Strategic Communications for Nonprofit Organizations: Seven Steps to Creating a Successful Plan, 2nd Edition

Website Welcome

Welcome to the website for Strategic Communications Planning for Nonprofit Organizations. Here you will find the worksheets and documents to help you organize your planning sessions.

The material is set up to address five strategic challenges addressed in the book:

• Challenge 1-Where do I start?
• Challenge 2-Conducting a communications audit
• Challenge 3-Preparing for a crisis
• Challenge 4-Building a strategic communications plan
• Challenge 5-Demonstrating capacity through a case for sustainability

Challenge 1

If you aren?t certain where do begin or what your priorities should be for the planning process, complete Worksheet #1.

• See Worksheet #1

Challenge 2

A communications audit is a comprehensive analysis of an organization?s communications-internal and/or external-to review communications needs, policies, practices, and capacity in order to improve organization efficiency and effectiveness.

The five tasks are summarized in Conducting the Communications Audit

• See document entitled: "Conducting the Communications Audit"
• See Worksheets # 3, 5,6, 14, 15, 16
• Summarize the results on Worksheet #6

Challenge 3

Nonprofit organizations, depending on their missions, generally deal with two types of crises: emergencies and controversies. Emergencies are predictable events that cause havoc for an organization or the people it serves and that may harm its ability to perform its mission. There are five major types of emergencies:

1. Physical or psychological injury to people
2. The inability to continue important organizational operations
3. Damage to or destruction of facilities
4. Financial loss
5. Spillover effects from something that has affected other people or other organizations

The responsibility for handling emergencies rests primarily with the staff, guided by disaster and risk management plans with board members providing collateral support where appropriate. Controversies are crises that threaten the organization?s reputation. Fraud accusations, legal disputes, or leadership conflicts are examples of controversies that challenge an organization?s integrity and effectiveness. Responding to a controversy usually requires board involvement and, possibly, board leadership.

The crisis communications plan addresses six essential questions:

1. Who is responsible for managing the crisis, and what are his or her duties?
2. Where should the command center be for responding to the crisis?
3. What resources will be needed?
4. Who should be part of the crisis control team, and what are their responsibilities?
5. What information is appropriate to give to the public?
6. Who will speak for the organization?

Crises do not usually get resolved with a single press statement or public announcement. It is important for crisis planners to realize that information needs, target audiences, and messaging will evolve over time, as more facts become known and as events unfold. The best way to deal with a crisis is before it happens. The strategic communications planning process provides an excellent opportunity for the board and staff to develop contingency plans for dealing with crises. A crisis communications planning team made up of both board and staff members should be created. Because crisis situations usually involve board engagement at a higher level that most communications work, both perspectives must be reflected in the planning process.

The crisis communications planning team is responsible for assessing the possible crises that may confront the organization and for developing the framework for a plan of action in the event of a crisis. Crisis situations require articulate and well-timed communications with all stakeholders and the media. Crisis communications planning is a two-step process. The first step, performed by the crisis communications planning team, is to determine what challenges could affect the organization, what prevention strategies can be implemented, and what materials need to be compiled in advance of a possible crisis. The second step is to form the team that will lead the process when a crisis actually occurs, the crisis control team. Although ,members of the crisis communications planning team may be members of the crisis control team, decision makers at the top of the organization-the chief executive and the board chair-should provide the leadership when a crisis actually occurs.

• See Worksheets: #3,4,6,7,8,9,10,17,18,24

Challenge 4

Everything you need (except the coffee, M&M?s, and other trinkets to motivate your team) is included in this section. Here you will find the worksheets, the template for the strategic communications plan and the Planet 3000 case study.

Grab the following documents: strategic plan, financial plan, program and operational plans, technology plan, fundraising plan, organizational development plan and any other documents that should shape your thinking and you are ready to begin.

• See documents entitled: "Strategic Communications Plan Template" and "Planet 3000 Case Study"

Challenge 5

When the development team works with the Communications Action Team on strategies for approaching foundations, developing the background for proposals and grant applications and training staff to make face-to-face presentations to prospective donors, the case for sustainability is the platform to use.

• See document entitled: "Building a Case for Sustainability"