Throughout this series, you’ve learned how to create your marketing plan, define your brand identity, determine your target audience, set SMART goals and develop strategies and tactics.

The final step in developing your nonprofit marketing plan is making a budget and calendar to guide your efforts.

What is a Marketing Budget?

It’s a document that helps you plan how to use your nonprofit’s financial resources and includes income and expense projections. Creating a marketing budget is crucial for managing your organization’s revenue and planning for upcoming campaigns and initiatives.

With a marketing budget, you can:

• Allocate funds
• Define individual program expenses
• Set realistic goals
• Present ideas to stakeholders

What Should Be Included in a Marketing Budget?

Sources of income: You can estimate future income based on data from previous fiscal years. The other option is to build your budget on anticipated revenue. That includes money from donations, grants, private foundations, corporations and government agencies.

Projected expenses: Calculate how much it will cost to fund upcoming campaigns. Include all expenses for executing fundraisers and events. Also, account for administrative costs, salaries, building maintenance, utilities, insurance and technology.

How Much Should I Allot for Our Nonprofit Marketing Budget?

The answer depends on your revenue and goals. Generally, marketing accounts for 5% to 15% of a nonprofit’s budget. A larger charity organization could allocate 15% of its funds to build a robust marketing plan, while a smaller nonprofit may have more budgetary restrictions.

How to Create a Nonprofit Marketing Budget

1. Work with your team to align your budget with your goals. Then, create strategies based on various perspectives.
2. After you review previous data to guide your projections, create a first draft of your budget.
3. Set up a timeline to implement your plan and review its effectiveness monthly, quarterly or yearly.
4. Present your budget to your stakeholders to explain how you will use available funds to support your initiatives.
5. Establish a review process to determine if your budget needs to be adjusted.

What is a Marketing Calendar?

It’s a schedule of your marketing activities. You can create a marketing calendar each month, quarter or year, but it’s important to allow for flexibility to account for potential changes.

Analyze your marketing efforts to ensure your work meets your established goals. That analysis supports a cohesive strategy that can help you attract donors, educate your audience and raise awareness for your cause.

Types of Marketing Calendars

Content calendar: Use it to plan and schedule content such as advertising, blog posts and website updates. A content calendar allows you to spot gaps in your content output and track production.

Social calendar: Promoting your nonprofit on social media successfully requires consistency. Use your social calendar to plan posts about events, fundraisers and announcements.

Campaign calendar: Include all programs and initiatives scheduled during your calendar period.

Email calendar: Use email marketing for awareness campaigns and to send newsletters that educate and engage your donors and volunteers.

Fundraising calendar: Outline dates and details for fundraising campaigns. Doing so gives you time to plan for promotional activity and targeted messaging to increase exposure.

How to Create a Marketing Calendar for Your Nonprofit

1. Decide which activities, events and campaigns you want to complete in a given period. Then, determine which resources you’ll need.
2. Create a detailed plan for each calendar and a timeline for content distribution.
3. Determine who will be involved in the production and distribution processes.
4. Set a budget to implement your efforts based on their necessity and potential impact.
5. Schedule post-campaign reviews to evaluate the effectiveness of your efforts.

Comprehensive Nonprofit Marketing Services at MadAveCollective

Just like running a nonprofit, developing and maintaining an effective marketing plan takes dedication. The MadAveCollective team can take that responsibility off your shoulders and help you define custom strategies to achieve your goals. Call 419-725-6500 or send us an email to schedule a meeting.