Four Basic Communications Goals for a Nonprofit

There are four basic goals we can try to achieve with nonprofit communications:

1.Fundraising Goals

2. Programming Goals (such as community education, etc)

3. Recruitment Goals

For your programming, such as client recruitment, and

Recruiting volunteers/donors

4. Brand Leadership Goals

Reputation management

Positioning your organization as a competent expert, and

Communicating to your internal audiences, such as staff and board of directors.

Kivi Leroux Miller organizes these categories helpfully in her The Nonprofit Marketing Guide, which is an invaluable resource.

These are the basic goals you can have. The balance between these four categories will vary depending on your nonprofit. 

If you’ve never thought about the balance between these four categories before in your nonprofit, here are a few tips. First, Getting that balance right begins with careful reflection and conversations. Start by just thinking about what your organization needs. Discuss this with organizational leadership. Specifically, how much do they expect the communications strategy to incorporate programming goals? How much help do your fundraisers/development team expect from the communications strategy?

Here’s a second tip: you won’t get the balance right the first year. This is something you just have to do a few times. However, just attempting to balance these four things will be an improvement over not even trying to balance them.

This balance will always be a struggle. This specific question is much of where the art of communications strategy comes into play. Keep at it.