In this episode, we bring you content from the 2026 Responsive Nonprofit Summit from Donna Lucas, Chief Marketing Officer at Joni and Friends.

You'll hear about:

• Why being the "best kept secret" is a sign of failure, not something to celebrate
• How Donna convinced her CFO to shift 60 percent of the budget to brand awareness
• The framework of brand first, marketing second, fundraising third
• Why she compares branding to planting, marketing to cultivation, and fundraising to the harvest
• How Joni and Friends grew fundraising 95 percent over seven years by investing in brand
• Why treating every social comment and DM like a phone call transformed donor engagement
• How a full brand audit uncovered nineteen field offices acting like their own marketing agencies
• Why aligning internal staff around the brand matters as much as external messaging

Connect with Donna on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donnamlucas/
Learn more about Joni and Friends: https://joniandfriends.org/

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