Getting started withcommunication planning

Jacqueline Lambiase, Ph.D.Director, School of Strategic CommunicationTCU Schieffer College of Communication2015 TCU Nonprofit Communicators Conference

WHY PLANNING?

• To keep communication in line with organization’s values, mission and goals

• To proactively manage issues rather than react• To understand what we know & don’t know• To build consensus• To manage nonprofit’s resources

MORE REASONS

• To map territory or territories of communication responsibilities across a complex organization

• To show other people within the organization what communication jobs belong to your domain

• To stick to your organization’s strategic goals, rather than off working on stray initiatives

COMMUNICATION IS JUST ONE DAMN TACTIC AFTER ANOTHER

Without strategic communication planning as a frame,

http://www.mosaicworks.com/mosaics/depthfinder.html

THESE PARTS HELP YOU PLAN

• Vision | Mission | Values • Organization goals, promises, ideals• Organization strategic plan, ideally• Current marketing/donor initiatives or needs• Yearly communication calendar, based on Kivi

Leroux Miller’s session this morning• Conscious decision by leadership to build a

strong communication culture

I’M TALKING ’BOUT A MANIFESTO

A manifesto for nonprofit CEOs*I want to create a tribe of connected, engaged, passionate evangelists for my cause to create a positive feedback loop that will amplify the change my agency hopes to see in the world. It doesn’t matter if that tribe is 30 powerful, smart, wealthy people or 3 thousand regular folks who believe in my organization and the change I hope to make. If they are passionate and engaged and I give them a way to help, I will amplify the organization’s impact.

I want to be an evangelist, a storyteller, an educator, a translator, a table‐pounder, a guy on his soap box, a woman with a megaphone, a candidate for change. I want to talk to as many people as I can about my ideas and capture their imagination about the change I hope to see in the world.

Don’t you?*Adapted from Sasha Dichter’s Manifesto for Nonprofit CEOs

YOUR MANIFESTO CAN CONNECTTO OVERALL ORGANIZATION THEMES

A theme! (Not like A Christmas Story)

St. Jude mission

• The mission of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is to advance cures, and means of prevention, for pediatric catastrophic diseases through research and treatment. Consistent with the vision of our founder Danny Thomas, no child is denied treatment based on race, religion or a family's ability to pay.

• THEME: Finding cures. Saving children.• Every part of St. Jude’s communication plan should

support this mission statement.

HOW DOES ST. JUDE’S THEME CONNECT TO ITS CULTURE/BRAND?

Finding cures. Saving children.

WHAT IS YOUR NONPROFIT’S THEME?HOW DOES IT CONNECT TO BRAND OR CULTURE?

Tagline, elevator speech, motto

LET’S WRITE A SHORT MANIFESTO

INFO GATHERING

• SWOT (You may be the only person who does this for the entire organization)

• Listening tour (of donors, clients, volunteers and staffers)

• Surveys, town halls, incoming phone calls, web feedback, content on social media related and unrelated to your organization

CHART YOUR COMMUNICATION• First, who are the players? Who is allowed to speak or who

has authority to speak? In other words, who serves as your organization’s primary spokesperson/communicator?

• Who approves their messages? • What channels do the speakers use? • What audiences do these speakers/communicators

address? • Do you have policies/plans that govern these interactions?

Yes/no• What was the last time these policies/plans were discussed

and reviewed among all parties?

OTHER KEY QUESTIONS

• What kind of overall communication does your org have? Centralized or decentralized?

• How many programs or departments communicate with external stakeholders?

• How well does your internal communication system work? Where are improvements needed?

ROBUST, FULL-BODIED PLANS NEED …

• Goals (lofty and ambiguous, but tied to organization’s mission/vision/values)

• Objectives (measureable and specific)• Strategies (audience, tone, channel)• Tactics (messages, events, programs)

• Otherwise, you have routines, habits & ruts

WHAT KIND OF PLAN DO YOU NEED?

