By John Haydon

Are you curious how your nonprofit’s marketing stacks up against your peers? Which marketing channels are most important to your peers? Do you share the same challenges faced by your peers?

All of these questions are answered in the Nonprofit Marketing Guides’ 2016 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report.

Highlights include:

• Top goals for nonprofit communication directors in 2016: brand awareness & engaging community.
• Your website is still the most important communications channel.
• Facebook, Twitter and YouTube remain the top three social media sites for nonprofits.
• Your peers are posting to Facebook at least once a day.
• The goals of Executive Directors are more aligned with Development than Communications.
• 59% of nonprofits will pay for Facebook advertising in 2016.
• Recipe for nonprofit comm success? More dedicated staff, bigger budgets and more internal cooperation.

What’s changed over the past three years?

With 6 years of data, the Nonprofit Communications Trends report also shows how things are changing for the better! For example:

• Retaining donors has become increasingly important to Executive Directors. Retention is also a top goal for Development and Communications.
• For Development Directors, retaining donors is now more important than acquiring new donors.
• The “Big Six” communications channels – websites, email, social media, in-person events, print marketing, and media relations/PR – won’t change in 2016.