Originality is always going to be something to chase after…because, after all, it’s original. I mean, remember back to high school homecoming dances? Who wanted to show up wearing the exact same dress as the girl from the front row of Algebra?! No. One. Ever. (By the way – I was ALWAYS the girl in the front row of Algebra. Ha!)
BUT! Let’s flash forward about 20 years to your life in 2022. Now let’s throw in a handful of children. Maybe a dog or two. An obnoxious diet that makes you actually rely on cooking for yourself and not going through a drive-thru. Oh, and you are also juggling your role as the “Chief Everything Officer” of your favorite nonprofit.
Yes, originality is still something to chase after…especially in good marketing design because it sets you apart, makes you look professional, and it is on-brand since you are the creator.
BUT…if originality comes at the expense of precious time you could be spending, say….perhaps having coffee with a donor who might just give you $10,000, then it’s time for a change!
What if I told you that your nonprofit marketing design could still set you apart, make you look professional, AND be on-brand – but only take you a fraction of the time??! Yep! It’s true! If you haven’t found out about a beautiful little tool called Canva, now is the time!
Canva allows you to create templates and use templates with just a few strokes. And it’s amazing! Take for example the two images below that were created for Down Syndrome Alliance of the Midlands.
This client has a peer-to-peer fundraising event they host each year called the Step Up for Down Syndrome Walk. They recognized that the success of their fundraising depends greatly on the work of the Team Captains who recruit their friends, families, and community members to donate, but creating individual marketing materials for all 100+ teams wasn’t realistic.
These Team Captains, though, are also VERY BUSY moms, dads, siblings, business executives – you name it! So relying on them to design something “on brand” wasn’t realistic either. Instead of just telling these folks over and over again to “Share your pictures! Tell your story! Get the word out on social media!” and hope that they created something that even remotely looked like the event being hosting, this year, DSA decided to make life a little easier for themselves AND the Team Captains. With the help of Mary Catherine Marketing, we created some Canva templates to get the these Team Captains started.
The template is on the left above. The final product is on the right. The Team Captains can use the design “as is” or make their own modifications. Then they swap out the picture and in an instant they have an image that is ready to share on their social media pages. It’s creative. It’s professional-looking. And it is still 100% on-brand.
Here is another example of a storytelling video template created for social media.
This is a nice little template video with areas that allow the user to personalize it for the unique needs of that team.
And here is the customized video with small modifications to reflect the uniqueness of the individual. It took about 3 minutes to personalize it – and it was ready to go!
So there you have it! You CAN have your cake AND eat it too! You CAN have beautiful marketing materials that set you apart, make you look professional, and remain on-brand…AND also make your life drastically easier!
Save time by creating and using templates. There’s no sense in constantly reinventing the wheel when the one you already have is beautiful. Just change the picture, update the words, and as the little Henry in the pictures above says, “You’re alllllll set!”