Building a Durable Growth Plan for Your Nonprofit with Tobes Kelly

“You need to be debriefing fast and often. What is working? What is not working? Why? How do we stop doing what's not working, or scale up what is? I think that's both an internal conversation as much as it is valuable to be having with your agencies.”In this episode of Unplugged we’re joined by Tobes Kelly, former VP of Digital Fundraising and Marketing at UNICEF and founder of the substack Some Personal News (SPN). Tobes offers guidance on prioritizing retention, cultivating community, and leveraging brand partnerships. You’ll walk away with practical advice on balancing acquisition and retention, asking the right strategic questions, and focusing your resources on the right audiences rather than channels alone. This conversation provides a roadmap for sustainable growth through changing times. You don't want to miss it! 🎧Episode HighlightsTobes shares his career journey from media agency to UNICEF and his current work today (1:00)Trends for nonprofits to watch in the new year: retail media networks, brand IP partnerships, shoppable TV ads (6:00)Advice on building a strategic growth plan: look outside your sector for inspiration, debrief fast and often (10:00)The importance of experimentation and embracing disagreement within teams (14:00)Balancing acquisition and retention investments, with a focus on retention in constrained times (20:00)Shifting from a channel-first to audience-first mindset in planning (26:00)Leveraging social proof, ratings, and reviews to build trust with communities (32:00)About Tobes KellyTobes formerly served as the VP of Digital Fundraising and Marketing at UNICEF, and is the founder of the Substack, Some Personal News or "SPN" where he’s discovering how to leverage digital tools, platforms and ecosystems to drive incremental revenue and customer growth.Guest links:Tobes’ LinkedInAdditional links:Some Personal News (“SPN”)***Hosted by the brilliant team at Feathr (https://www.feathr.co/).Feathr is the nonprofit marketing platform designed to help mission and member-based organizations build purposeful connections with their community to grow impact with confidence.Special thanks to our producer, We Are For Good Studios, and to Feathr’s very own Max Anderson, who wrote and performed our theme song.