by Brian Sooy
Why be strategic? Why not just forge ahead, and hope for success?
Without a plan, mission has no focus; without focus, there is no clarity; and, without clarity, it is difficult to communicate to the outcomes that you’re working to achieve.
Strategy is not an option. It is a requirement of your mission. There’s a clear relationship between a strategic plan (or lack of one) and the outcomes and impact that your organization is working to achieve. Your communication plan is one bridge between a strategic plan and its execution. As you manage to outcomes, so you must create a communication plan to support the objectives and outcomes identified in the plan.
A strategic plan is the outline of goals, strategies, and tactics that guide a communications plan; that align messages with touch points; and that connect the mission with your audience.
Here’s what a simple strategic communication plan might look like:
Primary Goal – e.g., Fundraising, Revenue, Awareness, Impact, Programs
Strategy (No more than three strategies to get you to the goal)
An objectives statement: think of the objectives statement like a mission statement for this specific strategy. Example: With this strategy, our objective is to accomplish [ ]. This strategy will be accomplished when [outcome], [outcome], and [outcome] are achieved.
Tactics (No more than five specific actions that you take in order to implement the strategy. Tactics break down your strategies into short-term steps, action plans for each step, and the time frame in which to complete each step.) Tactic 1 + Action Steps + Time Frame:
Tactic 2 + Action Steps + Time Frame:
Tactic 3 + Action Steps + Time Frame:
Tactic 4 + Action Steps + Time Frame:
Tactic 5 + Action Steps + Time Frame:
Each primary goal will be a complete set of the goals, strategies and tactics necessary to achieve that goal.
I recall a conversation with an executive director who remarked:
“I wish my board would let me move forward without reviewing everything I do. If a strategic plan has been completed, then the board should be behind it, since they were involved in developing it. If this is the place we need to be in five years, then what will it take to fund the plan’s goals? I must be free to implement and pursue the tactics necessary to achieve the objectives.”
Is this what it’s like in your nonprofit board meetings, or in your relationship with the board or executive director?
STRATEGY STARTS AT THE TOP
Nonprofit staffs, busily engaged in the mission of the organization, need clear direction from the board on what is expected of them and what the goals of the organization are.
The board itself must have a clear understanding of the mission of the organization and its relation to the cause – and it must be completely certain of what the cause is and their role in the organization’s purpose and fulfillment of the mission.
If the board members are believers in the organization, their actions will follow their level of commitment and belief. If they are believers in the cause, and they see the nonprofit’s mission as an agent to achieve the cause, then their actions and commitment may be different. The board will have a better understanding of what is necessary and what is required to achieve the mission.
The communications plan will flow from the strategic plan. The board must empower, equip, and provide the necessary resources for the executive director or president to achieve the goals – and the resources for a communication strategy to help achieve them.
Start with the end in mind, and follow the path, communicating your progress along the way. That’s how smart businesses work. That’s how a strategic nonprofit should work.
KEY INSIGHTS
Strategy is not an option. It is a requirement of your mission. Without a plan, mission has no focus; without focus, there is no clarity. A communication plan without tactics and actionable items is simply a wish list.
TWEET IT
Create and follow a road map that aligns your communications with the goals of your strategic plan. #beStrategic #causemanifesto
Part Two: Chapter Two
How well can you, as a board member, leader, or staff member, articulate your organization’s cause and mission? Who are your primary audiences? What specific messages do you share with them?
Chances are, if you have difficulty articulating your organization’s purpose (its cause and the reason that it exists), what it does (its mission), and why it matters (what difference it makes), it’s possible that your organization is lacking communications focus. Let me share some examples from the higher education and technology nonprofit sector, that are relevant for any organization.
At a higher education task force meeting, I heard an excellent observation: “We can have the best programs for technology transfer and commercialization, but we can be in a room filled with business and industry executives, and none of them will have heard of the programs that we offer, what they do, how they can help – or that they even exist.”
In essence, the observer could have said “Higher education doesn’t always know how to talk to business, and business isn’t hearing what higher education has to say. Sometimes they don’t even know we’re in the same room. I feel like we’re not speaking the same language.”
Another example: In a college focus group, a prospective student remarked, “I know this college has lots of programs that I, and others, aren’t aware of. I had to go “dumpster diving” on the web site to find the information I was looking for. The search engine didn’t work effectively, and with so much other information on the web site, it was near impossible to find what I was looking for.”
