Affordable PR Solutions: Budget-Friendly Ways to Amplify Your Nonprofit’s Mission

Reaching new stakeholders and sharing your impact are essential for a nonprofit organization’s long-term growth and stability. However, navigating the nuances of nonprofit public relations can be overwhelming, especially when resources like budget or manpower are limited. The good news is that with creativity and strategic planning, you can amplify your message and expand your network without breaking the budget. 

Let’s explore affordable yet effective PR strategies that can help your nonprofit thrive and reach volunteers, donors, and program participants. 

Cultivate Your Online Community

Social media platforms allow you to grow your nonprofit's reach and engage more deeply with your audience. By cultivating your social community, you can create genuine two-way interactions, which builds brand loyalty. 

• Share Stories: Tell compelling stories about the people your organization supports. Personal stories create an emotional connection and inspire followers to support your cause. Use images and videos to make these stories more impactful.

• Host Interactive Sessions: Conduct Q&A sessions, live chats, or town halls. These activities encourage connection and allow your audience to ask questions and learn more about your work in real time.

• Post Regularly: Consistency is key. Share updates, events, and success stories regularly to stay top of mind and keep your audience engaged. Use a content calendar to plan your posts and ensure a steady stream of collateral.

• Encourage Participation: Ask your followers to share their own stories and photos related to your cause. User-generated content boosts engagement and helps your followers feel connected to your mission. 

• Utilize Hashtags: Create and use relevant hashtags to increase the visibility of your posts. Hashtags help categorize your content and make it easier for new supporters to find you.

• Monitor Feedback: Pay attention to comments and messages, and respond promptly to questions or feedback. Engaging directly with feedback improves trust and brand loyalty by demonstrating your willingness to listen. 

By consistently posting interesting content and interacting with your followers, you can harness social media's power to amplify your nonprofit’s stories. Doing so will increase your reach and foster a deeper connection with your audience.

Build Relationships with Local Media

Building relationships with your local media is an authentic way to create two-way communication with reporters. You’re sharing the impact your organization is making in your community, and the media want to report on the issues affecting local residents. Here are some practical ways to engage your local media: 

• Nurture Relationships: Introduce yourself to local reporters and editors who cover your cause. In an elevator pitch-style email, give a high-level overview of your organization and its mission, share a recent project or stats to demonstrate impact, and offer to provide commentary on community issues related to your industry when the opportunity arises.  

• Create Press Releases: Some organizational news lends itself well to press releases, which are a great way to alert the media of your events, initiatives, or other business news. [In case you missed it, check out this blog on writing and distributing press releases.] 

• Invite Media to Events: Community events demonstrate how your nonprofit carries out its mission, and inviting the media to cover your activities allows reporters to learn about your nonprofit through the eyes of those you serve. This firsthand access can lead to better coverage. 

• Provide Story Angles: Suggest unique story angles highlighting your organization’s impact. Human interest stories, in particular, are a great way to incorporate storytelling and underscore your impact. 

• Write Op-Eds: Write opinion pieces on relevant issues and submit them to local newspapers or business journals. Op-eds showcase your expertise and provide a platform to advocate for community issues and share solutions. 

By checking in with the media and providing timely community news, you can create authentic relationships with your local media and gain valuable media coverage that helps you attract new supporters and raise awareness. 

Creating Compelling Content on a Budget

Creating engaging content is the foundation of any successful communications plan. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to get professional content on a budget. Here are some strategies for producing assets affordably: 

• Use Free Tools: Take advantage of free content creation tools like Canva for graphics, Clipchamp for video editing, and Google Docs for collaborative writing. These tools offer robust features without costing a dime.

• Repurpose Existing Content: Refresh older content by updating information or giving it a new twist, which saves time and resources. For example, turn a blog post into a social media video or an eNewsletter infographic. 

• Engage Volunteers: Tap into your volunteer network for content creation. Many supporters may have skills in writing, photography, or video production. Engaging them can result in high-quality assets without additional costs.

• Focus on Quality: It’s better to produce high-quality content less frequently than to pump out low-quality content often. A few well-crafted pieces can go a long way in creating organic and lasting engagement. 

• Leverage User-Generated Content: Encourage your audience to submit stories, photos, or videos of their experience with your organization that you can repurpose into blog or social media spotlights. User-generated content is akin to your community’s authentic endorsement of your brand. 

• Storytelling: Focus on storytelling to create emotional connections. From those you serve to why your volunteers choose you to work with, these stories can be very impactful. Use clear narratives to highlight the impact your organization is making. 

Using these strategies, you can produce compelling content that resonates without sacrificing your budget. 

Engage Supporters with Email Marketing

A strong email marketing strategy is a great way to connect with your audience directly for more personalized communication. It can also be a powerful resource for fundraising. These tips can help you make the most of your email campaigns: 

• Build a Quality Email List: Collect email addresses from supporters, volunteers, and event attendees, making sure you have permission to email them. By maintaining communication with engaged subscribers, you can build brand awareness and loyalty. 

