Nonprofit Healthcare Marketing: Building Trust, Engagement, and Community Impact

Marketing in nonprofit healthcare has a slightly different approach than other industries. Most obviously, it’s never about selling goods or services. But the differences run deeper, in our experience. With nonprofit healthcare and foundation marketing, it’s more about building trust with donors and stakeholders, demonstrating impact, and staying true to the mission. When a not-for-profit healthcare organization communicates with clarity, compassion, and consistency, it earns loyalty that drives both engagement and growth.

Today, nonprofit healthcare organizations can no longer rely on traditional outreach alone. They need to find a broader method of connecting with their audiences, which is why we always recommend adopting a mission-first brand strategy—one that connects staff, patients, donors, and the broader community to a shared purpose.

At COHN, we’ve seen this work firsthand. In partnerships with organizations like Craig Hospital and Donor Alliance, we’ve helped elevate community engagement through strategic storytelling and internal alignment.

Internal Mission Alignment

Mission and vision statements always seem to make more sense and resonate more at nonprofits. In this world, if employees don’t understand the mission—or if they don’t see leadership living it—then you’ll see the cracks in everything you do. For example, you may accidentally give mixed messages reaching patients or donors. Or create inconsistent campaigns across departments. Worst of all, internal teams or partners may end up disengaging if there is misalignment or misunderstanding of the mission.

But when internal communications are aligned with brand values, something truly powerful happens: the culture strengthens, and so does the external message. In fact, organizations with high mission alignment consistently see higher levels of trust, engagement, and reputation.

Let’s dig deeper.

A Purpose-Driven Marketing Strategy

Mission- or purpose-driven marketing will never work unless it’s done with intention. Your budgets are too thin and it’s too important to save funds that directly impact the mission, which is why marketing in this space takes vision, commitment and discipline. Here’s how COHN helps nonprofit healthcare clients bring it to life:

Leadership Buy-In & Messaging Discipline

The mission must start from and be cascaded from the top. This can happen in a few different ways, but most commonly we see:

• Leadership town halls that share impact and values
• CEO columns in newsletters or blogs
• Executive involvement in community-facing initiatives

At COHN, we encourage nonprofit leaders to act as active storytellers, not just decision-makers. Which brings us to…

Storytelling & Impact Communication

It’s a tale as old as time. Literally! People respond to human stories, so you must always lead with your best stories—this is the core of healthcare storytelling:

• Real patient and provider stories
• Anonymous case studies with emotional impact
• Story-driven donor updates, social, and service line campaigns

We’ve seen storytelling increase donor conversion and volunteer engagement time and again.

Community Outreach & Equity-Focused Engagement

Because your brand needs to resonate across communities, we always recommend taking engagement very seriously in your community outreach. That means:

• Multilingual and culturally inclusive campaigns
• Partnerships with schools, nonprofits, and local leaders
• Grassroots events reaching underserved populations

Inclusive messaging builds long-term trust and long-term community health.

Internal Training & Culture Building

There are no better brand ambassadors and spokespeople for your nonprofit than your own staff (and their families). Empowered staff amplify your mission, so you must remember to take them through proper trainings and culture activities:

• Brand and mission onboarding for all new hires
• Messaging toolkits and patient communication guides
• Cross-team sharing of success stories

Measuring Nonprofit Marketing Impact

Obviously, metrics and KPIs matter tremendously, but they need to reflect real-world outcomes, not vanity stats. COHN helps clients track:

• Engagement: Email open rates, social shares, event participation
• Reach: Growth in new donors, patients served, or volunteers recruited
• Trust: Community surveys, testimonials, local media coverage
• Outcomes: Tangible service line impact (ex: preventative screenings up 3x post-campaign)

And we often pair storytelling + analytics, helping clients report outcomes in ways that inspire continued support.

Craig Hospital: From Brand Strategy to Employer Value Proposition

Several years ago, we led Craig Hospital’s brand refresh, rooted in the exceptional outcomes and uncommon love you feel the minute you walk onto the Craig campus. This refreshed and upleveled brand first was activated in a healthcare marketing campaign, but once the message was in market, we turned our sights inward to look at how to weave this new brand into the Craig culture. By “translating” the brand to the employer and employee value proposition, and retraining and refreshing our internal teams with the updated Craig brand, we’ve now achieved alignment internally, and the client is beyond happy!

COHN Marketing: Your Partner in Purpose-Driven Growth

When nonprofit healthcare organizations ground their marketing in mission, trust, and strategic storytelling, they reach more people and drive deeper impact.

If you’re leading marketing or communications at a nonprofit healthcare org, ask yourself: Is your internal alignment as strong as it could be? Does your community messaging reflect your mission?

At COHN, we help nonprofit healthcare teams turn values into action. From messaging strategy to multichannel execution, we’ll help your organization stay mission-first, while growing reach, reputation, and community impact.