A harsh observation, but with a web site as the essential center of a communication ecosystem, it’s an observation that should make the recruitment, marketing, and institutional advancement directors sit up and take note.
Do these two situations sound familiar to you?
Many organizations struggle to create communication and design touch points that focus on the audience. Messaging must be focused on the target audience, through touch points that they interact with. Web sites must be designed to meet the needs of the audience: what they want from your organization, and then what the organization wants to share with them. It’s a fair exchange. You get their attention by sharing what they need to hear, and by providing information that will benefit them. In the process, they learn more about how you can help them.
In order to accomplish this, you may have to pivot. You may have to shift your focus 180 degrees.
You have to recognize that communication is not entirely about your organization’s messages or stories. It’s about understanding what motivates and influences your supporters, and meeting their inspirational and informational needs through those stories and your narrative. Your voice should be speaking the language they need to hear. To begin a relationship, you need to know your audience.
FIRST, IT’S A COMMUNICATIONS ISSUE
Unfocused communications are often the result of mission creep, leading to lack of focus in marketing and outreach. Mission creep may not be avoidable, but it can be manageable. If you find that you have to explain your purpose this way – “Our purpose is X and we are on a mission to A and B and C and D…” – you may be experiencing mission creep.
Messaging may also be diluted by communications initiatives that are sidelined by shifting priorities at the institutional, board, or executive level. You must consider the long-term sustainability of your marketing and outreach.
When any organization is trying to engage the business community (or a specific niche community), it has to be focused on that community. There must be a sustained and deliberate commitment to telling an effective story with its unique voice. The organization must remain focused on the audience it is trying to reach, speaking the language of that community.
When a nonprofit is seeking to be a credible resource and collaborator within the business community (or any other community), it has
to communicate its mission and make design choices in a way that is meaningful to the audience. It must build credibility, prove itself an expert, capable of fulfilling the role it has defined for itself. It must demonstrate its competence to the specific audiences with which it wants to work. As you begin to know your audience, you will be able to identify the touch points and context that will connect with them.
In the broader picture of content, this means less focus on the organization and more emphasis on relevant content – what the audience wants to hear.
For example, when an economic development organization is seeking to attract new business and retain existing businesses, it must communicate in language that makes sense to the business community.
When your cause is seeking to attract new audiences, inform those who are interested, inspire those who are ready to take action, and engage them as ambassadors and supporters – it must communicate with the same language that the community speaks.
ELIMINATING POSSIBILITIES
To communicate effectively, you have to eliminate possibilities in order to create opportunity.
In other words, don’t cast your communications net wide, unless the goal is specifically to create general awareness. Change your tactics – build relationships through appropriate touch points; attend industry events; launch a speaker’s bureau; get involved with the community you want to engage in ways that are meaningful to them; create thought leadership that is the core of a content marketing program; or create a blog written from your unique point of view.
Effective communication is human-intensive. It requires focused attention and thought. Designing a program that meets the audience’s informational needs is more challenging than a general awareness campaign. Creating a visual identity that supports a program initiative should not be a last-minute consideration.
If you are true to your goal of lasting impact, then you must take a long-term view to your design and communication planning.
To engage a specific community requires outreach that includes targeted communications touch points. In the past, traditional media may have been effective (ads in magazines and the local/regional newspapers) – but today, communications must include Twitter, LinkedIn, and perhaps even Google+. It may be different in the future; be adaptable. You need to do some research to find where your audiences are listening, and make your voice heard there.
A content marketing plan – containing content that your audience is looking for – should be created and curated. Blogs and articles about what interests your audience (as it relates to your mission), are essential resources for establishing credibility, leadership, and expertise for any nonprofit. Design the blog, white papers, and delivery mediums so they are beautiful, readable, sharable, and informational.
Your visual identity must be memorable and consistent (but not inflexible). Design is a tool with which you communicate, so be deliberate. Remember to speak to the mind but appeal to the heart. The message need not be emotional; by making it enjoyable to read, it will be memorable.
Participate in the community by sharing information on specialized web sites that serve a specific vertical industry or community. Join conversations by contributing to groups on LinkedIn or other web sites, to build credibility as an expert in your mission-specific area of focus. Join a specialty network where your perspective and expertise about the cause will be appreciated and welcomed. Think about participating in events and creating content to draw the audience to you.
Your cause’s or organization’s relevance is established by participating and engaging individuals, businesses, entrepreneurs, and the community where they are – in their networks, in their LinkedIn groups, and in their associations. With a little research, you can identify and locate the best touch points and media platforms for reaching your audience.
