Nonprofit Marketing and Communications: Free Resources, Tools, and Training
- Nonprofit Learning Lab
- 4 hours ago
- 7 min read
By Nonprofit Learning Lab
Table of Contents
At the Nonprofit Learning Lab, we offer daily online nonprofit training on training, facilitation, fundraising, strategic planning, communications, volunteer management, and free resources to help you lead your organization. These resources are designed to help executive directors, C-suite staff, development directors, program directors, volunteer managers, operations directors, and board members.
We offer a variety of free nonprofit resources from downloadable guidebooks to webinars to blogs!
We’ve compiled a list of all our internal resources relating to marketing, communications, and social media, along with highlighting some of our favorite external resources.
Guidebooks
We offer many free downloadable guidebooks to get ideas for fundraising plans, budgeting, board development, and more.
Streamline the process of selecting a web development partner for your nonprofit with Elevation Web's tailored Website RFP Template. This template covers all aspects of a nonprofit website, creating an impactful online presence and forging a meaningful partnership with a web development team.
Free Webinar Downloads
Join us for live free webinars, covering topics from data analytics to fundraising & our diversity, equity and inclusion webinar series. Participate live to ask questions and learn from our expert speakers!
In addition to our live, upcoming free webinars, we provide access to all our previous free webinars! You can download both the recording and slides for all free webinars.
10 Free Marketing & Communications Webinars You Can Access Today
Introduction to Web Accessibility for Nonprofits
Overcoming the “Ick Factor”: Rethinking Branding in the Nonprofit Sector
Stay Relevant in a Digital World! Easy-to-Implement Guidance to Maintain Your Digital Presence
Why Aren't My Google Ad Grants Ads Working?! Fixes, Tips, and Insights
Marketing for a Mission
Amplify Your Impact: Effective PR Strategies for Nonprofit Success
Capacity Building for Small Communications Teams
From Inbox to Impact: Perfecting Your Nonprofit Email Marketing Strategy
Unlocking the Power of Visual Storytelling for Impactful Communication
Strategies, Systems and Shortcuts: Effective Content Marketing
To gain access, just fill out our short form, and you’ll receive an email to browse them all!
Workshops & Free Webinars
We offer online nonprofit training on supervision, facilitation, fundraising, strategic planning, communications, volunteer management, board management, and more! Check out our trainings related to marketing and communications below.
This practical webinar will walk through foundational Excel strategies that help managers structure their data for clarity, reduce common mistakes, and quickly surface key insights. Participants will learn essential formulas and tools that make reporting faster, cleaner, and more decision-ready — without requiring advanced technical expertise.
FREE: Make Your Case Compelling! Learn How to Get Everyone in Your Organization on the Same Page When Talking About Your Organization - June 22
Are you and your team struggling to communicate the impact of your organization? You CAN deliver a compelling case whenever you talk about your organization. Go from unsure to confident when sharing your impact. Learn how you can change the game forever by elevating your messaging and communications.
Clear, compelling communications are more important than ever. But communications budgets, never large to begin with, are shrinking. This practical, hands-on workshop will show you how to build a comprehensive, cost-effective communications plan that advances your mission and supports your strategic goals.
Public speaking is a powerful tool, whether facilitating community conversations, promoting programs and services, delivering training, advocating for policy change, or building support through outreach, stakeholder engagement, and fundraising efforts. In this hands-on workshop, participants will learn how to craft a message that resonates with an intended audience and inspires action.
Your website might be getting traffic, but traffic alone does not fund your mission. This workshop breaks down how nonprofits can turn website visitors into donors by improving clarity, trust, and user flow. We will look at what donors actually need to see before they give and where most nonprofits unintentionally lose them. Attendees will leave with practical ideas they can apply immediately to their own website.
Video can be extremely powerful by raising awareness, supercharging fundraising, and captivating clients, donors, and everyone in between. But what kind of video? What's the best way to use it? And how do you know when to DIY and when to invest in a high-end production company? Attendees will learn how to equip staff to capture compelling stories without overwhelming their workload and discover how to find meaningful visuals in everyday moments.
