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MAKE IT MATTER
Making your communications matter, then, is the swiftest route there is to making your organisation matter too. Communicating with the wider world is essential for any non-profit organisation. Without it, it’s impossible to do or achieve anything, let alone increase impact. Communications can effect change directly, for example, by informing beneficiaries and service users about their rights or providing lifesaving information. It can also mobilise popular support and build public pressure for change in policy and practice, drive organisational growth by attracting and keeping new donors and funders, and recruit great new talent to work in your organisation. So the most effective organisations are those best equipped to engage and inspire others to act. The best communicators understand this. Their insights and skills – an understanding of audiences and the creative and planning skills to communicate effectively with them – mean they can play a pivotal role at organisational level. If they are allowed to. For this reason, communications should be a central strategic function in any non-profit organisation. However, it’s still perceived in many as an afterthought in strategy development – the ‘story’ we wrap around the ‘real work’. Few organisations fully embrace communications as a means by which their mission is achieved. This is one of the perennial challenges faced by many non-profit communicators. “We don’t communicate just to tell people about the change we’ve made in the world,” one interviewee said. “We communicate to make change happen.”
More than just your organisation’s story A communications strategy isn’t just about lifting the lid on your organisation and showing everyone everything it does. It’s deciding what to communicate, with whom, to deliver the greatest impact. It’s about defining the unique contribution you can make in the world and answering the question ‘What can communications do to help our organisation achieve its goals?’. For these reasons, your communications strategy won’t be identical to your organisational strategy. You might choose to turn the volume up on one aspect of your work and focus on a particular segment of your audience. Try this analogy: If you were in the mobile phone business, you