Synopses & Reviews
Strategic Communications for Nonprofit Organizations
Seven Steps to Creating a Successful Plan
Second Edition
Completely rewritten and comprised of virtually all-new material, Strategic Communications for Nonprofit Organizations, Second Edition offers your nonprofit organization a conceptual framework and step-by-step process for developing an easy-to-implement strategic communications plan.
Based on the core principles and approach developed by Radiant Communications, this much-needed volume explains how to transform theory into practice. It encourages nonprofits to be smart in their communications work, to use their limited resources successfully, and to evaluate the impact of their community outreach. Filled with proven techniques to ensure that nonprofits send the right message to each constituency group or audience, Strategic Communications for Nonprofit Organizations, Second Edition equips nonprofit professionals to coordinate their efforts to hit the mark every time.
Employing a wholly practical, in-the-trenches approach that combines expert insights, real-life case studies, and clear, step-by-step instructions, this workbook demonstrates nonprofit communications strategies that work, showing how your nonprofit can effectively:
Set clear goals for the planning process
Determine roles and responsibilities for the CEO, senior staff, and board
Create a strategic plan that reflects the environment surrounding the organization
Identify and connect with your target audience
Achieve SMART communications objectives: specific, measurable, appropriate, realistic, and time-bound
Tailor effective, persuasive messages that are mission-driven, audience-focused, and action-oriented
Develop coordinated dissemination strategies that utilize all five forms of communication: face-to-face, print, audio, video, and electronic communications
Reinforce the mission, values, and messages for maximum impact on each target audience
Practical and proactive, the Second Edition of this step-by-step book is now available with a Web site filled with immediately useful worksheets, forms, surveys, and self-assessment tools needed to create your organization's total communications plan.
Synopsis
How a nonprofit s strategic communications department defines its issues and policies determines whether the public views it as an effective organization. Strategic Communications for Nonprofit Organizations, Second Edition supports nonprofits in using their resources most effectively. The Second Edition includes an accompanying CD-ROM, equipping professionals with the worksheets, forms, surveys, and self-assessment tools needed to create a total communications plan. Plus, the book s step-by-step instructions demonstrate nonprofit communications strategies that work. Practical and clear, this in-the-trenches book provides nonprofit CEOs with expert insights to achieve their mission.
Synopsis
Praise for Strategic Communications for Nonprofit Organizations: Seven Steps to Creating a Successful Plan, Second Edition"Ms. Patterson has constructed a model for organizational planning and communications that is both deceptively simple and marvelously helpful. I applaud her and am appreciative of so useful a volume of well-researched and practical knowledge."
—Louise Howell, PhD, Executive Director Kentucky River Community Care, Inc.
"Once trained in the Radiant model, we constantly ask ourselves who are we trying to reach, what do we want them to do, what messages/actions will move them to act in our favor, and how will we know if we have succeeded. Once internalized, the model constantly guides me and our staff to channel our collective energy both more efficiently and very effectively to win in the public policy arena."
—Buddy Gill, Chief Advocacy Officer Texas Credit Union League
Your nonprofit's strategic communications plans areactive, organic documents that don't belong on a shelf
Written by renowned nonprofit communication specialists, Strategic Communications for Nonprofit Organizations, Second Edition authoritatively reveals how your organization can project a positive image, focus public attention, strengthen community partnerships, and maximize scarce organizational resources to achieve social change.
Organized to follow the flow of the strategic communications process, the new edition of this step-by-step guide helps your organization answer essential questions, including:
What are we trying to achieve?
Who are we trying to reach?
What do we want supporters to do?
How do we encourage them to do it?
How will we know if we've succeeded?
With an accompanying Web site filled with worksheets, forms, surveys, and self-assessment tools, Strategic Communications for Nonprofit Organizations, Second Edition can be used in its entirety or to specifically focus on a particular challenge. Enthusiastic and readable, this much-needed volume succinctly outlines the basic principles and approach necessary to improve the effectiveness of your nonprofit's communications and outreach efforts in fulfilling its mission and promoting lasting social change.
Synopsis
Create an effective, comprehensive communications strategy in an age of information overload
Fax, e-mail, 1-800 numbers, the Internet, infotainment—with so many new and traditional media available, it should be easy for a nonprofit to connect with its constituents. Yet each new technology brings new challenges, adding more messages, more voices, and more information to the clamor. Nonprofits now have to compete harder than ever to win the attention of a media-jaded public. That's why it is crucial that today's nonprofits develop comprehensive, coordinated communications plans that are detailed enough to cover all the bases, yet flexible enough to compensate for the unexpected. Strategic Communications for Nonprofit Organizations shows you how.
In this book, Janel Radtke introduces all-important communications concepts and issues in plain English. Taking a wholly practical, in-the-trenches approach, she combines expert insights, real-life case studies, and clear, step-by-step instructions to demonstrate nonprofit communications strategies that work. She provides:
- An easy-to-follow, 7-step program for developing a comprehensive, multifaceted communications plan
- A disk containing all the worksheets, forms, surveys, and self-assessment tools you need to create a total communications plan
- Techniques for matching the message with the medium and for adapting both to specific purposes, such as fund-raising, advocacy, public education, PR, and more
Strategic Communications for Nonprofit Organizations helps you coordinate and streamline communications efforts. It provides proven techniques for guaranteeing that you send the right message to each constituency group or audience, and that you hit your mark every time.
