A Communications Plan for Fundraising Success | CCS - Blogs

By Kelly Albanese, Assistant Vice President of Marketing Communications, CCS

Does your development office have a clear and defined communications plan?

Like anything else, without a plan you will not get to your desired destination. That said, there are many ways to engage donors, cultivate potential donors, and motivate key leaders and committee members; and communication is crucial regardless of whether you are currently engaged in a long-term campaign. In fact, studies have shown that one of the most commonly cited reasons donors halt giving to an existing preferred charity is because they ?feel less connected than they had been before.?

So, how do you get started drafting your fundraising communications plan? Your first step is to sit down with your organization?s strategic plan as well as your fundraising plan for the year. Make a list of the constituent groups you need to be communicating with and when. Now, create a matrix that matches important messaging for the year and strategic goals for the organization with the appropriate constituent groups.

By the time you?ve completed this exercise, you should have a solid schedule of communications to use as a guideline. Your schedule may include newsletters (print and electronic,) appeals for support, event announcements and reminders, annual reports, news and advocacy issues, as well as calls for volunteers. Your communications matrix will establish a foundation for your outreach throughout the year. The purpose of that foundation is to ensure that communications are sent regularly, communicate important key messages, and leave room for special communication needs that will surely arise, often unexpectedly.

Once you have finalized a draft of your communications plan, invite the appropriate staff members in your organization to review and offer additions based on any events or constituencies you may have overlooked. If communications and development are separate at your organization, invite the head of communications to review your plan. Also, ask your program colleagues for feedback.

If your organization is currently using social media vehicles, be sure to incorporate the use of those platforms to enhance and compliment the communications you have outlined. Technology has made it easy to engage our target audiences through a variety of platforms. Determine the platforms that resonate with your constituents and make sure that you?re using them to help communicate and engage.

The next step in creating your development communications plan is to establish a realistic set of communication goals for your organization. Will you communicate with your various constituencies weekly, monthly, or quarterly, etc.? Remember that one size does not fit all when it comes to communicating. You may need to communicate with some groups more frequently than others.

Finally, build in a process to evaluate the success of your communications. You will need to pay attention to response rates, open rates, and the content that your various audiences react to. What are they sharing? Which appeals and calls to action are they responding to? Make a commitment to evaluate the success of all of your outreach each month. Set aside a few hours at the beginning of the month to review the communications from the previous month so you can work with your team to tweak and recalibrate your strategy and plan.

Do you already do all of this? That?s great! What?s the next step? Gathering information regarding your constituents and starting to use that information to communicate with them about things they are specifically interested in, but that?s a blog for another day.

Here are some communication tips and strategies that you should consider including in your plan:

• Weekly emails to board and committee members outlining recent success stories and important next steps.
• Biweekly campaign updates to pending donors.
• Monthly inspirational emails, letters, website links, articles that may be of interest, and e-newsletters to cultivate prospects.
• Quarterly newsletter or magazine.
• Semi-annual President or Chairman letters.
• Annual reports to promote donor recognition and stewardship as well as demonstrate impact.
• Occasional handwritten notes to key donors and volunteers.
• A personal email invitation rather than a blast email.
• A phone call just to say ?hello? or ?thank you. ?

Let me leave you with this parting thought. As you create your communications plan, or perhaps fine-tune an existing plan, make sure that the three most important messages are included throughout the year:

1. This is our mission. These are our needs. This is how you can help.
2. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
3. Your support has helped us accomplish x, y and z.

You may not stick to your communications plan 100%of the time, but it will provide a blueprint for how you communicate, with whom you communicate, what you communicate, and the frequency with which you do so.?

Do you have any communications tips to share? Share them here by commenting on our blog or join the conversation on https://www.facebook.com/ccsfundraising.

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Source: http://ccsfundraising.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/a-communications-plan-for-fundraising-success/

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