It’s easy to focus on the grim at the moment with the new session of the legislature starting in Des Moines, a new (yet old) administration looming in Washington D.C. and the weather preparing to turn frigid again, but there are still good things happening in Iowa. The state has numerous nonprofits doing important work for their communities on a daily basis, but you do often hear about the work being done by smallest nonprofits.
“It’s a catch-22,” Jav Ducker said. “Small nonprofits need marketing help to get their stories out to the public, but because they haven’t gotten stories out to the public, they don’t have funding to get marketing help they need to get their stories out. What do they do?”
Ducker is a multimedia specialist at de Novo, a marketing agency based in Cedar Rapids, and is in charge of Fresh Impact, a new program at the agency that aims to help a nonprofit in the Iowa City-Cedar Rapids area out of that catch-22.
“We already work with a lot of nonprofits,” Ducker said. “At de Novo, over half of our clients are nonprofits. But those are nonprofits that have budgets that can support marketing expenses.”
Fresh Impact is for nonprofits whose budgets don’t stretch that far.
The program is open to any nonprofits in the Iowa City-Cedar Rapids area organized as a 501(c)(3), with annual operating budgets of less than $350,000, and organizations that are entirely volunteer-run. For this first edition of Fresh Impact, de Novo will work with the organization to create a three- to five-minute video that tells the public about the nonprofit, its mission and goals.
The professionals at de Novo will collaborate with the nonprofit to create the concept for the video. Then they’ll shoot and edit it, working with the nonprofit to make sure it tells the story they want in an effective manner.
“This answers, in a small way, the question of how those groups can get their message out,” Ducker said.
Nonprofits and volunteer-run organizations interested in applying can do so online at Fresh Impact page on de Novo’s site (scroll to the bottom). Applications must be received by Friday, Feb. 7. The successful applicant will be announced the following week, and the project will be completed by the end of March. The nonprofit will own the finished product, and can use in any way it wants.
Ducker said that future editions of Fresh Impact may focus on other marketing services de Novo provides. Current plans call for Fresh Impact to be an annual program, but depending on the response de Novo receives, it may decide to do it more than once a year.
“We already do a lot of pro bono work with area nonprofits,” Ducker said. “We believe in their missions. This new program is just an extension of that.”
Editor’s note: Jav Ducker is a former Little Village staff member.
