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Even the Nonprofit Marketer of 2008 isn’t immune to the recession.
Jay Aldous, chief marketing and communications officer for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF and the American Marketing Association’s 2008 Nonprofit Marketer of the Year award winner, is fighting off the economy’s effect on donations with high-profile campaigns such as The Tap Project, which enlists restaurants to offer tap water to diners for $1, with proceeds that then go to fund UNICEF’s global efforts to ensure clean water is available for impoverished children.
Aldous, who is also on the advisory board for the AMA’s 2009 Nonprofit Marketing Conference in Chicago and leading a panel there titled “Three Unique Case Studies: Doing More With Less,” recently shared his insights with Marketing News.

Q: Obviously spending and giving is down today. How is UNICEF being affected, and how is marketing responding?

A: Certainly it’s affecting us. The fundraising environment is more challenging. … We know that a large percentage of the donating public [is] reducing the number of organizations they support. A critical strategy for us is to make sure that we remain in consideration. … We are pleased that we are up 3% over last year in terms of donations.
Part of our success is the result of strategies and initiatives that we put in place several years ago that are now coming to fruition. In the past I think there had been perhaps too much focus or orientation on the wording of the importance of what we do and not enough focus on the benefits that we provide to those who support us. … On Monday we’d talk about HIV and AIDS; Tuesday, immunization; Thursday, education; Friday, maybe an emergency; Saturday, child protection; and by Sunday, donors were overwhelmed and confused about who we are and what we did, [they] essentially were indifferent. So now we speak to our single net impression. Every communication, every story, every donor interaction is going to be around saving kids’ lives, the desire to create a world where no child dies of preventable cause and we’ll speak to that topic with our brand values.
Donors are looking to be a part of something bigger than themselves and not just to support a specific project or program. That required a reorientation of our organization, [and for us to] look at how we build relationships and not [just] execute transactions. [We had to look at] how we communicate shared values and not deliver messages that try to leverage off of guilt. It has been a whole new way of speaking. And I think what that is doing in today’s environment is [establishing] an affinity and a relevance for our organization that is stronger than in the past.

Q: How has your marketing budget been impacted?

A: It has remained the same. Two things have happened. We’re being smarter and more disciplined in how we use our budget. The other thing is what I call an abundance of opportunities in the marketplace. We’re seeing agencies, media outlets and various vendors that are very hungry for business. We’ve been able to put together some programs and develop some relationships where we’re able to do a lot more for “X” than we have in the past. So in some ways, it’s a very exciting time.

Q: What specific examples from your integrated marketing have expressed your new orientation? UNICEF’s Tap Project, for instance, has garnered a great deal of attention for its concept and approach.

A: For us, what has been the learning and the power of the Tap Project is the potential that can be harnessed if you let people own and interpret something on their own terms, and that their investment and level of participation increases dramatically as a function of the empowerment and ownership that they might have. We have a volunteer program associated with it where we’ve got people doing videos on YouTube, hosting events that they’ve created or designed themselves. We’re saying: ‘Here’s what Tap is. How would you like to be a part of it? What does Tap look like and feel like for you? How do you want to manifest Tap in your life?’ And that is a very different approach from, historically, ‘This is how we want you to do it.’

Q: UNICEF has offices and marketing programs running around the world. How does marketing in general work for UNICEF?

A: We’re very decentralized. Having said that, we do have global brand guidelines that all country offices must adhere to, but with the guidelines we have a fair degree of autonomy and flexibility as to how we steward and mange the UNICEF brand. There are days when that is very empowering. We can create and develop and execute programs and campaigns such as Tap very quickly and very nimbly in the market without having to worry about the larger global organization or a bureaucratic approach. But at the same time there are opportunities missed. Sometimes it is difficult to have the level of consistency and clarity with the brand that we would like around the world.

Q: What advice do you have for nonprofit marketers fighting to retain and increase donations?

A: Here’s the upside: Many nonprofit organizations own and represent issues that are very important to the public, whether [they] be specific segments or even in larger audiences. So if you are an organization involved with animals, there is an opportunity to create content; several organizations are working with outlets to create animal-oriented programming. In our case there is something very compelling about creating a world where no child dies of preventable cause. There are a lot of things we can bring to the table.
The challenging environment we’re in is allowing us to focus on those opportunities where we have the highest return. We’re saying no to things that we need to say no to. We are focusing on and investing in those things that we know have bite and have a track record. In some ways we’re taking advantage of these times to clean house in terms of programs and priorities. I think all nonprofit marketers, and all marketers in general, should re-evaluate all the things that they are doing, and we need to ferociously focus on those most critical activities and efforts that we know will perform.