About this event
Between more traditional channels of communications like direct mail, email, and newsletters, and all the new channels you’ve adopted—like social media, multimedia, and blogs—there’s a lot to think about when it comes to your organization’s messaging. How do you create and maintain a consistent voice across so many channels? How do you coordinate your various communications to work in tandem rather than compete, engaging constituents and inspiring them to take action rather than confusing, overwhelming, or annoying them?
This brand new course is the perfect complement to our popular publication, A Practical Guide to Integrated Communications: A Workbook for Nonprofits. Over five weeks, Idealware will help you to define the categories of communications, explore their roles in your messaging, and assess your current state of effectiveness before walking you through the planning, scheduling, and implementation stages. Along the way, you’ll learn to measure the response you’re getting to adapt your techniques for better results, and ultimately learn to holistically integrate your communications.
Throughout the course, you’ll learn:
- How your communications work together to create an overall organizational message
- What tools work best for your goals and audience
- What your communications say about your organization
- How to use your communications to create a successful campaign
- How to increase engagement with your supporters
- How to organize a balanced communications calendar
- How to use metrics to improve the performance of your communications
Toolkit Schedule
All 90-minute sessions begin at 10:00 a.m. PST.
March 19: Getting to Know Your Communications
You’ve set up your website and Facebook page, sent a few eNewsletters, and licked more envelopes than you care to admit—but that doesn’t mean your communications are working in harmony. The good news is you can plan ahead and be sure your communications outlets are making the maximum impact. In this first class, we’ll ask the key questions to assess your current communications mix, discuss how you can tailor your mix to suit your goals and audience, and go over the strengths and weaknesses of each method of outreach.
March 26: The Core of Your Message
Think of your communications as a workout routine: If you spend too much time focusing on one part, the others might suffer. You need to find the time to promote your own organization and the content you create, but you also want to foster a strong community with your audience and work to build relationships with fellow organizations. In this class, we’ll cover how you can find a balance that works for you within individual channels and with your communications as a whole.
April 2: Running a Campaign
Campaigns can mean a lot of things to different organizations. Some might plan a single annual campaign all year; others might have constant campaigns running alongside each other. Whatever your approach to communications campaigns, we’ll explore the importance of campaign planning and break down how you can set yourself up for success.
April 9: ABC: Always Be Communicating
Running campaigns shouldn’t be the only purpose of your communications. To keep your audience listening, it’s important to provide powerful content at regular intervals. We’ll discuss how you can keep your stream of content flowing to expand on your message rather than contradicting it, without burdening yourself with constant outreach.
April 16: Setting It in Stone
In this session, we’ll take your strategy and turn it into a usable plan. A communications mix has the greatest impact when it is well-planned-out and scheduled, so we will explore some sample calendars and examine what your own communications calendar might look like given your unique message and communications channels. We’ll wrap up by talking about how you should measure your communication mix as you continue to improve and refine it over time.
Additional Coursework
Office hours will take place every Friday from 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. PST.
About the Presenters
Andrea Berry, Director of Partnerships and Learning, oversees Idealware’s fundraising and training activities, including the Field Guide to Nonprofit Software, sponsorship, corporate and individual giving, grants management, and online seminars. Prior to joining Idealware, Andrea held fundraising positions in education, health research, and museums. She has also taught math, performing arts, and history in traditional and non-traditional educational settings. She brings a breadth of experience with fundraising software, particularly as it relates to small nonprofits, and has worked as a consultant with nonprofits across New England to help identify appropriate donor management software. Additionally, as a former teacher, Andrea brings front-line, tested expertise in curriculum development and training.
Cost (for all five sessions & office hours)
$175 NAO Members
$200 Nonmembers
Additional Information
Registration for this event is through Idealware, our partner for this training.
Please register with the email address where you would like to receive the access and dial-in information for the online seminar.
All registered participants are granted access to the recordings of each session. If a participant cannot attend any of the sessions due to a scheduling conflict, they will still have access to all the content of the Toolkit.
Still not sure if this course is for you? Idealware is offering a FREE webinar to promote the Integrated Communications Toolkit from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time on March 6, 2014. They will present forty minutes on communications trends, allow for ten minutes of Q&A, and then take ten minutes to provide information about the course. Register for the FREE promotional session.