I recently asked one of my staff members after a year on the job what she wished she knew about nonprofit fundraising before joining us. She had extensive corporate and agency digital marketing experience, but working at a nonprofit was new for her. Her first response? She wishes she understood more about our persona and who the target donor is.
I missed a great opportunity after hiring her.
As nonprofit fundraisers, we can’t live and die by the donor persona we’ve developed, but it sure is helpful when you’re crafting campaigns and messaging to have a target person in mind. Now, whenever I add a staff member, I’m going to make sure the new employee understands our personas and who we’re targeting for the different campaigns we create.
Countless books and articles have been written about how to develop a marketing persona. I’ve added 20+ resources here to help you identify who your donor is, craft a compelling narrative about the donor persona, and build effective campaigns to reach those people. Most organizations have 3-5 different donor personas depending on different classes of donors. Use these tools to build your donor personas:
- A Nonprofit’s Guide to Building Audience Personas, https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/a-nonprofits-guide-to-building-audience-personas
- Marketing personas for non-profits: design and implementation, https://www.theguardian.com/voluntary-sector-network/2013/jul/29/marketing-personas-nonprofits-fundraisers
- The Complete, Actionable Guide to Marketing Personas, https://blog.bufferapp.com/marketing-personas-beginners-guide
- Five Steps to Create Donor Personas, https://www.wealthengine.com/resources/blogs/nonprofit-blog/five-steps-create-donor-personas
- Create Personas to Bridge the Gap with Target Audiences, http://gettingattention.org/articles/202/audience-research/nonprofit-audience-research-persona.html
- How to Create Detailed Buyer Personas for Your Business, https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33491/everything-marketers-need-to-research-create-detailed-buyer-personas-template.aspx
- Personas: The Art and Science of Understanding the Person Behind the Visit, https://moz.com/blog/personas-understanding-the-person-behind-the-visit
- How to Build an Epic Buyer Persona Profile, https://writtent.com/blog/building-an-epic-buyer-persona-profile-a-totally-comprehensive-guide/
- How to Create Easy, Yet Actionable, Content Marketing Personas, http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2015/04/content-marketing-personas/
- The Complete Guide to Developing and Using Buyer Personas, https://www.singlegrain.com/buyer-personas-2/complete-guide-developing-using-buyer-personas/
- How to Create a Donor Persona, https://www.campaignnowonline.com/nonprofitblog/how-to-create-a-donor-persona
- Step-By-Step Guide To Creating A Marketing Persona, https://www.conversioner.com/blog/step-step-guide-creating-marketing-persona
- How To Build Buyer Personas For Better Marketing, https://www.shopify.com/blog/15275657-how-to-build-buyer-personas-for-better-marketing
- How to Create a Concrete Buyer Persona (with Templates & Examples), http://optinmonster.com/how-to-create-a-concrete-buyer-persona-with-templates-examples/
- How to Create a Buyer Persona Map, https://blog.kissmetrics.com/buyer-persona-map/
- How to Develop Donor Personas for Your Nonprofit, https://www.classy.org/blog/how-to-develop-donor-personas-for-your-nonprofit/
- How to build donor personas for your nonprofit, https://www.frontstream.com/how-to-build-donor-personas-for-your-nonprofit/
- How to Create a Marketing Persona for Your Nonprofit, http://www.firespring.org/education/articles/nonprofit-marketing-how-to-create-a-marketing-persona-for-your-nonprofit.html
- Audience Persona Development, http://www.thenerdynonprofit.com/audience-persona-development-a-guide-from-arcstone/
- Why Your Non-Profit Needs To Build “Buyer” Personas, http://info.ahredchair.com/blog/why-your-non-profit-needs-to-build-buyer-personas
- How to Identify your Nonprofit Donor Personas, https://blog.elevationweb.org/nonprofit-donor-personas
- 5 Questions to Ask Yourself When Creating a Donor Persona, https://pulsemarketingagency.com/5-questions-to-ask-yourself-when-creating-a-donor-persona/
- How to Create Donor Personas that Work for Your Nonprofit, http://online.concordia-ny.edu/create-donor-personas/
