where your fundraiser is at today, you are not done. If anything, it has just begun. Remember, November, December are the most important, most highly, highest revenue months for nonprofits. So especially even that last week of December is so, so important, and that's when we see a lot of generosity come in. So the important thing here is that you claim what you want. You ask courageously. You ask often, and you don't do it alone straight. Team, all right, I'm cheering you on. I will see you next time you.