5 Content Marketing Success Stories Your Nonprofit Needs to Imitate

Yesterday we talked about the importance of content marketing for nonprofits. Hopefully you caught it. If not, go check it out. We’ll wait here for you to come back.

It’s a fairly simple idea. Create content that attracts the audience you’re targeting with the goal of getting them to interact with you.

Simple in theory, but actually very challenging to execute on.

Knowing that it can be tough to execute on we thought we’d give you a few examples of nonprofits effectively using content marketing as a key part of their online strategy.

Here are 5 nonprofit content marketing examples.

Big Brothers Big Sisters – Leverage video to tell your story

Big Brothers Big Sisters of America has been doing incredible work for over 100 years and, while content marketing isn’t news to them, they’re using content along with social media to make sure the online world knows about their work.

Through the Start Something Web Series they’re shedding light on the impact that Bigs have on Littles by telling their story through quality video they publish on their YouTube channel, share on their website and talk about on Facebook.

So far they’ve covered six matches between Bigs and Littles.

Meet Kyhron and Dan in Epesode 4 to see how Big Brothers Big Sisters of America is using content marketing effectively.

CONTENT MARKETING PRO TIP: Figure out how to turn the unique ways your organization is changing the world into content that can be used online.

March of Dimes – Use a multidimensional approach

Since 1938 March of Dimes has been changing the world one baby at a time.

Along the way they’ve used content in the form of life changing stories to help shed light on how they’re making a difference. More recently they decided to harness the power of the web and content marketing by allowing people to follow the life of their 2012 national ambassador.

By blogging, creating compelling video that’s published on YouTube, sharing stories on Facebook, pushing updates on Twitter and creating a way to support user generated content, the March of Dimes has successfully created a content strategy that supports it’s core mission of making sure every baby is given a healthy start in life.

Check out the March of Dimes blog post and Meet Kieran. He’s the 2011 March of Dimes National Ambassador. You can stay up to date with him by reading his March of Dimes sponsored blog. Now that’s content marketing in action!

CONTENT MARKETING PRO TIP: Allow the people you impact to tell their story through creating digital assets.

Best Friends – Harness the power of user generated content

Best Friends Animal Society’s has a laser focus on seeing dogs and cats that are considered “unadoptable” get placed into good homes. They’ve been at it since 1984 and with the Invisible Dogs Campaign they’ve stayed true to that mission.

By lighting the spark that started a grassroots movement with the ultimate goal of no more homeless pets, they’ve strategically used content marketing in the form of user-generated content that’s easily created through a mobile app for iPhone and Androd devices.

My Dog ID lets you take photos of yourself, and uses facial recognition to find your dog match.

Clearly it’s a fun app to play with, but the magic happens through user-generated content. The app prompts users to share their photo matches with friends on Twitter, Facebook and on the Best Friend’s User Generated Content Dog Wall.

Go find out what your dog match looks like!

CONTENT MARKETING PRO TIP: Mobilize the people who are passionate about your cause with fun and engaging opportunities.

Charity:Water – Empowering staff be creative

charity: water is the nonprofit of choice for every social media geek due to their extremely effective use of digital marketing, but this time they’ve outdone them selves.

For their five-year anniversary charity: water launched a very creative campaign focused on thanking the incredible supporters who helped them raise the $42 million dollars that allowed them to serve over 2 million people in need through 4,282 water projects.

From a traditional nonprofit perspective the idea of thanking supporters isn’t new, but doing it online with video in a creative way like what charity: water has done is a radically deviation from the norm. They’ve taken the commonplace thank you letter and turned it on its head.

Finding ways to remix older forms of content delivery is a hallmark of new age content-marketing and it’s also a great way to produce lasting content that keeps workingyou’re your organization.

Watch one of the videos to get your creative juices flowing.

CONTENT MARKETING PRO TIP: Give your staff the freedom to be creative and publish content that connects you to your supporters.

Make-a-Wish – Stay true to your brand

Make-a-Wish Foundation arrived on the scene in 1980 by helping one boy become a police officer. They’ve now grown into an organization that grants a child’s wish in the U.S. every 40 minutes.

From granting wishes to meet Beyoncé or Michael Jordan to wishes that make dreams come true like when Emily wanted her music to be professionally recorded, the amazing work Make-a-Wish Foundation does has always been material for creating great content and they’ve effectively figured out how to bring that content online.

By sharing all their video wishes on their YouTube channel, publishing every granted wish on their web site and sharing all this content on Facebook and Twitter they’ve effectively taken the brand they’ve built over they years and put it online for the world to interact with.

CONTENT MARKETING PRO TIP: Stay true to your brand and what you do, but find new ways to bring your message to the world.