Episode 88: Uncomplicate Your Communications

Many nonprofit organizations struggle with communications. A lot of times, this problem is caused by too many complications in their strategy.

This episode’s guest is Michael Beall, Principal Consultant and Communications Practice Leader at Accordant Philanthropy. Listen to the episode to learn what Michael has to say about how organizations can uncomplicate their communications strategy by prioritizing communications to different audiences, how budget fears affect communications, and how to test messaging to see what resonates with different donors.

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

• How organizations often overcomplicate their communications
• How organizations’ priorities shift when communicating with different audiences over time
• How mixing messages rather than focusing on one audience at a time can overcomplicate messaging
• What prevents organizations from doing their best work with a focused audience
• Delivering active and passive content to donors in a face-to-face context
• How to test messaging to see what resonates with donors

 

Resources:

Michael Beall

Article: Uncomplicate Your Communications Strategy

Webinar Series: Resources for Creating an Atmosphere of Engagement

 

Quotes:

“I think a simple exercise to do is to really list those potential priorities, those different audiences, and just assign who’s number one, who’s number two, who’s number three.”

“The interesting thing is that when you poll donors, they tell you the opposite – that they’re overwhelmed by frequency and by noise. And that really, that’s not what they’re looking for.”

“You’ve really got to test it out before you send it out.”