Every nonprofit runs on what we call a Relationship & Revenue Machine—three intertwined functions that together determine the organization’s ability to sustain itself and grow.
Marketing builds awareness, positioning, and audience engagement. Development cultivates donors, manages grants, and drives philanthropic revenue. And Board composition shapes governance, strategic direction, and access to networks and capital.
When these three functions are aligned and mutually reinforcing, the organization compounds its impact. When they operate in isolation—or when one or more of them is underdeveloped—revenue stalls, messaging fragments, and leadership energy gets consumed by coordination that should be structural.
At many nonprofits, the most fundamental problem is that Marketing doesn’t exist as a strategic function at all. What exists instead is “comms”—a newsletter, a social media presence, an occasional press release. When the entire outward-facing function is framed as communications, the organization loses the ability to think about audience, conversion, channel strategy, positioning, or growth. Every downstream problem follows: a website that doesn’t convert, the gala that underperforms, the annual report that tells last year’s story instead of next year’s vision, the development team cultivating donors with messaging that contradicts what the website says.
This isn’t a staffing problem. It’s a framing problem—and reframing it is often where our work begins.
We step in as interim head of the combined marketing and development function, or as a strategic advisor to the ED and existing staff, to integrate these operations around a shared revenue strategy and shared systems.
Marketing
This is our core expertise. We lead all aspects of the marketing function:
- Strategy, brand positioning, and messaging.
- Content and communications across all channels.
- Campaign design and execution, including annual, capital, and event campaigns (creative and strategic direction)
- Website design, development, and optimization.
- Analytics, reporting, and channel-level performance management.
- Agency management and long-term planning.
- Functional management, training, and mentoring of internal marketing staff.
- Rollout and optimization of Asana, WordPress, Google Analytics, Slack, and other marketing platforms.
We build the function if it doesn’t exist, optimize it if it does, and develop the staff who will run it after we leave.
Development
We bring strategic design and integration—ensuring that development is structured, scalable, and connected to marketing.
- Donor identification and qualification program design, including iWave-based prospect research and pipeline structure—ensuring that major gift work is governed and scalable, not dependent on one person’s relationships.
- Integration of development and marketing: coordinated messaging across donor communications and public-facing content, shared campaign calendars, CRM processes that connect marketing engagement data to development pipeline decisions, and reporting that gives the ED and board a unified view of revenue across all sources.
- CRM and tech stack evaluation, configuration, and management, including Salesforce, GoFundMe Pro, iWave, and Constant Contact.
- Cross-departmental business process design between development, marketing, programs, and other revenue-facing functions.
- Strategic oversight of campaign design, grant coordination, and board cultivation strategy.
We do not replace a Chief Development Officer or lead major gift solicitation—but we ensure the systems, messaging, and cross-functional processes are in place so that development work at every level is more effective and more connected to the organization’s broader positioning and revenue strategy.
Board composition
We work with the ED or the board directly on board capacity building, strategic planning, and the governance evolution that growing organizations require—ensuring that the board functions as an integral part of the revenue system, not as a growth limiter or strange attractor.
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“Partnering with Mark has been transformative for our organization’s strategy and communications work. Not only has The Next Us done phenomenal work for us, but Mark has taught myself and our staff so much in the process. Our partnership has made a tremendous impact on both our internal operations and our impact in our community. And the cherry on top: Mark is just truly fun to work with.”
Case Studies
Community Youth Center San Francisco
The Next Us has worked with CYC continuously since 2019 as strategic advisor and consulting Head of Development and Marketing. Over the past six years, our key responsibilities have included:
- Leading the rebranding, repositioning, website redesign, and messaging development for the agency’s 50th anniversary
- Leading the design and execution of the Richmond Community Hub capital campaign
- Creating serial cornerstone content assets, including multiple annual reports, Executive Director and board speeches, annual gala materials, and major donor brochures
- Leading the business requirements, design, and/or configuration of key development and marketing systems: Asana, WordPress, Classy, Slack, Constant Contact, Salesforce NPSP, ChatGPT, iWave
Small Magic
The Next Us worked with Small Magic (formerly Birmingham Talks) for a 4-year engagement on positioning, marketing and communications strategy, development strategy, internal capacity development, and brand. For the renaming and relaunch of the brand in January 2024, we led the content strategy and site map for the new website and referred Todd Schulte Design and CloudCatch, who led the exceptional design and WordPress development for the new site. The Next Us also assisted Small Magic with functional management of marketing and the optimization and integration of key operational systems including Asana, Salesforce, Slack, and ChatGPT.