Hi, all! I’m new to the nonprofit industry and would like to do more groundwork before putting together a marketing and communications plan for my organization this spring. Would you be willing to share your org’s most recent comms plan and/or tips and best practices with the group?
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Hey Andi, great stuff here, and way to go for actually creating a marketing and communications plan for your org. So many that I’ve worked with in the past don’t have one and instead just try the old “throw the spaghetti noodle at the wall” to see what marketing efforts stick, but end up wasting lots of time and money.
One thought here- I think it’s fairly important to form the basis for the communications plan around your overall strategic plan. Justifying effort, time and money to marketing and comms is so much easier when these efforts are actually helping the organization reach their bigger goals. For example, it’s a lot easier to justify paying a graphic designer or marketing/fundraising firm to help with a fundraising campaign when that work is actually contributing to the actual dollars being raised, and the same goes for marketing a program that is actually part of serving your audience. I think too many orgs think of marketing in its own silo and separate from the rest of the organization.
Based on that, having the large “pillars” of your comms plan be the same as what you’re using in your strategic plan (or something similar to this) is a great approach. If a marketing idea or effort doesn’t fit within the mission and how the mission is accomplished, don’t do it!
Good luck! Phil
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