Finding the right words, visuals, stories, and examples when communicating about your organization is an art just as much as knowing your audience, customizing and regularly refreshing your messaging. These elements work together to bring your work to life and make a lasting impression.
Your strategic plan or strategic framework should play a core role in driving what you communicate to donors and wider audiences. Data shows that having a strategic plan will help you raise significantly more! Your staff leadership and team can maximize the opportunity of your strategic plan and use the elements of your plan as an anchor in your messaging strategy, case for support, and overall communications plan.
So, what should you share with current and potential donors?
- Vision: The vision creates an extremely compelling opportunity for your messaging. Your vision statement should paint an aspirational future, far beyond here and now.
- Messaging opportunity: Use your vision to position an exciting proposal to donors: the world you envision and how they can help bring that about. For the right donors, the possibility and potential—when paired with an understanding of your mission—will inspire them to act and, when the circumstances are right, to think big and boldly with you. For example, if your vision is a world where no child goes to bed hungry in your community, can you invite the donor to join you in tackling a piece of this, such as ending hunger for all kids in a neighborhood, school, or street for the entire year?
- Mission: The mission statement is the heart and soul of your organization, articulating what you do, how you do it, and who you do it for. Put simply: a mission is what you’re all about.
- Messaging opportunity: Consider the mission statement as a starting point for the executive summary you share to others about your organization. Your mission statement can form the core inspiration of your organization’s elevator speech used by your staff and board to consistently inform and educate others about what you do. A well-constructed mission is brief and easy to articulate, succinctly describing the unique role your organization plays.
- Values: Values statements serve as guideposts for an organization and are shared principles of staff, board, and other key constituents. Values convey your top common priorities in your engagement as a team, with those you serve, and in the community.
- Messaging opportunity: Values can help a donor get the texture, color, and flavor of your organization. In writing, they demonstrate who you are and are striving to be and can provide a helpful filter for fine-tuning the tone of your messaging. When used well in messaging, values may help donors connect emotionally with who you are and how you go about it, as they develop an authentic sense of the culture and humanity of your organization—especially when they see your staff and board living it out!
- This concept was vividly brought to life for me. I serve on a board for a nonprofit in which kindness is a core value—it is reflected consistently in communications materials, images, swag, and how the staff and board speak and treat each other. You feel kindness when you engage with anyone from this organization. And you absolutely experience it as a donor, volunteer, and participant, as stewardship is top-notch. That feeling cannot be bought. It is set authentically from the leadership and carried out in part through a well-executed and genuine messaging strategy.
- Goals: Goals outline your organization’s top priorities in a set period. They articulate key focal points for your efforts and resources and should be supported by objectives and actionable steps to drive toward established outcomes.
- Messaging opportunity: Center your goals in communicating how you make your mission actionable and are driving toward your vision now. Articulate messaging around goals and related elements to donors when asking for support and identifying tangible ways they can move the needle with their investment.
As you measure the results of your work and progress toward goals, share those results with donors—the numbers and, most importantly, the stories of impact that resulted. Initial progress and momentum can also help inspire donors to catalyze your progress. When you can share what donors support in very tangible ways, that can build interest and garner even greater support.
Every donor is different. As you develop relationships and understand your dynamic donor audiences, collaborate with your staff leaders, board, and colleagues to customize messaging that is grounded in elements of your strategic plan. In doing so, you will create cohesive, stronger communications that connect and engage donors in your important work.
At JGA, we make sure donors are at the heart of every strategic planning conversation. It is all about creating a plan that not only moves your mission forward but also truly connects with the people who make your work possible. This donor-focused perspective is a defining feature of our work and a key to building meaningful, lasting relationships. If you would like to hear more about how JGA centers the donor’s perspective in our work, please email us. We are ready to help.