Communications Plans Made Simple (I hope!)

I'm pretty pleased that my marketing mentor Tom Ahern turned an email I sent to him into most of Chapter 12 of his upcoming book Keep Your Donors: An Essential Guide to Better Communications and Stronger Relationships. The book is co-authored with the equally brilliant Simone Joyaux, ACFRE, and is set for release this month from Wiley/AFP.

Several of you have asked me about communications plans, so here's what I told Tom and Simone, straight from their pages:

12.3 Building an annual donor/media communications calendar on the Schwartz plan

Rick Schwartz, an accomplished public relations practitioner specializing in nonprofits, bluntly tells clients, "If you don't plan it, it won't happen." He's developed an easy-to-adopt method for compiling a calendar of press and donor communications. In Rick's own words:

"Too many nonprofits foolishly believe that word of their good works will mysteriously make it out into the real world without much effort on their parts. That it will magically fall upon the ears of certain important people - let's call them "donors"- is even more improbable.

It's a superhighway of messages out there, and your organization must take to the road with powerful content, continual effort, and an overall plan to get where you need to go.

You start with the basics: a "crowd-pleasing" publication every quarter. Start planning NEWSLETTERS one month before, ANNUAL REPORTS two months before. Thus:

The newsletter can be two sides of a page, four pages or a mini magazine. That depends upon the size of your organization and the 'news' you create. But newsletters are the glue that keeps an organization's members and/or friends in close contact.

An annual report is your turn to awe your audiences with what you've achieved in a mere 12 months. and to show how brilliantly and wisely you've used their contributions. Again, an annual report is as long as it needs to be.

Two more essential items for your calendar. You get the media to speak on your behalf by sending PRESS RELEASES on notable achievements. Even the quietest nonprofit has one piece of news per month: a new Board member, a new program, a major gift, an Open House, etc.

Almost non-existent ten years ago, E-MAILED NEWS is almost automatic for the smart nonprofit today. Don't hope and pray that the local newspaper will pick up your story; send it yourself to everyone on your list with an e-mail address.

And as long as we're talking about cyberspace, you should give your WEBSITE a good tune-up every month by updating calendars, deadlines, your list of press releases, new staff, etc. Build that into your contract with your website developer, or make sure you set aside enough time to make the changes yourself.
Your calendar now looks like this:

These are just the basics that nonprofits from Little Leagues and community churches to the hospital and university should have.

Let's add to the list for the community-leading institutions. How about just two EDITORIAL MEETINGS: one with the major daily newspaper, the other with the business weekly. or arts quarterly, or minority publication, or public radio station. Your choice.

And just two PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS, say to the Chamber of Commerce and the local Rotary. Or to the Bar Association and Medical Association. Don't do them in the summer or near Christmas; no one will come.

Yes, your calendar looks crowded, but only the annual report should take a lot of time, and we've spread it out over three months. And the tasks should be divided among multiple people.

Now, let's talk donors and prospective donors (they're very different, of course)!

You have a number of different options that should be fit into your year's calendar. DONOR PROGRAMS is one, namely opportunities for your donors to see what you do, via panel discussions, site visits, lectures, and the like. They can be small and cozy for 10-25 donors and prospective donors (excellent to have a mix) or you can fill a lecture hall with a well-known speaker. Let's say a smaller venue event in the Spring and Fall.

We like BOARD COCKTAIL PARTIES, where a Board member invites five to 20 couples among his or her friends to hear a 'no solicitation' presentation about the organization by the organization's CEO. The organization hires the caterer and cleanup crew.

If you're a larger organization with lots of donors, you should consider an annual DONOR APPRECIATION EVENT where the message is 'thank you, thank you, thank you'. It could be tied in with one of your Donor Programs above.

Donors are, of course, on your mailing list for publications and e-mails. If you have a unique niche in the world, you can somewhat straightforwardly conduct a DIRECT MAIL CAMPAIGN three times a year to a highly-targeted audience. Yes, results are in the single digits, but a compelling piece will get stored in the mind of even the non-responder for future outreach. Figure testing the same mailing list three times in 12 months.

That's a generic but full-fledged communications calendar for talking with donors and other influential people who can make a mighty difference to your organization. Mix and match, subtract a few, move the dates around. That's not the point. Having a plan is!"

Well, that's what I told Tom and Simone, and now you. Time to pick apples!

Sincerely,

Rick Schwartz

StraightTalk