About the Author
Sally J. Pattersonis the President of Radiant Communications, Inc., a strategic communications firm that counsels nonprofit leaders on organizational issues including communications planning, executive coaching, and leadership transitions. Based in Washington, D.C., she has more than thirty years of strategic communications and public policy expertise including ten years with public opinion research firms. She has provided strategic communications consultation and training to more than 700 nonprofit organizations.
Janel M. Radtke—considered a pioneer in open-access communications among nonprofits—brought home to many the importance of the person in the technology equation. She was the founder and president of Radiant Communications, Inc., until her death in 1999. Before that, she garnered twenty years of experience helping nonprofits and educational institutions shape communication strategies and navigate a rapidly changing technological environment.
Table of Contents
About the Author.
Preface.
Chapter 1 Getting the Most Out of This Book.
Intended Audiences.
Strategic Communications Plan Framework.
Structure of the Workbook.
How to Use This Workbook.
How to Use the Web Site.
Readiness for Strategic Communications Planning.
Chapter 2 Strategic Communications Planning Process.
Why Strategic Communications Matters.
Benefits of Strategic Communications Planning.
Roles and Responsibilities in Strategic Communications Planning.
Communications Action Team.
Communications Audit Team.
Crisis Communications Planning.
Crisis Communications Team.
Crisis Control Team.
Take the Time, Make the Time.
Chapter 3 Step One: Preparing to Plan: Essential Building Blocks.
Strategic Communications Is Grounded in the Mission.
Task One: Review the Organization’s Mission Statement.
Task Two: Review the Organization’s Program Goals, Objectives, and Financial Priorities.
Communications Audit.
Purpose of the Communications Audit.
Components of a Communications Audit.
Conducting the Communications Audit: Methodology.
Task One: Plan the Audit.
Task Two: Conduct Interviews.
Task Three: Inventory and Analysis.
Task Four: Present Findings.
Task Five: Conduct Additional Research (Optional).
Chapter 4 Step Two: Foundation of the Plan: The Situation Analysis.
Internal Analysis.
Organizational Culture.
Administration.
Programs.
Human Resources.
Infrastructure.
Development.
External Analysis.
Demographic Forces.
Economic Forces.
Political Forces.
Technological Forces.
Social Forces.
SWOT Analysis.
Critical Community Partners and Stakeholders.
Chapter 5 Step Three: Focusing the Plan: Target Audiences.
Understand Your Audience.
Demographic Information.
Geographic Information.
Psychographic Information.
Leadership Potential.
Profile Each Priority Audience.
Research Your Audience.
Media Review.
Readership Surveys or Membership Questionnaires.
Piggyback Surveys.
Exit Interviews or Evaluation Surveys.
Informal Discussions.
Focus Group.
Chapter 6 Step Four: Fostering Audience Support: Communications Objectives.
The SMART Test.
Cycle of the Communications Process.
Create the Communications Objectives.
Communications Objectives: Some Examples Using the Cycle of Communications.
Chapter 7 Step Five: Promoting the Nonprofit Organization: Issue Frames and Message Development.
Define the Key Themes.
Message Frames.
Media Role in Framing.
Episodic and Thematic Frames.
Conducting a Framing Analysis.
Reframing.
Reframing: Underage Drinking.
Message Development.
First Impressions.
Organization Descriptions.
Messages that Resonate.
Building a Message Platform for the Organization.
Chapter 8 Step Six: Advancing the Plan: Vehicles and Dissemination Strategies.
Criteria for Selecting Strategies.
Audience Responsiveness.
The Organization’s Relationship to the Audience.
How the Strategy or Vehicle Will Influence the Audience’s Perceptions.
Controlling the Message.
Effort to Implement.
Budget Issues.
Potential Uses with Other Audiences.
Evaluating Existing and Potential Strategies for Meeting Communications Objectives.
Case Study: Future Generations.
Case Study: Planet 3000.
Strategies and Vehicles to Meet Communications Objectives.
Face-to-Face Meetings.
Print.
Electronic Communications.
Audio Vehicles.
Video.
Web Sites.
Strategic Use of Communications Vehicles.
Alternative Media.
Building a Comprehensive Portfolio of Communications Vehicles to Support the Communications Objectives.
Chapter 9 Step Seven: Ensuring that the Plan Succeeds: Measurement and Evaluation.
Performance Evaluation.
Steps in the Evaluation Process.
Concepts that Have Driven the Strategic Communications Process.
Measuring Success in Achieving Communications Objectives.
Tracking Communications Activities.
Measuring Communications Impact.
Evaluation Tools.
Monitoring the Progress on Communications Objectives.
Finalize the Report.
Chapter 10 Pulling It All Together: Creating the Plan.
Building the Communications Plan.
Putting It All Together.
Creating Organizational Ownership.
Messages to Support the Communications Plan.
Tips for Building Support.
Building the Case for Sustainable Capacity.
Money: If It Is a Good Idea, You Can Sell It.
Income-Producing Possibilities.
In-Kind Contributions.
Strategic Communications Plan Template.
Appendix 1 Planet 3000 Strategic Communications Worksheets.
Appendix 2 Essential Communications Tools.
Appendix 3 Elements of a Style Manual.
Appendix 4 Expanding the Organization’s Coalitions and Partnerships.
List of Worksheets.
Suggested Resources.
Index.