Comprehensive (all communication) or Departmental (just what you do)

TWO WAYS TO BUILD A PLANThere are at least

METHOD 1: THE “EASY” WAY

• Replicate prior plans -or-• Build from scratch, analyzing routines and using existing

tactics to build backwards toward goalsSTEPS:• Update an existing plan or old plan• Complete an audit of all public-facing tactics (online

newsletter, YouTube videos, website, customer service window or hotline, Twitter/Facebook/Instagram, Town Hall meetings, and more) and then build your plan from the bottom up

METHOD 2: THE HARDER WAY

• Scrap old plans or old routines to start anewSTEPS• Learn about the culture and meet it in its best

reality or form (modeled by top-forming departments)

• Accept input from all stakeholders• Build cultural frameworks around existing

communication routines that you want to preserve, or create new culture and frameworks for this best-case culture

CASE STUDY: BRAND COLORADO

•Introduced in 2013, as part of a two-year effort that ended summer 2014.•Focused on trade, tourism, travel.•Unified 22 state agencies.•Nonprofit and public-private partnership effort.•$1.5 million in pro-bono work from Colorado-based PR & ad agencies.•Part of governor’s overall economic development effort.•Youth advisory board, amplified through social media.•Listening tour across the state, with many stakeholders.•Research showed that state flag was identified more with Chicago than Colorado, outside the state.•Brand saves time and money in multiple-agency communication tasks.

OTHER TASKS

• Channel Quest: Build a model of all communication pathways inside your organization and to the outside

• Content Quest: Complete an audit of all public-facing tactics (online newsletter, YouTube videos, website, phone calls, Twitter/Facebook/Instagram, customer service, and more)

Herding Cats and Central Planning: www.globalwealthprotection.com

LET’S WRITE SOME GOALS

• Being available whenever stakeholders require key interaction with or important information from my organization.

• Providing consistent, transparent and compelling communication to help organization – meet its mission of ……– change hearts and minds ….

Handout text for you to copy and paste into an MSWord document:

INTERNAL COMMUNICATION Get started by hosting a meeting to discuss and write a brand manifesto with members of your communication team. Use that manifesto to set a great communication tone. What will your nonprofit’s “voice” sound like? How can you build stories and messages that all brand ambassadors can share about your organization? What are key messages? How can you ensure that most internal communication leads to mission-driven communication for outbound audiences? This may be formalizing things you already do! Set guidelines for sharing these stories internally and externally, where appropriate. In what ways could digital channels help you communicate with both internal and external audiences at the same time? Who can provide leadership for sharing these stories? Board members? Volunteers? Staff members? Clients? Other influencers? How can you set up a protocol for repurposing stories, for internal and then external audiences? EXTERNAL COMMUNICATION For every day, mission-driven communication, see above. For routine communication, do an audit. For your plan, list all outbound communication/channels that you use. Set up a calendar, too, for key messages (per Kivi Leroux Miller’s plenary session). List all inbound channels—how do you listen to your stakeholders in formal ways? How do you share what you learn when listening?For out-of-the-ordinary formal or crisis communication, chart it. Then write policies for your communication plan based on this charting exercise.Who are the players? Who is allowed to speak or who has authority to speak? In other words, who serves as your department or agency’s primary writer/spokesperson/communicator?Who approves their messages? Who sets the speed of response? How and how fast will you contact all members of your communication team?What channels do the speakers use? What audiences do these speakers/communicators address? Do you have policies/plans that govern these interactions? Yes/noWhen was the last time these policies/plans were discussed and reviewed among all parties? Set a schedule for reviewing every six months, once the plan is written. FORMAT FOR PLANNINGMost communication plans are formatted with goals (lofty and ideal), objectives (measurable), strategies (what channels we want to use for our most important influencers), tactics (messages, brochures, social media photos). See samples on the back. GOAL: “To leverage best traditional and digital communication channels to help all stakeholder stay connected to our organization.” (task; could have reputation or relationship goals, too) OBJECTIVE 1: “To discover the top two traditional channels in first quarter of 2015.”OBJECTIVE 2: “To discover the top two digital communication channels in first quarter of 2015.”OBJECTIVE 3: “To increase the percentage of stories about mission-driven issues by 20 percent in all channels during Q2, Q3, Q4 2015.” (First, must measure what you had in Q1 2015.) STRATEGY 1 and 2: “Develop new stakeholder survey information (or focus group/advisory board) to determine top traditional and social media/digital habits. Use secondary research to supplement.”STRATEGY 3A: “Anticipate and develop messaging and story ideas related to mission; repurpose older stories that have evergreen quality.”STRATEGY 3B: “Analyze prior coverage of issues and increase freelance contracts accordingly, and identify other writers throughout organization (volunteers, board members, staffers, clients, family members, other stakeholders). Hold meetings with potential content creators inside and outside nonprofit.” TACTICS 1 & 2: “Write and place stories in top traditional and digital channels.”TACTIC 3A: “Write stories in traditional and digital forms that focus on organization mission.”TACTIC 3B: “Schedule meetings with potential writers and put out a call for writers among stakeholders during Q1. Engage freelance writers and others to contribute content for Q2, Q3, Q4.”

j.lambiase@tcu.edu or @lambiase