For anyone who will listen to me geek out about marketing for long, they come away realizing that if nothing else, it is something that I’m very passionate about. For those who listen longer, they will hear me say that I believe that my work is my calling. I love connecting people with our community through the publishing company, and I love helping small businesses tell their stories with the marketing firm. The ultimate goal of both of those is when we get a chance to do that for nonprofits.

Contrary to some people’s opinion (and sometimes that of the nonprofits themselves), they are also businesses. The only difference is that their excess funds go back into services, and they are taxed a little differently. At their core, they provide a service and need to market those services just like any other business. 

We have been blessed with the opportunity to work for several local nonprofits: Impact Support Services, Woodhaven, Job Point, Heart of Missouri CASA, Heart of Missouri United Way, The Source Summit, Columbia Housing Authority, Missouri Women’s Business Center, Central Missouri Community Action, the Chamber of Commerce, and more. The work these people do inspires my staff and myself.

However, it all came together one week in 2023 when as a part of Greater Missouri Leadership Challenge I toured Operation Breakthrough, the Veterans Community Project, and Pawsperity in Kansas City. I became convicted yet again and to a higher level as I toured each venture and heard about staff committing their lives and careers to helping those of us in the most need that my company should be doing more about mission-based marketing. What they struggled with — raising funds and spreading their message — comes very easy to us. That phrase kept resonating with me over and over. “Mission based marketing.”

I came home on fire for the cause and discussed it with my partners. We decided that when the time was right, we would move this vision forward.  

Well, the time is here and now. COMO Marketing is proud to be launching a new division dedicated to those companies that do work directly impacting those most vulnerable among us. After all, they are a business, and they need to tell their story to their stakeholders, too. Those stakeholders aren’t just customers, but also donors, volunteers, and persons served.

In addition to having the heart and experience to help tell these stories, we also have the staff for the job. I have twenty years of experience serving on boards for local nonprofits raising funds and awareness including participating in co-chairing capital campaigns. One of my account managers has her formal education in nonprofit management and will be helping me lead this division.

Lastly, our culture has been committed to this from the beginning, providing 10 percent of our time to nonprofits in need as well as providing paid time off to employees volunteering.  

I can’t tell you how excited I am to be growing our company this way. If you know of a nonprofit we might be a good fit for, please feel free to share our name with them.  

Erica Pefferman is the owner and president of COMO Companies, which owns and operates COMO Magazine, COMO Business Times, COMO Marketing, and COMO Tickets. Erica shares her love of Columbia with the people she serves with on a multitude of boards including the Chamber of Commerce. In 2017, Erica was named Outstanding Business Woman of the year and her team was named the Columbia Chamber Of Commerce’s Small Business of the Year.

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