Strategic Communication

Triangle Community Foundation hosts the podcast series, What Matters, that are conversations between TCF staff members, community leaders, and people doing incredible things in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in our community.

While written to help nonprofit leaders think strategically about public policy advocacy, these seven steps are useful to follow when developing fundraising asks, internal programmatic or organizational policy proposals, or other kinds of requests. (Shared with permission by Lisa Hazirjian, Ph.D., Win Together Consulting)

Jeanne C. Tedrow, President & CEO, North Carolina Center for Nonprofits

2021 truly began with a jolt. The attempted coup by insurrectionists on our nation's capital stunned many of us. Those elected to serve were in the crossfire and some were meant to be the target of this violence. In the aftermath of the 2020 fair and free election naming President Elect Joseph Biden and Vice President Elect Kamala Harris to be duly sworn in on January 20, our country is divided and the peaceful transition of power has been compromised.

When COVID-19 hit, our world changed. Organizations had to decide how to move forward while dealing with unanswered questions about what this would mean for your team, for your stakeholders, and for your partners. While nonprofits’ missions are more important than ever, the public, media, and funders are focused on work and messages directly related to COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic launched essential employees into the spotlight. Suddenly, everyone from local nonprofits to massive corporations wanted to uplift these team members. For some, it was a PR tactic; for others, it was the perfect time to highlight the critical work of essential employees, often without the salaries or recognition they deserve.

Why do people contribute to a cause? Because their passion for making a difference has been ignited! You can help trigger a donor’s passion for your cause through the fundamentals of storytelling. Whether you’re telling the story through a grant proposal, a video message, a radio announcement, or one-on-one, you can use storytelling structure to help your donor see their role in making your mission a success.

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These days, many organizations are asking themselves: Could we have been better prepared? While organizations use strategic planning to prepare for opportunities and challenges and to chart a course forward, nonprofits have spent 2020 adapting and evolving, and are taking a new look at future strategic planning needs.

There are different ways to be emotionally intelligent, and different situations call on us to be “agile” in our emotional intelligence, i.e. adapting to the social or emotional situation to solve the problem at hand. But sometimes we reach for the same responses out of habit, even when the situation begs us to rethink our approach. This type of reaction leaves people and organizations resistant and unprepared to solve the dynamic and diverse challenges that come our way.

Just as we use a compass or GPS to show us where we are and where we want to go, the public values of liberty, equality, community, and prosperity can illuminate our positions and guide our decision making as we envision and navigate toward our community’s future.

While acknowledging the constraints nonprofits experience when attempting to collect and communicate data about their programs and services, Expanding Audience and Impact: Nonprofits Communicating Data to External Audiences encourages nonprofits to share data (in a variety of formats such as narrative, chart, graphics) with audiences outside of their organization.