Do Your Staff and/or Board Need a Marketing Retreat?

by Kivi Leroux Miller on February 20, 2012

in Marketing Team,Nonprofit Communications,Professional Development

During last week’s free webinar on Helping Your Staff and Board Become Great Nonprofit Marketers (register to watch the recording), I asked nonprofit  marketers to tell me why they didn’t currently have the level of cooperation they might like from their fellow staff members and board of directors. Of the 300 or so participants, almost half (48%) said “Other staff/board are willing to help, but don’t know how.” Another 18% said “Other staff/board are dismissive or scared of marketing.”

 

Status of marketing team

I spent most of the webinar offering tips on how to deal with both situations, and several people told me they were excited to put the ideas into practice with program staff and their boards.

I’m wondering if the next step might be a staff or board (or combined) retreat, devoted to how you can work together to become a marketing team, with everyone helping in ways that are coordinated and effective for the organization, yet still manageable and comfortable for each individual.

Would it be helpful for me to put together a retreat kit  that you could use to help get your board and staff to the place where they really could help market your organization? Would offering my services as a retreat facilitator be helpful?

What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

 

  • Victoria C

    Kivi, the webinar was perfect and exactly what I needed. A Marketing Retreat Kit would be excellent! Could you also do one for Fund Development or Fundraising? I would most definitely utilize both of those resources immediately. Thank you for everything you do.

  • sfortier

    I would use a retreat kit for sure.

  • Stephanie

     We’re always looking for material to help encourage board/staff/volunteer comfort marketing our mission.  I think a retreat kit would be great! 

  • Angela

    We have a retreat scheduled next week for our outreach, membership, & fundraising staff.  Tips and/or a kit on how to make that an effective use of time would be most appreciated!  

  • Vickey

    A retreat kit would be a very welcome tool. And if our tiny NPO couldn’t quite a hire a retreat facilitator, maybe a couple of short board-specific sessions – webinars or phone coaching, or…

  • Jjessup

    I would welcome a kit to help start the conversation with staff and board. Thank you

  • Karen

    A board marketing retreat kit would be very useful.  We need to leverage our board’s community contacts and have them better armed with an elevator speech at cocktail parties and Rotary meetings.  I’ve always been taught to explain to them that they don’t need to be the experts, just to share why they volunteer and to advocate/raise awareness. Beyond the messaging, I think we could use some technical assistance with specific tools for a board member to use.

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