SECOND, SPEAK THE SAME LANGUAGE: WORDS MATTER
Broad-based messaging, unless it is simply to build awareness, is not an effective method of engaging the business community. For instance, when you repeat words like innovation and entrepreneur often enough, eventually they begin to have the opposite effect of what was intended: Innovation becomes passé; and when everybody is an entrepreneur, the message is one of “all things to all people.” It becomes too broad and not focused.
The key is focused messaging, delivered in the same language that business speaks. Read Fast Company, Entrepreneur, Forbes, or Harvard Business Review; immerse yourself in the voice and tone of writers who speak the language of business every day.
Educators speak the language of academia. The marketing department and program communications need to be the bridge, the translators, and speak the language of business.
Industry terms, as identified in curriculum (or within a program that is developed internally at an institution), are not always current (or the usage has evolved). With the rapid pace of technological advancement and the conversations around those advances, a nonprofit that serves those industries will need to be aware of the changes at every step.
Acronyms will be meaningful to your staff – but don’t serve well as conversational talking points. Approach your choice of words, language, and tone of voice as if you are having an ongoing conversation with your audience.
Disruptive innovation happens at a kickstarter.com pace – rapidly and enthusiastically – whereas on the institutional level, adapting to industry changes and communicating to those changes occurs at a pace that may not keep up. Communication with the business or technology community must be in language specific to that community.
With the array of engagement tools available to any program or institution, the program needs to be on the leading edge of engagement, and not on the trailing. Get to know your audience and become familiar with the networks where they share information. Then meet them there.
THIRD, DON’T DILUTE THE MESSAGE
Messaging becomes more diluted and unfocused as it tries to demonstrate relevance of an institution’s service offerings in all of its communications, and to a general audience. It should remain focused and communicate what is relevant to a specific target audience.
A quick check for broad-spectrum, unfocused messaging is this: if there is more about the institution in the messaging than there are benefits to the audience (or “what’s in it for me?”), the messaging is not focused enough.
It’s tough to hear, but it’s not about you!
FOURTH, CREATE ONE POINT OF CONTACT
Organizations tend to create multiple layers to programs (funded by grants and other funding mechanisms), that by their nature create multiple and confusing entry points for anybody who is looking for help, and looking to work with the organization.
A single point of contact – a single, high-profile program or office, with a widely recognized community leader or ambassador – will be an effective engagement point for the business community. Start from a single point of contact, and resist the institutional urge to create multiple paths. At a certain point, multiple paths will even cause confusion internally, and will create obstacles to effective business community engagement.
Small nonprofit organizations should have a staff member who can respond to the information needs of your audience. A volunteer coordinator or community relations coordinator will be an effective bridge builder. Make your contact information, and the contact information for the person most likely able to help with a specific informational need, easily accessible on your web site. It should be easy for your audience to connect with your organization.
IT’S TIME TO PIVOT
If the goal is to engage the business community, communications to that audience will benefit from a pivot. Ask the business community (or whatever other community you are trying to reach) how to best communicate with them, without institutional bias – and then do it.
Think about the consumer experience (i.e., the businesses and entrepreneurs you want to reach) and then build your outreach around it. Map your audience to touch points on the engagement continuum, an
d you will have the foundation of a communication road map to guide you from attraction to relationships. You will have gained one more opportunity to have a meaningful conversation with the business community.
If you’re courageous in doing this, you may succeed brilliantly – or you may fail spectacularly. If you fail, you’ll have the insight of what doesn’t work – the same insights that many entrepreneurs gain daily, and your organization will share more in common with them than ever before.
KEY INSIGHTS
Your communications have the potential to succeed spectacularly or fail spectacularly. You should never strive to fall in between. Speak the language of your audience.
TWEET IT
Focus communications on one cause, one mission, and one purpose; share your purpose with one voice. #beFocused #causemanifesto
Part Two: Chapter Three
Do you want to improve donor engagement? Of course you do! Imagine how it might improve if you understood how design and the donor experience impact the perception of your cause? What if you presumed that all communications were donor communications? How could engagement be enhanced if you made donor experience a top priority? Donors are, after all, individual people with preferences, interests and opinions.
SPEAKING TO YOUR SUPPORTER’S VALUES
Your followers choose to support causes whose purpose, character, and culture align with their personal values. Understanding and speaking to these motivations – with one voice – effectively engages donors.