Why is building nonprofit communications capacity important? What is it communicators want to achieve with greater capacity? What would greater communications capacity mean for communicators, nonprofits and the communities we serve?
Last week, I facilitated a Maytree Five Good Ideas session on building nonprofit communications capacity. I shared my five ideas about building capacity and then turned to the audience for their insights, asking them to answer:
1. What would you be able to accomplish – for your nonprofit and those you serve – with greater communications capacity? What would results look like in your communities?
2. What would help you to get closer to your vision (offering better service, increased profile for your organization, voice for those who need it, etc.)? What needs to be in place?
3. What steps can YOU take in the coming days, weeks and months to increase and enhance your communications capacity?
Because the discussion was so rich and fruitful, I wanted to share back as many responses as I could collect, which I’ll do over three blog posts, starting today.
In their words, the following are our workshop participants’ responses to the first question…
What would you be able to accomplish with greater communications capacity?
Greater visibility for nonprofit organizations
- Increased profile
- Increased recognition
- Public education and clarity about what we do and how we do it
- Reception matches message intention
- More awareness, more outreach
- Unique brand value
- Increased credibility
- Enhanced transparency
Deeper impact/engagement with communities
- Increased engagement with clients
- More interaction/dialogue with audiences
- Opportunities for public to contribute to social change
- Community: better informed, more educated, engaged citizens
- Voice for those who don’t always have a voice
- Policy change
- Translation of institutional knowledge
- Realization of vision
- More beneficiaries know what your organization does
- Audience education to behaviour change
- Stakeholder relevance
- Clear understanding of what the organization does
- Sharing stories of beneficiaries to potential clients>know they’re not alone
- More applicants for available funding
- More strategic communications, leading to better engagement of new, key groups
- Increased 2-way communications=opportunity to improve services, programs and advocacy
More support and stability for the organization
- Increased donor acquisition
- Increased donations and attention from funders>increased output
- More supporters
- Greater financial stability and ability to plan growth/impact
- More clients and revenue
- Increased donor participation
- Improved funder relations
- Trust from stakeholders
- More feedback from stakeholders
Better communications
- Clearer messages
- More consistent messages, multiple modes
- De-acronymizing
- Sharing success stories
- More focused, effective content
- Better quality materials
- More efficient branding=better results
- More strategic approach
Better conditions for communicators
- Staff more aware of organizational objectives
- Reduced stress for communicators and content creators
- Ability to plan and be proactive
- Mitigate crises better
- More efficient comms=more time to focus on professional development
As you can see, the group shared a wide range of worthy reasons – and visions – for why they would like to enhance their capacity to communicate.
In the next post in this series, coming tomorrow, I’ll share what participants felt they needed to have in place to achieve the visions and outcomes they mentioned here.
