Magnetic Messages: How to Craft Messaging That Attracts Energy, Excitement and New Audiences to Your Nonprofit

This workshop will teach you how to craft messaging that attracts donors to your organization. You will create a brand promise to ground and guide all your messaging, create a tagline that is meaningful and memorable, develop talking points (not an elevator speech!) to engage new potential donors. You will also learn how to create and support a culture is aligned with and supports consistent messaging, so that everyone from board members to volunteers is “reading from the same page.”

About the Presenter:  Maryanne Dersch
Maryanne Dersch is a teacher and coach for nonprofits in board leadership, fundraising and marketing. Her company, Courageous Communication, works with boards and organizational leadership to create cultures that work in trust, connection and ease to create a bigger impact.
She developed a method of fundraising, Superstar Fundraising, so organizations can have energy, resources and donors flowing to them and end the chase and grind of fundraising. She wrote the book Courageous Communication: How Codependence Is Making Your Nonprofit Brand Boring and What to Do About It so nonprofits can own, understand and share their value to attract like-minded donors.
Maryanne has spent her professional career in or serving the nonprofit sector. Previous to starting Courageous Communication, she spent 16 years at 501creative, where she led fundraising and marketing planning projects, wrote plans and developed creative material. Before 501creative, she was a consultant at Vector Communications for four years. 
She has served on boards and committees over the years, including Community Service Public Relations Council and the Saint Louis Chapter of Association of Fundraising Professionals. She has served on the board of Foster and Adoptive Care Coalition until they became her client. She has fostered dogs for Stray Rescue of Saint Louis for 20 years.
Maryanne graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1988 with a degree in journalism. She has three children adopted from foster care with her husband. She is known for her love of ultrahigh heels, extra-large Diet Cokes, and short karaoke rotations.