10 July, 2017

The recent CharityComms Benchmark report provided plenty of food for thought.

Something that particularly struck us was how closely the top five things comms professionals identified as ‘problems’ tie together, and how a fairly straightforward comms strategy would go a long way to solving these issues.

The top five problems were

• Too many competing priorities (50%)
• Lack of integrated thinking / processes (45%)
• Too much fire-fighting (44%)
• Lack of understanding of comms (38%)
• Poor or non-existent organisational strategy (27%)

So how can a comms strategy solve these challenges?

1. Help you set clear priorities

A good comms strategy gives careful consideration to what you should communicate, to whom, and how, based on insights drawn from across your organisation and beyond it. It also tells you what you shouldn’t waste your time on, which is just as valuable.

2. Connect thinking and processes

Creating a strategy can be a great way to connect with other teams across your organisation. Fundraising colleagues, service managers and senior management will all have their own priorities and different audiences they want to reach. Involving these teams in the strategy development will improve your relationships, join things up and help make sure comms is working for everyone.

3. Encourage you to focus on what’s important, not just what’s urgent

It can be easy to spend most of your time trying to stay on top of things that demand your immediate attention, rather than doing the things that have most value to you and your organisation. A strategy will help you figure out what’s taking up your time and lay out clear plans for doing what matters.

4. Allow you to communicate what comms can do

It can be really frustrating if your colleagues have little understanding of what you do, but it’s your job to inform them about comms and the benefits it can bring them. Having a strategy in place can be a really helpful tool to combat misunderstanding in your organisation. It outlines your work, why you’re doing it and how it fits in with your wider organisational goals, proving your value.

5. Provide focus and structure where it’s lacking

It’s pretty shocking that one in four comms professionals think their organisation lacks a proper strategy, but developing your own clear and concise comms strategy will help you focus on what’s important and ignore what’s not, while helping others do the same and making the case internally.

If you’re thinking about creating a comms strategy, or updating an old one, use our free guide. It covers the process of preparing a strategy, what it should include, issues that may come up and what to do with it when it’s finished.

Get in touch if you have any questions or experiences to share.