Grassroots nonprofits don’t typically have a wealth of resources behind them. Most work is done by a small staff or volunteers passionate about their cause. Often, with little support, these individuals do anything possible to further their mission in their communities.

I know this mindset well. Eight years ago, I founded Wordier Than Thou, a literary arts organization in the Tampa Bay area with no funding and few resources. Today, we still operate on a shoestring budget, but we host up to 10 events each month and reach thousands of readers and writers every year.

As a journalist with a deep love of books and stories, I had to learn the best ways to promote our events and engage our followers. Though I’m admittedly still learning the best practices for marketing a nonprofit, I’ve learned a few things along the way.

Creative Partnerships Are a Key to Success

From the start, our creative partnerships – with authors and artists, bars and arts venues, and other nonprofits, particularly non-literary ones – have been vital to Wordier Than Thou’s success. Our foothold in the Tampa Bay community wouldn’t be what it is today without the relationships we’ve formed over the years. We learned a long time ago that we’re a stronger, more impactful organization thanks to our work with others.

We launched our group in 2012 as a monthly storytelling and prose-only open mic series. During our first two years, we worked our way through several venues. This wasn’t due to any fault of our own. These early bars and cafes were eager to work with us but were short-lived operations that didn’t stay open for very long. Every few months, it felt like we were forced to look for a new home.

Then, we were introduced to the Studio@620, one of the preeminent arts venues in St. Petersburg. This relationship elevated our events and helped us reach new audiences. 

Through the Studio@620, known for saying “yes” to new ventures and providing opportunities to up-and-coming artists and organizations, we connected with their membership, a large base of arts and book-loving individuals, many of whom learned about our mission for the first time through this partnership. 

Six years later, we continue to host our open mics at the Studio@620 every third Tuesday of the month. Sometimes, I jokingly refer to this regular event as our gateway drug. It’s how many of the Studio@620’s members discover Wordier Than Thou. After getting to know us through these open mics, many attendees have sought us out on social media and joined us for other bookish events throughout the region.

We also often partner with other local organizations for one-off themed events. We especially enjoy working with groups outside the literary world because it introduces us to a new audience.

In January, we hosted a feline-inspired storytelling event, Tell Me About Your Cat, at Cage Brewing. We joined forces with Friends of Strays Animal Shelter for this event, which we used to raise funds for their animal advocacy and rescue work while raising awareness of both their mission and ours. 

Despite little promotional work(other than briefly boosting the event’s reach on Facebook), nearly 70 people turned out. For about two-thirds of those attending, this was their first time at a Wordier Than Thou event. We collected dozens of emails that day and I’ve seen several of those in attendance at other events since. A few have even reached out to me personally with questions about our work or the publishing world.

Be Ready for Anything

Over the years, I’ve learned the importance of adaptability when it comes to marketing events. There are so many moving parts that are out of your control and you need to be ready for anything. 

Adaptability not only allows you to keep things on track for success, but it can also help you capitalize on the unexpected twists and turns of community organizing. 

One of Wordier Than Thou’s signature events is our annual Read No More Gulfport Murder House. This immersive theater project, held every October around Halloween, is a literary take on the classic haunted house. Each year, we rent a home in Gulfport for several days for local writers and actors to stage different short, scary plays in each room.

This event has grown into a fan favorite over the past five years. Even with its popularity, though, tickets never fully sold out. Until last year, that is.

I began planning the 2019 haunted house a smidge earlier than normal. Four months before it was scheduled, I created a Facebook event page with little information about the tours. I considered it a placeholder so I could keep track of our calendar for the year.

Within a few days, the page had reached several thousand people and had a few hundred RSVPs. Many were asking for more information.

Intrigued by the unexpected interest, I made tickets available to purchase before I had even finished booking our writers and performers. Ticket sales trickled in immediately, and quickly gained momentum. As tours sold out, I added extra days to accommodate the interest. By the end of October, our event page had reached nearly 50,000 people without spending any money.

With so much organic interest in the event, I never sent out traditional press releases to regional newspapers, magazines, or online calendars. Despite this, the Tampa Bay Times still found Read No More and promoted it as a must-do Halloween event and a local morning show invited me on-air as a guest.

By the week of the event, there were only a handful of tickets left, which sold out the day of each tour.

As I had to regretfully inform people that we were sold out, I realize our organization had an opportunity to build on this interest. 

I decided we would host our first-ever Christmas-themed haunted house, Read No More: Haunted Holidays. I acted quickly to book a house, set up the event page and put tickets on sale.

Though our Halloween event was sold out, instead of turning people away entirely, I offered them tickets to our Christmas event, instead. We also promoted the Haunted Holidays tours outside our Gulfport Murder House and sold tickets then, as well.

Though we didn’t sell out during the Christmas haunted house, we sold about two-thirds of the tickets, which I consider a success for a first-time event held during the busiest time of the year. We’re already planning out 2020 holiday events, tweaking the concept a bit, and will start promotions this summer.

Another example of adapting our programming and marketing came last month, in March, as the COVID-19 pandemic began to affect day-to-day life in the United States. I felt helpless as we were forced to cancel one event, then another, and another. Before we knew it, our spring calendar was empty. 

With many people forced to shelter in place or choosing to social distance themselves, I pivoted Wordier Than Thou’s programming to the virtual realm. Even while isolated, we want to keep our fans and friends connected and creative through this crisis. This will also make for an easier transition when we move back to in-person events, hopefully later this summer.

