How to Scale a Nonprofit Brand for Fast Growth

Understanding how to scale a nonprofit is an essential skill for executives when the goal is to maximize your organization’s impact. Scaling to the next level can help you gain more support, earn more funding, and, ultimately, make a greater difference.

When nonprofit professionals approach scaling, they tend to focus on the obvious places to start, like finding and breaking through to new donors or developing a larger volunteer base. But taking important steps like these is only half the battle. The other half of scaling up is proactive branding, and it’s no less critical.

Awareness is the first step toward sustained nonprofit growth. You want an expanding audience to buy into who you are, what you stand for, and what makes you worth supporting. The best way to do that is by using your branding to tell a story that excites and inspires. Following these tips can help you tell that story effectively.

Build a noteworthy online presence

Creating and maintaining a robust online presence is one of the most important ways to scale any brand. In fact, 80% of surveyed global nonprofit professionals agree that a strong digital presence is more important now than ever for nonprofits, though only 48% rate their organization’s presence as in line with their competitors. By regularly engaging with your audience online, you can build lasting relationships, enhance your reputation, and draw the interest of new supporters.

Start by reviewing your mission statement to ensure it aligns with your new goals. Focus on your aspirations: Why do you care about what you do? What do you hope to accomplish and how will you make it happen? Read other nonprofit mission statements to understand how similar organizations position themselves and identify ways to make yours stand out.

Once you have a confident handle on your mission statement, use it to inform your organization’s website and LinkedIn Page. LinkedIn Pages with all tabs and fields completed get 30% more weekly views than those that are incomplete.

With your Page updated and rounded out, you’re ready to start growing your follower base. Connect with employees and encourage them to share your revamped LinkedIn Page with their connections.

Demonstrate your values through your content

Once you’ve clarified your mission statement and values, it’s time to “walk the walk” by demonstrating them as frequently as possible. Aim to post thoughtful content on LinkedIn and other social channels you use at least once per week. Experiment with different kinds of posts to determine what drives the most engagement.

Everything you post should reflect your organization’s mission and values, from long-form executive thought leadership to quick posts shouting out your volunteers or supporters. Draw a clear narrative throughline from each post to the difference you hope to make.

For example, if posting about an event you hosted recently, take the time to succinctly explain why you put together this event and how it’s helping you fulfill your mission. When you highlight an employee or volunteer, highlight how they embody the values at the heart of your organization.

If you can build memorable associations between your brand, your mission, and your audience’s shared values, you can encourage supporters to think of your organization when they think of the cause they care about. That way, when they want the latest information on the cause or to contribute in some way, they’ll come to you first. This is how you build awareness and interest at scale.

Make your organization a valued resource

As you scale your nonprofit’s brand, it’s worth creating an editorial calendar to help keep your team organized. We recommend following two interrelated rules to optimize your posts on LinkedIn:

• The 2-2-1 rule: For every post that asks your followers to take a direct action (like signing up to volunteer or donating to your cause), aim to create two posts featuring informational content and two posts centered on uplifting stories that demonstrate your impact. 

• The 4-1-1 rule: For every piece of content you share about your organization, consider sharing one piece of content from another source and around four written by sources outside your organization. This will broaden the kind of content that appears on the Page, help your Page feel less self-promotional, and lighten the lift for your team.

By sharing content your followers can benefit from, you can make your organization’s LinkedIn Page a trusted source of information. Your followers will naturally start looking to your Page as an authority on what’s happening in your field, encouraging them to view your organization as the experts on specific topics they care about.

When you share content from outside your organization, focus on sharing relevant stories from trusted sources and adding additional insight and contextualization of your own. This could be as simple as using the “repost with your thoughts” option on LinkedIn to add a few lines highlighting how the findings of a research paper relate to your mission, or why a recent news story is cause for celebration or concern. If your organization or one of your leaders is quoted, you could also highlight this when resharing to ensure your followers see it.

Whatever platform you’re posting on, consider every post an opportunity to demonstrate your organization’s expertise and start conversations among your followers. The more valuable and unique your insights, the more memorable your brand will become among your key audiences.

Scaling up any brand takes time and effort, but the effort you put in now can pay dividends in the long term. Focusing on brand awareness can improve your audience engagement faster than you think, leading to higher outreach response rates, more interest in your campaigns — and greater impact.