Nonprofit Marketing

Nonprofit Marketing Trends for 2024

Andi Graham | Jan 19, 2024
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The world of marketing, particularly digital marketing, is always changing. As you build the budget and promotional strategy for your nonprofit organization, you need to plan as much as you can.

That’s easier said than done, especially in an environment as volatile as this. As with so many other industries, COVID-19 turned the nonprofit sector on its head and inflation and the threat of recession have kept it from reaching a new equilibrium. Add that to the already rapid change of pace in online marketing and predicting what’s next on the horizon becomes more complex and challenging than ever.

We’ll give it our best anyway! Below are the top 10 trends for nonprofit marketing in 2024, all based on both external research and our own experience in the field. Let’s dive in.

Nonprofit Marketing Trends in 2023

1. Social Media Will Never Be the Same

Speaking of Gen Z: with new audiences come new marketing channels that are important to leverage. Yes, your website remains your centerpiece online, and Facebook remains an important part of your mix. But what about going beyond those channels?

Some interesting social media channel trends to watch:

Put it all together, and it’s clear that as we move into 2024, nonprofits will struggle with effective use of all of those channels (time to find that social media coordinator, fast!). It’s time for nonprofit marketing leaders to take a close look at their channel mix and make tweaks that continue optimizing their budgets and efforts for their environment.

2. Gen Z Approaches Their Thirties

Charitable giving increases are also driven by an important generation of donors aging into a key stage of adulthood. Generation Z is growing up and ready to contribute to society.

Gen Z refers to the generation born in 1996 and later, meaning its oldest members turned 28 in 2024. That, of course, right around the prime age to become regular donors for charitable contributions to their organization of choice.

Another factor: most social scientists believe Gen Z to be the most socially conscious generation yet. If they believe in you, they’ll become loyal members and contributors.

Are you ready for this generation to make a tangible difference in your audience mix next year? You’ll need content that’s accessible to them, including short and succinct statements of value and worth. This is the time to make sure your channels and messages are prepared for Gen Z.


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3. Digital Nonprofit Marketing Reigns Supreme

While COVID-19 threw a major wrench into the workings of nonprofits everywhere, especially those that were most dependent upon in-person events, the pandemic actually increased total charitable giving in America in 2020 and 2021. While giving levels have not maintained that high post-pandemic, what hasn’t changed, however, is the new world of online giving options that the lockdown helped usher in. That’s why it’s more important than ever to make it easy to donate online and to hone your digital marketing strategy.

Here’s what you need to know about digital nonprofit marketing in 2024:

  • Men and married couples have especially increased their share of donations, opening up new audience opportunities.
  • Millennials are giving more than ever, as donor audiences continue to get younger and younger (or nonprofits get smarter about marketing to younger audiences).
  • Travel and volunteering mean in-person activity has resumed, although digital engagement is still a vital part of your nonprofit marketing strategy.
  • Memberships continue to be an important driver of revenue, especially for cultural nonprofits and public media.

different email notifications on a laptop to signify different email marketing audiences

4. Audience Segmentation for High-Performing Nonprofit Email Marketing

You know about email as one of the core ways to communicate with your audience online. But email marketing for nonprofits is rapidly changing, and 2024 is shaping up to be the tipping point for separating good email marketing from bad in the nonprofit world.

The driving factor: audience segmentation. Simply sending push emails to your entire database no longer yields results. After all, we now send more than 300 billion emails every day. Get this channel wrong, and you’ll get lost in the clutter and noise of the average email inbox.

Instead, relevance is the name of the game. Each email you send should be personally relevant to the people receiving it. That, in turn, is only possible through effective email list segmentation. And you can start that process now.

Take a look at your database, and begin to split up your audience into relatively homogenous groups. Current and frequent donors may be one group, but don’t be afraid to go deeper. Similar demographics (like the Gen Z note above) can further help you segment your lists to personalize your appeals.

Tools like HubSpot let you track and segment your contacts more easily than ever before. When someone visits your website, clicks on an ad, or makes a donation, you can place that contact in a custom-tailored workflow that helps you send personalized nudges and reminders when they’ll be most effective.

5. Increase Donations through Personalization

Speaking of personalization, segmentation is only the first step. If you’re not personalizing your nonprofit marketing messages in 2024, you might be in serious trouble.

It’s not just about entering a first name in your email salutation, either. Three-quarters of consumers now feel frustrated if their website experience isn’t personalized to their needs. Meanwhile, 72% of them only engaged with messaging personalized to them.

How can you speak directly to your audience? The closer you get to that one-on-one conversation, the better. That’s especially the case given the other trends mentioned in this article — Gen Z expects personalization more than any other generation before them. The new virtual nature of marketing has taken some of that personal touch away.

So this is it. Invest in systems that allow you to build customized messaging for your audience, regardless of channels, like HubSpot (which offers a 40% discount to nonprofits!).  Utilize programmatic advertising and highly segmented lists to deliver creative campaigns that are targeted specifically to on-the-fence members of your target audience.

volunteer checks their phone

6. High Impact Storytelling with Video

Using videos to tell your story has been a growing trend in nonprofit marketing for a while, but we’re finally past the tipping point. If you don’t leverage video messages as part of your marketing mix, you’re missing the mark on fulfilling (and exceeding) audience expectations.

Video made up 82% of all online traffic last year, and many people online increasingly expect marketers to produce more video.

