Hi, I’m Jane Pfeiffer, founder and president of Fieldtrip. I’ve been thinking of all things about Christmas, and not just this past Christmas, but years ago when my kids were small, they believed in Santa and they were so excited, and had the one gift that they just couldn’t wait to see if Santa would bring. Selfishly, I miss those days for a lot of reasons. Yes, having kids at Christmas is really exciting, but it’s a little more selfish than that. What I actually loved was spending the days before, the night before, putting things together. So building the castle, the Barbie car or the Fisher Price basketball goal, putting all those pieces together, following instructions and then having something tangible at the end. Even better, when it’s the next morning, and the kids are coming downstairs and they instantly get to play with that one gift they really hoped for. So, yes, the sparkle in their eyes was part of the reward. But yeah, I just missed the building stuff. So what does this have to do with nonprofit marketing? Well, nonprofits and really most businesses tend to lead with the directions and the instructions of what we do, thinking people will understand why it should matter and why they should invest in us or do business with us. And it’s kind of like handing your kids, small kids, a set of instructions and saying, here, work through all this and then you can get to the good part and start playing. So what I mean by all this is always be conscious of how you can avoid the descriptions, the explanations, and instead focus on the inspirations and the invitation for people to join you. Work on the emotional benefit rather than the logistical process. Make it easy for people to skip to the good part and immediately make a difference with your help. Thanks for watching.
