As a firm, CWR believes that marketing at its essence is about accurately communicating one's identity and value to a specific audience.  Thus, good marketing practices in the business world generally translate effectively to the nonprofit sector.  Raising money from donors and appealing to a customer base share the same best practices in terms of messaging, strategy, and execution. The professional background of our key team members in our marketing practice demonstrates our core belief in this translatability, and they enjoy translating their expertise into the nonprofit context.

However, our team has recognized that there are a few elements of corporate marketing that usually don't translate.  For example, expertise in pricing structure or analysis of competitors don't really make sense for most nonprofits built on fundraising, except by stretching the analogy (i.e. price point=donation amount) in a way that misses critical psychological differences.  Our team has recognized the differences and accepted that not all of their expertise will be brought into the service of CWR clients.

This normal reality is what made a recent marketing project for the Palo Alto Community Child Care (PACCC) agency a distinctive - and satisfying - experience for us.  PACCC provides affordable child care for the city and has historically been its main provider and thought leader.  It also derives almost all of its revenue from fee for service.  In recent years, however, PACCC has been losing market share to a number of competitors and hasn't been sure why that's happened and what to do in response.  Recognizing our expertise in business driven marketing beyond the fundraising context, PACCC turned to CWR.

Our team did much of what it would do in any strategic marketing project: listened intently to PACCC staff to grasp their identity: their passion, vision, and programs. We analyzed its communication methods and materials for how well they aligned with their true identity.  We examined its organization infrastructure to ascertain how well PACCC could execute any strategy.

But we also pulled out our business trained lens to examine its key competitors, how PACCC stacked up, and the way prospective clients calculated value. We proposed alternative pricing structures and cross promotional strategies. And we showed them a practical road map to rebuild its market leadership.

If you are an entity with a revenue model that adheres to more of a business dynamic - and yet still is a social mission driven venture - we know you have a distinct kind of marketing challenge.  We believe we quite possibly could be just the right solution.