4 Steps to Strategic Communications

Picture this: a wealthy donor opens up the daily newspaper at her kitchen table and sees a heart-warming story about a school-age child benefiting from your nonprofit’s services. On her drive to work, she hears your executive director interviewed on morning news radio. Before an afternoon meeting, the same donor scans her Instagram and Facebook feeds and sees your story being shared. Later, she gets an email from your nonprofit, featuring the story and a direct request for a gift. In one click, a donation is made.

What steps did it take to turn one story into a donation? The first, and most important, step is creating a rock-solid communications plan. A good communications strategy can take many different shapes and sizes, but all plans should include:

• two to three well-written, short messages about your organization.
• a social-media presence.
• a media-relations plan.
• donor outreach.

It doesn’t matter if you have one person in-house, or a top-flight public-relations firm; you can get results with a solid plan.

Step One: Develop Your Message

Every nonprofit believes it does great work on a worthy cause, but too many fail to communicate that to their audiences. Avoid falling into that trap by answering the following questions before writing your messages:

• What makes us different?
• Why should someone donate to our cause?
• How do we measure our success?
• How have we changed or improved the area in which we work?

Remember, a message is not an advertisement or a tagline. It is one or two sentences that succinctly describe your organization with a particular area emphasized. For example, if you are an education organization, a solid message could be:

Here at Alpha Education Fund we help first-generation college candidates apply to college, navigate acceptance, and find the financial aid they need. In just five years, we have helped 20,000 high school seniors, and approximately 87 percent of them have received acceptance from their first-choice school.

Step Two: Craft and Execute Your Media Plan

It used to be that everyone wanted to be in the New York Times or Wall Street Journal. A story in one of those newspapers could reach all your audiences and potential donors in one fell swoop.

The media world has shifted dramatically in the last 10 years, and now people turn to more than the morning paper for their news. Supporters and potential supporters are on Twitter before the sun rises; they read Facebook on the train, and they get real-time notifications from bloggers on issues that matter in their worlds. In short, they are consuming news continuously, from all sorts of sources.

The good news: You no longer must spend months trying to get coverage from a top-tier media outlet. Today, a story in many different media can bolster your reputation. The growth of hyperlocal and neighborhood news organizations, niche Facebook pages, and bloggers who cover community events are a few examples of outlets worthy of “media relations.”

Using your new messages, here are five easy steps to take to develop a media-relations plan:

1. Determine your audience. Know whom you want to reach and what types of news they consume. This will inform the story you tell and where.
2. Find a great story. Look inside your organization for a story that conveys your mission. Stay away from anniversaries and small grant news; opt for stories that are timely and current. For example: If you represent a legal aid fund that helps immigrants, you might reach out to the media as the Deferred Action Against Children, or DACA, deadline nears and offer to discuss how you are supporting those in need.
3. Create a media list. Research news organizations, reporters, and bloggers who care about your issue or have covered similar issues, and record their contact information. Don’t send your news to every reporter or news outlet; choose those that will appreciate your news.
4. Write the pitch. Craft an email to send to your media list. In one paragraph or less, describe your story, tailoring the email for each recipient and outlining why that outlet’s audience will care. Send links to photos or videos if you have them. However, note that some outlets do not accept attachments, so follow each outlet’s policy.
5. Coordinate interviews. Invite media to visit your organization or attend your event, or schedule interviews with interested reporters, editors, and bloggers. Make every effort to be flexible in coordinating interviews.

Of course, media coverage is never guaranteed, but choosing stories that demonstrate your impact and paying attention to what is in the news will help you make a stronger case for coverage and increase your odds of success.

Step Three: Be Organized and Consistent on Social Media

Social media can be a huge boon to your nonprofit; after all, it enables you to interact with your audiences in real time. You do not need to rely on others to tell your stories. You can see exactly what captivates donors, what reporters in your area care about, and which issues are trending on a given day. But to many organizations with lean staff, social media can be overwhelming.

The key to a good social-media plan is to be organized. Pick the channels that matter most to your supporters and those that feel most natural to your staff. If running feeds on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, Snapchat, and Instagram is too much, narrow it down. Pick two or three channels that will make the most impact. Here are a few tips to follow for social-media success:

• Set up a list of how many times per day/week you will post, and be consistent.
• Assign one person the task but engage a larger group to brainstorm ideas.
• Create a calendar of upcoming initiatives and events your audience will care about.
• Post pictures or video whenever possible; messages with images are 40 times more likely to get shared on social media than those without.
• Use hashtags to reach new people who aren’t yet following your pages.
• Follow and interact with the people you have identified in your media-relations plan.
• Include your social-media handles in your email signature.

One of the most common mistakes in a social-media plan is inconsistency. If you start off strong and then activity falls off, your followers will become disengaged. Remember, your social-media channels are an important vehicle to tell your story, so make them a priority during communications planning.

Step Four: Reach Out to Donors

How you treat your donors, when you reach out to them, how you include them in events: All of it takes time and special effort. Here are five ways to make sure your donor communications are thoughtful and well executed.

• Use your key messages consistently with donors: in person, in emails, and on social media.
• When you get media coverage, share it with them through many communication channels.
• Ask your closest donors and advocates to share your success within their circles, through email, social media, and the old-fashioned way: word of mouth.
• Invite donors to be part of the plan. Perhaps they can share the story of why they joined your board or serve as a spokesperson for the strength of your organization. Others may be willing to advocate on your behalf.
• Use donors as a focus group. Ask them how they like to receive communications, which stories resonate, where they get their news, or how they first learned about your organization.

Donors we’ve worked with often complain that there is silence after the initial buzz of a large donation. Build conversations with this key audience into your communications strategy, but strive to find the happy medium between overloading them with emails and making them feel ignored.

Communications planning is the single most important thing you can do to strengthen and supplement your fundraising activities. Well-formed, consistent messages delivered across multiple communication channels will help you raise your nonprofit’s profile, strengthen its reputation, and boost revenue from donors.

Maura F. Farrell is a managing director at Kivvit, a national PR firm headquartered in Chicago. She specializes in the arena of corporate social responsibility and in helping clients tell those stories.