In my journey working with both small businesses and nonprofits, I’ve seen firsthand the unique challenges each faces. While they may seem worlds apart, the similarities are striking — both grapple with burnout, a need for steady growth, and a reliance on outside financing, whether it’s from lenders or donors.
Small business owners often ask, “What can I leverage?” It’s a question rooted in the business’ need for steady growth and customer loyalty to thrive in a competitive local market.
But what if small business owners could grow their audience and deepen trust in their brand by borrowing a page from the nonprofit playbook? When faced with challenges, nonprofit executives often wonder, “Who can I ask?” It’s about people — a subtle shift in perspective, but one that makes all the difference.
The problem with growth
Rapid growth is often seen as the ultimate goal for businesses — it’s a clear indicator of stability and success. But in the race to grow, something crucial can be lost: the connection with your audience. Here’s what you get when you focus on growing too fast:
Less trust: When growth outpaces your ability to maintain quality, customers notice — and they might start looking elsewhere.Less authenticity: Focusing on growth often shifts the marketing strategy toward sales-heavy messaging, sacrificing the authenticity that appeals to local customers in the first place.Less connection: Rapid growth can erode the personalized service that small business customers expect.
I’ve worked with small businesses that have tried to grow their business and expand their audience too quickly. The result was always disappointing. They invested heavily in ads and agencies with big price tags, but the result was a mountain of content that didn’t match their brand or audience needs. It was a classic case of prioritizing growth over connection, and it backfired. Staff burned out, and customers started looking elsewhere for solutions. Metrics like organic search traffic and keyword rankings went up initially but later took a decisive nosedive.
3 nonprofit strategies to steal
Instead of leaning heavily on the latest growth hacks, take a cue from nonprofits. These organizations operate with lean teams, and they grow by tapping into something deeply human: stories, people (not products), and community.
Use stories for marketing
Stories are at the heart of nonprofit marketing. They’re relatable, memorable, and powerful. Nonprofits know that everyone has a story to tell — not just their staff but their volunteers, donors, and clients, too. I’ve seen firsthand how nonprofit testimonial videos can achieve high engagement rates on social media.
This video from Lincoln Literacy achieved a 62% engagement rate on Facebook, by far one of their most popular posts of the year.
Image source: Facebook
So, where can you find these stories in your small business?
Open-ended survey questions: Ask your customers about their experiences.Reviews: Follow up on the feedback you’ve received to get more information and a deeper story.Customer service calls: These are gold mines for real-life stories. Don’t forget to take notes.Staff meetings: Your team has stories, too — listen to them.Charitable or corporate volunteer efforts: Capture stories from your CSR initiatives.Webinars: Capture quotes and advice from your internal subject matter experts.
For example, I once turned a 30-minute interview between a nonprofit executive and a volunteer ELL tutor into two feature stories in local media outlets and a slew of social media posts like this one.
Image source: Facebook
The beauty of stories is that they’re endlessly recyclable — you can tell the same story in a million different ways.
Focus on people, not products
In nonprofit marketing, the people they help are front and center. They don’t just talk about their programs — their human impact makes you feel something. And the end result is that their audience engages more with their content.
For example, this family reunification video, posted by Nebraska nonprofit Center for Legal Immigration Assistance earned a 22% engagement rate — much higher compared to their 8% average engagement rate.
Image source: Facebook
Small businesses can operate with a similar mindset. Use your marketing collateral to focus on people — staff or customers — including what they struggle with personally and how you can help.
Here’s how a small business can produce authentic, people-focused content:
Record and transcribe webinars, testimonials, and interviews for blogs, case studies, and white papers.Share personal, exclusive notes from execs as pull quotes in newsletters and social posts. (I recently ghostwrote a thought leadership blog based on an email chain from a small business owner — it was his favorite blog yet.)Showcase your company’s care for the community. Share stories of how you’ve helped local charities or gone the extra mile for customers.Show your (and your company’s) true self on social media in all its raw, unedited glory.
Check out this post from small business coach Jeff Jewell for inspiration — it earned a 43% engagement rate on Instagram.
Image source: Instagram
Working with multiple small- and medium-sized businesses, I’ve observed that lightly edited interviews, conversations, or quotes from industry experts like this one from Lighting for Impact’s general manager almost always outperform the glossy posts that appear overly edited.
Image source: Facebook
This Lighting for Impact post earned a 22% engagement rate, more than double their average of 10%. Why? People buy from people. A real person’s voice — whether it’s a customer, partner, or team member — resonates with prospective customers much more than stock photos and bland SEO content.
SEO Bonus: This content aligns with Google’s March 2024 core update because it’s created by people, for people, and offers added value in the form of firsthand experience. This type of content will ultimately win out vs. traditional SEO content — “large amounts of unoriginal content that provides little value to users” — which Google deems scaled content abuse.
Prioritize community and relationships
Nonprofits thrive on relationships — they prioritize them over productivity metrics because they know that personal connections are more valuable than sheer efficiency. This is a lesson small businesses should take to heart.
One great example of prioritizing community is this social media post from Union Bank and Trust, which tags a local artist and draws attention to their collaboration in redesigning their wealth management office. With the bank’s 8.4K followers, this post gained a much broader audience than the artist would have been able to achieve on her own, and the post’s generosity helped the bank appeal to its local customers.
Image source: Facebook
Union Bank and Trust regularly collaborates with local businesses and nonprofits to help the community prosper. Their community relationships help grow their reputation and audience in an organic, sustainable way, and their leaders recognize this as more valuable than prioritizing short-term profit.
Similarly, small businesses thrive on personal relationships with customers — taking time to listen to them and understand their needs is more valuable than constantly chasing new sales.
Community-building activities for small businesses to adopt:
Meetups with local industry contacts can spark ideas and help you connect with others who can drive your business forward. Swap newsletter and social shoutouts to reach new audiences. Partner with a local business for a co-branded promotion. Have personal conversations with customers to genuinely listen to and connect with them. (Don’t leave it all to your customer call center.)
“Relationships should come first,” Agency Partners founder Arlen Byrd once told me. “No matter how impersonal and efficient business becomes, people still trust people they know. Strong partnerships allow you to break into new areas of the market. And those strong partnerships are built on trusting relationships.”
Lead your business like a nonprofit — but don’t lose your leverage
By thinking like a nonprofit, you can foster a deeper connection with your audience, build lasting relationships, and ultimately grow your small business in a way that’s both sustainable and authentic. But remember, you don’t have to abandon your growth mindset entirely. Leverage your tools and resources wisely to make a profit — just don’t forget the human element that makes your brand truly stand out.