Are you struggling with how to capture and translate data to help effectively tell your story and secure additional funding? In this workshop, you will gain insight into how to create an organizational culture of growth and learning that supports data collection and usage, cost-effective ways to systematically track and manage data, and common pitfalls faced when collecting, reporting, and using data.
Optimize your brand’s first impression so that it leads to funding. During this two-day workshop, together, we will transform passive interest into meaningful engagement using a simple and repeatable first impression framework. Through real-time audits, breakout reviews, and hands-on exercises, you’ll uncover what your audience actually experiences when they encounter your brand - and how to fix what’s holding them back from giving.
Your staff is already using AI. The question is whether you're governing it—or hoping for the best. Here's the problem: 68-82% of nonprofit employees are using generative AI tools right now, but only 5-14% of organizations have an AI use policy in place. That 60+ point governance gap exposes your organization to serious fiduciary risk—uncontrolled data exposure, inconsistent practices, and the kind of "hope-based development" that keeps finance and operations leaders up at night.
Data storytelling is the art of translating complex data into compelling narratives. It goes beyond a mere presentation of numbers and charts. It's about weaving data, visuals, and narrative into a cohesive story that resonates with your audience. When done well, data storytelling is less like a novel and more like a choose-your-own-adventure. It takes your hand and leads you through the story, but allows you to see that the data can tell any number of stories.
Use code friend10 when registering for any of these trainings for $10 off!
Nonprofit Learning Library
Our nonprofit library contains hundreds of recordings and slides for nonprofit professionals on a variety of topics from marketing, fundraising, program management, diversity, equity and inclusion, volunteer management and more.
Membership provides you with access to our previous nonprofit workshops.
5 marketing & communications workshops in our library:
Getting Peak Performance Out of A Story
Branding with Purpose: Aligning Your Visuals, Voice, and Values
How to Tell Nonprofit Stories That Protect Clients and Inspire
Design with Canva: Master the Essentials for Captivating Graphics
Build Brand Awareness: Effective Marketing Techniques for Nonprofits
Interested in seeing what's in the resource library but not a member? Click here to see an abbreviated list of resources in our library.
Working on your continuing education credits and looking to get CFRE or CVA credits? Our library is filled with hundreds of sessions pre-approved for CFRE and CCVA credit! Additionally, as a CAE registered provider, many of our workshops qualify for ASAE credit as well!
Blogs
Weekly blog posts on fundraising, nonprofit marketing, donor management software, nonprofit storytelling, volunteer management, social media and more!
Quick Link to all Marketing & Communications Blogs
10 of our favorite blogs for social media, marketing, and communications:
External Resources
*Please note: all of these organizations are current or past paid partners of the Nonprofit Learning Lab
Elevation Web: A digital, marketing, and branding agency specializing in nonprofits.
Automation Anywhere: Providing agentic automation to autonomously run mission-critical processes, empowering employees to focus on what matters most.
Big Sea: Strategic web design and development, and provides fractional CMO, SEO, digital marketing, and web design for top brands nationwide.
Kindsight: Kindsight leverages real-time data and AI to help thousands of organizations around the world identify, manage, and engage with donors
Golfstatus: GolfStatus is the top event management platform for charity golf tournaments & fundraisers
Other Helpful Resources
Continue Learning…
Job & Volunteer Boards
A central hub for national, international, Canadian, and local job boards
The world's largest social-impact job board, featuring paid & volunteer roles from 150,000+ organizations
A list of national, local, Canadian, and international nonprofit volunteer boards
Free Downloadable Resources
Activity Sheets: topics include strategy & planning, fundraising, and volunteer management
Tip Sheets: topics include nonprofit fundraising, board development, nonprofit marketing, and volunteer management.
Guidebooks: step-by-step tools for fundraising, board development, program evaluation, volunteer engagement, and more.