Targeting multiple audiences is a key part of any nonprofit organization’s marketing plan. It is necessary to appeal to the people you serve, donors, sponsors, your board, volunteers, staff, and the community at large, as well as any government bodies that regulate your particular field. A common approach in marketing is to get inside the heads of your audience by constructing audience personas (generally referred to as buyer personas in the business world). This process involves researching your current audience and the people you hope to reach. Traditionally, marketers have not given much weight to the political leanings of these personas, focusing instead on income, geography, age, race, sex, gender, etc. But how much should you think about politics when creating your own marketing plans?
The marketing landscape is changing. It seems like everything has become about politics lately. While one could argue that society has always been political, social media has brought politics to the forefront of more people’s minds than ever before. For businesses, deciding whether to take political stances can often come down to the age of one’s customers. A broad generalization is that older people don’t like businesses to be political and younger people don’t want to patronize businesses whose values are unknown. Nonprofits can take this consideration into account when deciding how political to get, but it can’t be the only thing they take into account.
The first thing a nonprofit marketer has to consider is how much political involvement is legal. Unless you are running a PAC, you are not allowed to support specific political candidates or attempt to influence elections. You may support specific pieces of legislation (and you may be expected to do so if they are especially relevant to your mission), but you cannot give the appearance of supporting a certain candidate that favors that legislation. If you produce marketing materials about political candidates, they must be impartial and educational in nature.
Second, you must consider your funding restrictions. If you are funded by government entities or foundation grants, look over your agreements carefully. Many will have stipulations about the extent of your organization’s political involvement. You do not want to violate these contracts.
Once you’ve made sure you can legally get political, it is time to decide whether you should. It is definitely advisable to consider the political leanings of your audience when constructing audience personas, but whether you should try to overtly appeal to those political leanings is a question that requires careful consideration. Ask yourself how polarizing and politicized your mission is. This will help you determine whether your audience will be alienated or comforted by you taking political stances. For better or worse, the work you do has likely become politicized at least a little. Things like feeding the poor and helping the sick have become controversial where they once were not. The concept of charity itself has become controversial. No matter what you’re doing, there is someone out there who does not approve. That said, there are some good acts that are still considered good by both major political parties in America. If those are the services you provide, you should try to keep good relations with people on both sides of the aisle. On the other hand, if what you’re doing is especially polarizing, you should talk to your own audience and those who can be persuaded. You have the opportunity to use your platform to affect real change. You must think strategically about how to do that. Like all marketing, it comes down to knowing your audience. More that that, it comes down to what best serves your mission and what will help you to do the most good.
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