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Strategic Planning
Connecting Communications to
Mission
In a non-profit
organization, resources are scarce and every activity
needs to reflect your mission and bring you closer to
your overall goals. You can know a lot about how to write annual
reports or develop beautiful websites, but if these
outputs do not match up with your program objectives,
then you’ve wasted your time and precious resources.
Strategic planning is the key.
As you
begin planning for communications, ask yourself what
your goals are, who can help you meet them, and how you
want to ask them to participate.
Communications consultant Rebecca Leet describes a four
step process to what she calls "marketing for mission."
She writes that in the planning process the organization
must identify:
-
the action it
wishes to occur;
-
the individuals
who must take that action;
-
their motivation
for doing so; and
-
the area of
overlap between the organization's goal and the
motivation of those who must act.
Once
you have identified this "overlap," you will know how to
communicate with your target audience. If you speak to
the feeling that compels them to action, then you will
draw their participation. For example, if your
goal is to improve literacy and you want to encourage
parents to read to their children, their motivation
might be to improve their children's prospects for
higher education and/or a successful career. The overlap
here is the connection between literacy and success in
school. Your message to these parents could be "read to
your children, and they will succeed." For more on this,
proceed to the
message tutorials in the communications section.
Resources to get you started:
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