• Segment Your Audience: Tailor your messages to your various stakeholders. For example, you can target donors for a fundraising campaign or engage volunteers for training; each campaign will require its own messaging. 

• Tell Your Story: Use your emails to share success stories, organizational updates, news coverage, and the impact of donations. Storytelling helps demonstrate your impact and can motivate people to continue supporting your cause.

• Include Clear Call-to-Actions (CTAs): Each email should have a clear goal. Whether donating, signing up to volunteer, or sharing on social media, make sure your CTA is clear and easy to follow.

• Track and Analyze Performance: Use analytics tools to monitor campaign performance, such as tracking open rates, click-through rates, and unsubscribes, to see what works and make improvements.

Email marketing is a nonnegotiable for nonprofits—it’s the number one, most cost-effective way to keep supporters engaged. 

Grow Your Reach Without Sacrificing Your Budget

Effective communication is critical for any nonprofit to reach new stakeholders and nurture relationships with established supporters. Adopting affordable PR strategies and leveraging creative marketing tools allows your nonprofit to build authentic relationships and create lasting impact without stretching your budget. 

From user-generated content to email campaigns to media outreach, these approaches empower nonprofits to expand their reach, foster community trust, and drive meaningful change. With the right blend of resourcefulness and strategy, even the smallest teams can build brand awareness and inspire action.  

If you're ready to elevate your nonprofit's PR efforts, contact K.E.Baker Public Relations today! Kristen specializes in creating strategic PR campaigns for nonprofits; learn more here. 

Case Study: How Strategic Planning Drove a 56% Coverage Increase for a National Nonprofit

About Warrior-Scholar Project

Warrior-Scholar Project (WSP) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with a mission to ensure that every degree-seeking enlisted veteran succeeds in their pursuit of higher education. Since its founding in 2011, more than 2,000 student veterans have participated in a WSP Academic Boot Camp, its flagship program, and 90% of program alumni have earned or are on track to earn a college degree.

About K.E.Baker Public Relations

Kristen Baker-Geczy uses strategic planning and compelling storytelling to help businesses and nonprofits amplify their reach and inspire stakeholders to take action. Kristen’s nearly 20-year career in communications has taught her that meaningful coverage comes from curated and cumulative efforts. To achieve that, she relies on data-driven outreach strategies supported by high-quality media assets.

Amplifying an Important Cause

Every summer, WSP holds its immersive academic boot camp programs at leading universities nationwide to help enlisted service members prepare for the cultural transition from the military to academia. Initially, WSP's media strategy involved promoting individual boot camp events within each university's local media market to its three primary audiences: future participants, potential donors, and media members. 

The initial strategy brought impressive results, earning coverage in 39 media outlets during the summer of 2022. However, as Kristen reviewed past campaign data, she saw trends emerge that she thought could drive even stronger media coverage in 2023.   

Implementing a Focused PR Strategy

While WSP's original strategy was successful, yielding high-quality placements in outlets like public radio's The American Homefront, it had one significant drawback: with more than 20 universities hosting boot camps each summer, there were limited resources to dedicate personal attention to each program, leading to detached media relations and an overburdened client.  

With three summers' worth of data in hand, Kristen better understood the local media markets. She pursued a new strategy that promoted boot camp events in nine strategic areas selected based on several factors, including media viability and target audience saturation.  

Because she decided to focus her efforts on fewer markets, she now had time to collaborate with university partners to create higher-quality content, which included valuable assets like vetted interviews and media call times. WSP also had the bandwidth to work with Kristen to train a point person at each campus who could immediately help coordinate on-the-ground logistics and collect PR collateral for post-event media outreach. 

Reaching Target Audiences with Earned Media

Kristen's new strategy generated 61 stories published across print, broadcast and digital media outlets — a 56% increase over 2022. Those stories reached over 333 million unique viewers at an estimated ad value of more than $3 million. Coverage highlights include:

• KABC in Southern California produced a story syndicated across its ABC affiliates, generating 7.5 million unique views.

• Stars and Stripes picked up a story from The Virginian-Pilot, earning simultaneous coverage within one of the largest military communities in the U.S. and in one of the leading military publications. 

• WSP was also featured in The Chronicle of Higher Education, the preeminent publication in the higher education industry, and the client's dream story. Not only did the reporter shadow a full day of academic boot camp activities, she also chronicled the impact WSP has on transitioning military and college campuses nationwide — showcasing the value that both the program and veterans bring to higher education institutions and beyond.  

The stories generated by Kristen's new strategy were thoughtful, in-depth features, which was a testament to the infrastructure she and WSP created that made it easy for the media to produce high-quality coverage. 

Takeaways for Your Organization

The results achieved during WSP’s 2023 academic boot camp season underscore the power of an optimized PR strategy. By utilizing data to choose markets more effectively, Kristen helped WSP more than double program coverage without doubling the budget. And by dedicating time to create comprehensive packages, she helped the media deliver quality stories to their audiences. The result was an improved return on investment and more impactful storytelling.

*Photo courtesy of Warrior-Scholar Project