Outsourced Marketing Services
Ingenuity worked with a Top 50 New York-based, public accounting firm to develop a nonprofit industry survey and report. Their primary goal was to offer a valuable resource to nonprofit finance and executive leaders in their market.
Survey data could help niche leaders start conversations with nonprofit prospects while supporting their guidance for existing client relationships.
Our team began collaborating with the CMO and the nonprofit practice leader of Marks Paneth in 2019. Ingenuity consulted on the survey strategy and methodology, and we analyzed the raw data to write and design a report.
Over the next two years, we helped the firm create and launch two additional nonprofit surveys as well as provide data analysis, writing and design for their 2021 report and 2022 report.
Strategy
We began with the end goals in mind by writing questions that would help us identify challenges and opportunities for nonprofits. We collected information from CFOs and directors of finance, executives and board members through an electronic survey tool of the client’s choice.
The 2020 report derived from a single survey prior to year-end 2019. The client was pleased with the results and shared them with their clients and prospects as part of a special presentation at the beginning of 2020. The downloadable report was available on their website to generate new client relationships.
Due to the pandemic, our client questioned whether to conduct a survey for 2021. Ultimately, we concluded that timely insights could be very helpful to their nonprofit market. Marks Paneth’s marketing team conducted two mini-surveys on their own, and Ingenuity’s team used that data to ask more questions in a survey toward the end of 2020. Collecting this timely data at three pulse points in the same year helped us compare top priorities, obstacles and optimism for nonprofit leaders during a time of rapid change and innovation. Analyzing all of the data helped us report on ways that nonprofit leaders maintained resilience and supported their organizations throughout the year.
By the end of 2021, our third survey promised to offer a glimpse at lessons learned and future planning. The goal of the 2022 nonprofit pulse survey report was to offer leaders fresh ideas for moving forward.
Results
The 2022 report forecasted how leaders were processing everything they had learned over the past 18 months during a pandemic, and how they were moving forward with long-term investments and planning. The report acknowledged their struggles and their fatigue, but also their triumphs, innovations and opportunities for stronger organizations.
The 2022 survey project experienced a unique twist for report design when Marks Paneth became CBIZ Marks Paneth & MHM, effective January 2022. Ingenuity’s lead design consultant worked with the client to incorporate the official color palette, style guide, logos and other specifications into the final report design. This approach helped our client publish and share the report seamlessly in the context of the larger nonprofit practice group, client base and firm.
