• by Liz Tascio , August 23, 2006

Got a good cause? Need donations? Stop talking and start marketing.

Katya Andresen, vice president of marketing for Network for Good, an e-philanthropy site, says nonprofits need to think less like evangelizing missionaries and more like marketers.

"Stopping and listening to your audience and developing a benefit exchange, what's in it for them  that's a principle that holds wherever you are," says Andresen, who has promoted causes on three continents. She put her years of experience into a book published last spring, Robin Hood Marketing: Stealing Corporate Savvy To Sell Just Causes.

Andresen cites successful social campaigns like "Don't Mess With Texas," an anti-littering campaign that spoke to young men's machismo. The "Truth" campaign gave young people something to rebel against: tobacco companies. Andresen also created a slogan targeting young people in Ukraine: "Vote for your future, or your grandmother will do it for you."