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In the challenging times we live in, purpose has taken on new meaning in major organizations around the world. As a result, companies are working to find more meaningful ways to respond with more empathy to the emerging needs of key stakeholders across a range of issues. Visionary leaders in the nonprofit sector are always focused on helping others, while also seeking new and innovative means of change while attracting new donors and partners. We are working hard.
To stay on top of these emerging trends that are important to all organizations and their leadership, I thought it would be great to sit down with one of the top leaders in the nonprofit field today to discuss the latest trends in marketing in this field. Ta. . Monica Rowe is her CMO at CARE. She is a marketing innovator with decades of experience across both the nonprofit and for-profit worlds, working for major organizations such as One Love Foundation, Eileen Fisher, Bath & Body Works, and Sephora. Below is a summary of our conversation.
Billy Howard: Tell us about your most recent role and the pivot you had to pivot from traditional marketing to deal with the complexities of nonprofit marketing.
Monica Rowe: As the Chief Marketing Officer of CARE, one of the world’s largest NGOs, I like to tell people that my job is to market humanity, empathy, and compassion. For nearly 80 years, CARE has worked around the world to save lives, overcome poverty, and achieve social justice. Today, with more than 7,000 staff in approximately 110 countries, CARE is redefining international aid and development, working to create, implement, and scale the most powerful solutions to regional challenges around the world. .
We are also continually redefining the way we market an evolving organization like CARE. Our team of talented marketers understands how we reach those living in poverty, facing hunger, and conflict on the other side of the world. Every day I strategize how to get people interested.
We constantly strive to balance the application of traditional and modern marketing techniques to drive awareness and engagement. In the digital space, CARE is one of Meta’s global strategic partners. For three years, we have been working with Meta to experiment with social media as a means to achieve social and behavioral change (SBC) goals through communication campaigns.
Through this partnership, CARE has implemented more than 60 SBC campaigns in 25 countries. We have been driving changes in attitudes towards COVID-19 preventive behaviors, vaccine acceptance, early childhood immunization, maternal health education, and gender-based violence. CARE also received the Shorty Award for its partnership with WhatsApp and Turn.io, which created a chat service that allowed him to communicate with the CARE-Kabul team as the US withdrew from Afghanistan. In less than five days, our team went from waiting for responses to individual emails that were slow due to time zone differences and high volume of messages to responding to important information and answering frequently asked questions. , and now have real-time access to the lives that matter. Instantly save resources.
Howard: The nonprofit space is undergoing a transformation very similar to the private sector.
sector. Business transformation requires breaking down silos and a willingness from senior leaders to be more collaborative and do things differently. What are your thoughts and how is this playing out in his CARE?
Row: Change is impossible if your home is not in order. First, prioritize your team. My leadership philosophy is guided by his 3 P system: People, Process, and Potential. By prioritizing people and building high-performing teams and processes, you can achieve anything you can imagine. Second, it is essential to foster organizational coordination. Once the foundation is solid, adjustments are needed for the transformation to blossom. Anyone can have a transformative idea, but without collaboration across the organization, it will fail.
I am working on a rebrand for CARE that is scheduled to begin in 2024. I’ve spent much of the last year aligning our entire organization to help people understand the difference between branding and marketing. why? Because, although NGOs typically do not invest in branding, brand relevance is always a top priority among leaders. At each meeting, we worked to break down silos by practicing the art of listening. By gaining critical insights, we leveraged both internal and external intelligence to create a connective tissue that better aligned our fundraising, advocacy, programming and branding efforts.
Through this hard-won collaboration, we will introduce the refreshed CARE brand and become the world’s most dynamic, diverse and largest network of organizations and individuals fighting poverty and poverty for the next 80 years. We are now able to tell a new story of what we are aiming for. In solidarity with those in crisis.
Howard: Please talk about the importance of human-led innovation in the NGO sector and the decolonization exercise you recently completed, including its reasons and outcomes.
Row: At CARE, we hold ourselves to the highest standards of ethical storytelling. As we tell stories through the perspectives of historically marginalized program participants, we must do so with a collective voice and a spirit of collaboration, becoming faithful stewards of the voices and stories entrusted to us. It doesn’t have to be.
Gone are the days when NGOs told stories of extreme struggle, pain and suffering that delivered shock value.It’s a colonial mindset that still lingers in this field.. That approach robs people of their dignity, humanity, and agency. Instead, CARE showcases locally-led solutions from within the communities we work in, telling stories that demonstrate local ambition, skills, creativity and resilience. In times of crisis, whether we are responding to the world’s biggest disasters like the Turkiye-Syria earthquake, or the conflicts in Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, we provide real-time insight into the truth of the crisis. You have to work hard to be a witness. We don’t always get things right. However, my number one guiding principle is always to lead with integrity, empathy, and consideration for others.
Howard: Please tell us more about the trends to watch in this space in 2024. Are there any important things that should be considered/considered in general after Davos?
Row: While there are so many new technologies and trends on the horizon, I align closely with three main themes. The first is artificial intelligence and emerging technologies. Like all marketers, we are learning how new technologies will change the way we work. For us, this is an exciting opportunity to discuss, test the situation and adapt. At the same time, we strive to understand the ethics of when and how these technologies should or should not be applied.
We also think a lot about localized storytelling. CARE has the privilege of accessing a wealth of human stories and experiences. Each represents culture, diversity, and a window into human life that represents courage, resilience, love, and hope. We work with people in communities often affected by long-term poverty and conflict. Human-centered, nuanced stories help readers understand the stark reality of these situations, the global needs, and the role they themselves can play in bringing about real change in the lives of these communities. Helpful.
Finally, digital innovation is a strategic imperative. What excites me most is the work CARE is doing to accelerate transformation for the world’s most vulnerable people through digital inclusion. With a new program launching in March, Women in the Digital Economy (Wi-DEF) is changing the trajectory of the digital ecosystem and making it fair for women and other marginalized groups to participate safely, affordably, and meaningfully online. Make it accessible.
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