For the past five weeks, we’ve used Zoom, Facebook Live and YouTube to host daily programming – personal library tours, open mics, author chats, readings – reaching hundreds of writers and readers weekly. An unexpected bonus has been engaging author friends and readers beyond the Tampa Bay area for these events thanks to the technology available. As life returns to normal, we’ll likely continue hosting some of these virtual events, they’ve been so successful.

Know Who You Are

If you don’t have a solid mission as a nonprofit, it will be difficult to build a consistent base of supporters. 

Wordier Than Thou’s mission is simple: we are a resource for Florida writers. We offer fun ways for authors – from emerging voices to experienced wordsmiths – to hone their craft, connect with audiences and get their books into the hands of readers. 

Beyond this mission, though, we also have a strong sense of our organization’s personality. We’re fun and off-beat, but smart, and also irreverent, eschewing the more traditional notions of the capital “L,” literary community. We don’t always take ourselves 100 percent seriously – our name is obviously tongue-in-cheek – and we want our fans to feel like they’re in on the joke.

At the same time, we’re committed to our passion for books and stories. We’re proud of our programming and have offered opportunities to talented writers at all stages in their careers. Our work in the community is important to us.

That might sound a bit fractured, but it really isn’t. We balance both pieces of our organization’s personality – the serious and silly sides – nicely in our social media and email marketing. This makes us more authentic and accessible to the average person, and we tend to draw both avid readers and people who wouldn’t typically attend a reading or author event.

Vary Your Platforms for Engagement

When I first started Wordier Than Thou, I was still new to Florida. I had been in the Tampa Bay area less than two years when I organized our first open mic and I didn’t know many people.

Like many people my age (late twenties at the time), I relied on Facebook to connect others (and still do, to an extent.) As I met people at networking meetups, bars, and at community events, I would exchange contact information with them and also send them a Facebook friend request.

This is the base I relied on for our early open mics. I threw together a Facebook page for Wordier Than Thou, created my first open mic event page, and then invited all the acquaintances I had made, hoping for the best. Luckily, they turned out, and they even brought friends.

As I began to market Wordier Than Thou’s events beyond the people I already knew, I realized that not everyone is on Facebook. Other social media outlets have gained popularity since we started and the demographic using Facebook has changed, as well. 

While Wordier Than Thou uses a variety of alternative platforms to reach writers and readers (follow us on Instagram!) we’ve found the most success with Meetup.com. This seems to be the landing spot for many of the anti-Facebook folks, the people who are interested in book events and other gatherings but don’t want to feel like they’ve sold their soul (and information) to Mark Zuckerberg. 

Meetup costs about $200 annually, but it’s well worth the money. We have nearly 4,000 Facebook followers and a little over 2,000 Meetup members. There isn’t much overlap between these two fan bases, which means those are 2,000 people who never would have found us if we relied solely on Facebook to promote our programs.

We also started sending out promotional emails in 2018. We’ve collected more than 2,000 emails at various events and through ticket sales over the years, but had never used them until then. And yes, I realize how stupid that sounds since we’ve been doing this work for nearly a decade. But as a grassroots organization, it comes down to prioritizing your to-do list – your exceptionally long to-do list – and for years typing up our email list never quite made it to the top of my list.

As we organized our 2018 Tampa Bay Publishing Conference, an event with more cost involved than our other programming, I knew I needed to reach more people. So I compiled the emails of everyone who had attended the previous conference and sent out an email blast. That same day, several people registered for the event. This inspired me to finally look at the stack of email lists from six years of events. I typed up the email addresses and sent out a second email blast. More people registered through the link included in that email. 

Ever since then, I’ve promoted our bigger events with email blasts. I try not to overwhelm our followers with too many emails and do my best to target their interests. For instance, if someone attended our Banned Books Week burlesque show, there’s reason to think they might be interested in our Harry Potter-themed drag show.

In-Person Connections are Just as Important as Social Media Fans

Face-to-face connections with potential supporters are just as important, possibly even more so, than social media and email marketing. 

This goes beyond being friendly and sociable at your own events, though that first impression for someone new to your organization is key.

I also go out of my way to bring Wordier Than Thou into the community outside our own programming. The Tampa Bay area, St. Petersburg especially, has a strong “shop local” mentality and those who live here go out of their way to support indie small businesses. This means there are plenty of markets, street fairs, and community events with vending opportunities. 

Often there are fees involved with setting up at these events, but usually there are lower prices or waived fees for nonprofits. We sell books, t-shirts and other items at these events to make back those fees and then some.

We’ve attended all kinds of events from Pride street fairs to comic and sci-fi conventions over the years. Our favorite to attend, though, is Shopapalooza in St. Petersburg. More than 10,000 people attend this annual market, which is the largest holiday shopping event in Florida. 

There is real value in making that in-person connection with someone who has never heard of us before. We’re excited about our work and we get to convey that excitement through conversations with those who stop by our booth. Often, these shoppers turn into new supporters of our organization. After each market or fair, we see an uptick in Facebook likes and follows, as well as ticket sales for upcoming programs.

These are just a few of the lessons that I’ve learned through my experiences with Wordier Than Thou. We’ve seen significant growth as an organization over the past two years, and we look forward to building on that. The only way we’ll continue this success, though, is by consistently following the marketing best practices we’ve established.

Tiffany Razzano is a journalist and copywriter living in the Tampa Bay area. For the past 8 years, she served as an editor at Tampa Bay Newspapers. She also writes regularly for La Gaceta, Watermark, The Free Press, and Creative Pinellas. She’s the founder/president/creative director of the literary arts nonprofit Wordier Than Thou, which supports Florida writers and readers through community events, publishing projects, and educational opportunities.