How Understanding Your Nonprofit’s Brand Strategy Drives Fundraising
On this episode of Rally & Engage by CauseVox, we talk with Farra Trompeter. She is the Vice President at Big Duck, a communications firm that works exclusively with nonprofits to help organizations reach supporters, build awareness, and raise money.
Farra has led dozens of organizations through major brand overhauls, multichannel campaigns, and much more since joining Big Duck in 2007. She’s a frequent speaker around the country, training nonprofiteers on branding and marketing, online fundraising, and donor engagement.
Farra was born an activist on Long Island, organizing to end hunger, prevent drunk driving, and right other wrongs. She studied psychology at American University where she started and led a public health awareness organization called Students for Healthy Decisions. During the nine years she lived in DC, Farra worked on fundraising and social marketing for the National Breast Cancer Coalition, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. In 2001, Farra moved to San Francisco and dove into the wonderful world of online fundraising with Donordigital. In 2004, she came home to New York to get her Master of Science in Nonprofit Management at The New School and soon joined the team at Douglas Gould and Company to lead online engagement projects.
Farra serves as Board Chair for Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN), an organization that believes technology can revolutionize social change. She is also a part-time faculty member at The New School for Public Engagement and New York University Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, where she teaches classes about online engagement and strategic communications for nonprofits.
During our conversation, we talk about:
- The difference between branding and brand strategy
- Brandraising® and how your brand strategy should drive fundraising
- Practical steps you can take at your nonprofit to audit your brand strategy
- How technology is changing how we fundraise and build relationships with supporters
Additional resources:
- Farra Trompeter tweets about nonprofit communications and fundraising at @Farra
- BigDuck is a communications firm for nonprofits.
- Nonprofit training webinars hosted by BigDuck
- BigDuck NYC’s ebook on how rebranding impact nonprofits
