This is where dedicated communication strategies come in. Keeping in touch with your supporters is essential for increasing loyalty and support, whether you’re looking for volunteers or capital campaign donors. 

Let’s explore the fundamentals of improving your communication strategy and stewarding your long-term support network. 

1. Personalize your communications. 

Put yourself in your donors’ shoes: Would you be more likely to support an organization that treats you as just another number in their database, or one that makes an extra effort to get to know you as a person?

Ensuring every community member feels seen and valued as an individual is absolutely essential for your organization’s communication strategy.

However, highly personalized communications become more challenging as your organization grows—after all, it would take countless hours to create individual messages for the hundreds of people in your support network. 

By using the correct tools, you can personalize at scale without sacrificing precious time spent on your mission. Here are some tips to get started:

• Develop templates. Templates enable greater personalization, efficiency, and consistency when planning and sending messages to supporters. They also allow you to showcase the recipient’s name in the greeting and subject line of emails to catch their attention. 
• Segment your audience. Create different messages for groups of audience members with shared characteristics—also known as segments. This way, each message is more likely to resonate with its recipients. 
• Automate tasks when possible. Doubleknot recommends using marketing automation capabilities to take simple yet time-consuming tasks off your plate, such as scheduling and sending communications and adding supporter information to templates.

These communication best practices should be the foundation of your communication strategy—build on them as you figure out what works for your organization. For instance, an art museum’s team might send messages to lapsed members discussing their future plans for programs they were passionate about, whereas potential members might receive messages about membership benefits. 

2. Use multiple channels. 

Spread out your communication efforts so you can reach as many people as possible and inspire them to engage with your nonprofit. Some key nonprofit marketing channels to leverage include:

• Your website is the center of your organization’s digital strategy for both information and involvement. Ensure your donation and “About” pages are easily accessible and visible from the main menu.
• Email provides a great return on investment (ROI)—for every $1 spent, marketers make between $36 and $42 on average.
• Social media empowers you to interact with supporters firsthand, adding another dimension to your outreach. 
• Digital ads on paid search and display ads raise brand awareness and generate outside interest in your work, according to Fifty & Fifty. 
• Direct mail is a classic, effective way of spreading awareness of your programs (especially to less tech-savvy supporters). 
• Texting allows you to send short messages updating supporters on upcoming events and programs and prompting quick action with a mobile-friendly link.

Choose your channels based on your supporters’ preferences and the context of your communication. For instance, if you’re hosting a GivingTuesday campaign ending in six hours, use text to reach potential donors quickly and convey urgency about reaching your goal. 

3. Leverage the power of storytelling. 

You witness your community-based organization’s influence on real people every day. Translating this impact into a narrative form humanizes your work for outsiders and communicates your programming’s deeper purpose.

Just like fictional stories told in novels or movies, ensure these elements are  present in your organization’s storytelling communications:

• Characters, such as community members, program participants, and your staff.
• Setting, which is likely your wider community or just the organization itself.
• Conflict, or the problem that the characters have to overcome.
• Resolution, which usually comes directly from your organization’s mission-centric work.

Once you have these details in place, you can adjust your strategy to meet different communication needs. For instance, let’s say an aquarium appeals to donors for support building a bigger enclosure. The aquarium’s strategy might involve telling stories of animals who will have more room to play in the new environment.

4. Use video content effectively. 

Adding video as a supporter communication tactic empowers you to make even more dynamic and versatile messages with a wider audience.  In fact, studies show that video viewers retain 95% of a video’s message compared to 10% of text. And even if you’re on a budget, they’re easy to make with free apps and smartphone cameras. 

Here are some types of video content you can create:

• Behind-the-scenes tours 
• Interviews with beneficiaries, staff, and community members
• Highlights from events
• Impact stories
• Volunteer spotlights
• Thank-you messages
• Educational content

You can share videos across various platforms, such as social media, email, and your website. Just ensure the videos you choose suit the platform’s audience. For instance, you might want to save your educational mini-documentary for your YouTube channel instead of your TikTok audience, as that site is made for short-form content.

As your communication strategy takes shape, track key marketing metrics like social media interactions, website traffic, and email open rates to find out where you’re doing well and how you can improve going forward. Additionally, gather feedback from supporters to monitor their thoughts. Ask if they consistently receive communications from your nonprofit and, if so, what they think of the content. 

Regardless of how you collect and interpret feedback, make sure you respond. If you let supporters know you’re listening and acting on what they say, they’ll appreciate being heard and valued as individuals. That way, they’ll be more likely to keep up with your nonprofit’s current happenings and stay involved long-term!

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