How to Get Your Nonprofit Leadership on Board With Mobile

Mobile marketing is where it’s at today. But there’s often a generational gap, especially with nonprofit leadership and boards. While younger people use mobile devices as a default, it’s something older generations are still catching up with. Which means it can sometimes be hard to convince nonprofit leadership to invest in mobile tools. We can help with printable downloads and pre-written letters.

Why Mobile Marketing?

We’ve explored why a mobile marketing strategy is so vital. It’s not just tacking texting on to whatever you’re doing, it’s approaching communication with a mobile-first mindset.

We’ve seen the stats. People are on their devices all the time, and if you want to connect with them you have to reach them where they are.

Nonprofit leadership and boards can understand that better when you present the data.

The Wholesale Shift

Sometimes it can be a challenge to convince leadership, but take heart. Technological change has moved at absolutely insane speeds in recent years.

It’s hard to keep up with.

It’s even harder to see the secondary impacts.

Even when the older generation begins to accept the actual technology, like iPhones or Facebook, it’s still another step further to see how those changes play out:

• Phone calls > texting
• Primetime TV schedule > on-demand streaming
• Records/tapes/CDs > streaming digital music
• Buying software > annual fees for software as a service
• Cash/checks > digital banking

Each one of these shifts is a tremendous mental hurdle to overcome, especially if you spent most of your life on the left side of the dichotomy. But more than simply embracing that change, there are the multitude of ways that change can impact society:

• Always-on communication at zero cost means young people often gather together in person less frequently than previous generations, while at the same time being in contact more than previous generations. (Example: Teens Are Over Face-to-Face Communication, Study Says.)
• The rise of streaming music services have completely transformed the economics of the music industry. In an unexpected twist, there’s less of an emphasis on the latest hits and more focus on the ‘oldies’.  (Example: Latest, Greatest Growth Areas for Streaming Services: Oldies.)
• Shifting to a nearly cashless society means kids rarely have a piggybank full of pennies. Which makes the old fundraisers where kids brought in change aren’t nearly as effective as they used to be. (Example: Giving to charity in a cashless society.)

These changes are happening faster than ever before, and the impacts aren’t always obvious. But we believe that when you lay out the stats and make a clear case, forward thinking leadership will see the absolute need to embrace a mobile strategy.

Convince Your Boss or Board

We put together an entire resource to lay out the case for Rally and shifting to mobile marketing. It’s a downloadable PDF (and printable!) you can share with your boss or board.

As a bonus, we’ve also created a pre-written template for a letter (included in the PDF) you can use to share this resource with your boss or board. It’s a Google Doc so you can make a copy and customize it for your specific situation.