Videos work particularly well for nonprofits because they let you tell your story clearly and vividly. What better way to demonstrate what your organization does than by interviewing the people you’ve helped or showing footage of volunteers in action. A behind-the-scenes video of your organization at work or a feature about the impact of donations — these can powerfully convey your organization’s mission and create a personal and emotional connection with viewers.

Don’t forget about the power of live streaming, either. More than 150 million people watch live stream videos every month. For inspiration, check out the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals’ Extra Life campaign, which has generated millions of donations through the power of live streams.

7. Making Donating Easier across Multiple Marketing Channels

How easy is your donation process for both new and existing members of your nonprofit? The answer to that question could change the way you’re thinking about the process. In the recent past, we’ve seen drastic improvements to the process, including (but not limited to):

  • Social media fundraisers that allow you to donate without ever leaving the platform.
  • One-click buy opportunities similar to Amazon’s button that leverage technology like PayPal, Google Pay and Apple Pay.
  • Giving using crypto and other non-traditional financial methods.
  • Donations via text messaging, right from mobile devices.

Here’s the challenge — can you meet your donors on their favorite channel, and make donating take 30 seconds or less? It should be your goal to build a giving platform that doesn’t require someone to get up and find their credit card. That’s what your audience expects.

8. Re-Engaging Lapsed Donors Limits Audience Variability

It’s easy to forecast that your existing donors will matter more than anything else in any year. As inflation and recession fears limit financial flexibility, donors will return to their “comfort zone” and give to the institutions they’re already familiar with — organizations they know can make a difference.

But what about people who’ve given to you in the past, but no longer do? Now is an opportunity to build a strategy for them. They may have been short on money or turned their attention to other nonprofits. And yet, at some point in the past, they recognized you as worthy of their donations.

Re-engaging these lapsed donors is a crucial way to limit your variability and rely on audiences that have proven to bear fruit in the recent past. But you’ll need to have a few pieces in place to get there:

  • A database or platform that easily identifies your lapsed donors and segments them into a single audience group.
  • Analytics and reporting tools that allow you to find the unifying characteristics of this lapsed donor audience group.
  • A compelling message at the ready that prompts lapsed donors to start considering you again.
  • An easy check-out process that remembers their past information and moves them through the process at their preferred pace.

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9. Build Relationships with Donors to Grow Your Sustainers and Increase Predictability

Lapsed donors should be among your most important audiences. However, it still doesn’t quite reach the highest priority group: your sustainers, the reliable every-year givers who make up the foundation of your fundraising strategy.

As audiences narrow, this group should become your bread and butter. That means two things above all:

  • Keeping your current sustainers engaged to ensure they will remain loyal and close members of your core audience.
  • Spending significant effort to grow new sustainers from your occasional donors.

That last piece might be the most difficult. It means locking donors into multi-year commitments, turning them from one-time to regular contributors in the process. Only a succinct value proposition coupled with consistent, engaging communications specific to these audiences across channels can make that possible and realistic.

When you get there, though, the benefits are significant. The more sustainers you can count on your side, the more predictable your revenue will become.

10. High Quality Content Marketing Is Essential

According to one survey, 92% of nonprofit marketers use at least some form of content marketing, while 65% of them have increased their content production pace.

In other words, nonprofit content is crowded. It’s no longer enough to simply create it; instead, high quality content is becoming essential.

We’ve started to see leading nonprofit content marketers leverage storytelling through some options mentioned above, including video and platforms like TikTok. The rise of LinkedIn and Instagram Stories has further aided in that capability.

But at its core, it’s even simpler than that: no matter what content you publish or what channels you leverage, quality comes first. Every piece of content should give your audience some insight about your cause and organization, or some takeaway that actually helps them solve their pain points. If you can accomplish that, you’re already winning.

“We need really good storytelling embedded into our organization. It’s not just Marketing’s job anymore, it’s everyone’s.”
– Justine Burke, VP of Marketing at Metropolitan Ministries

Start 2024 with a Strong Nonprofit Marketing Strategy

As #GivingTuesday and the holiday season approach, there are only a few months left to finish 2024 as strongly as possible. A strong framework now will make all the difference as you end the year and move into 2025.

Fortunately, you’re not on your own. Having the right marketing partner by your side will help you build a strategy for success moving forward.

Contact us to learn more about our expertise in digital marketing, particularly in the nonprofit sector. Let’s work together to build a digital marketing strategy designed to help your nonprofit organization thrive.

If we had to pick three top social media trends for nonprofit marketers, it would probably have to be

  • The rise of TikTok as an organic search platform (giving you new ways to increase the longevity of your short-form video content)
  • For Facebook to continue to be a strong source of donation revenue (and therefore a good opportunity to increase ROI) while still losing users overall
  • For Instagram to take the opposing path from Facebook — growth overall on the platform will remain strong, but advertisers may struggle to maximize ROI, particularly in an election year

What is the outlook for nonprofits in 2024?

While there are still lingering uncertainties about the economy going into 2024, economists are still projecting a mild recovery, and there are other reasons to be cautiously optimistic:

  • Growth in donor base: The continued expansion of online fundraising platforms and social media reach may enable nonprofits to tap into new donor markets and demographics, diversifying their revenue sources.
  • Philanthropic focus on specific areas: Increased public attention to urgent issues like climate change, social justice, and mental health could drive targeted funding towards nonprofits working in these areas.
  • Data-driven fundraising strategies: Leveraging data analytics to segment audiences, personalize appeals, and optimize campaigns can lead to more efficient and effective fundraising.