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
Looking for technology that helps you build deeper donor relationships with less work from your team? Learn more at
virtuous.org.
What is Responsive Lab Podcast?
Welcome to The Responsive Lab, presented by Virtuous. In this podcast, we're exploring how nonprofits leverage technology to deepen donor engagement. Join us in the lab as we mix innovation with impact, tackling challenges and discovering new possibilities for the nonprofit sector.