Your Comms People Are More Than Publicity Agents

Phil's Careers Blog Your Comms People Are More Than Publicity Agents By Heather Ferguson, Whale Communications So right here’s the thing. You are the Executive Director or CEO of a successful charity. You have the standard staff complement of Resource Development Officer(s) and Communications Officer(s). The ResDev folks increase cash and the Comms folks publicize the trigger. So far, so good. But, there is a gray area here. Once the present is pledged, who is the best particular person to spearhead your donor relations? If you've just a bit leeway in staffing you possibly can cover this gap, so how about utilizing the one that is probably going underused? If the name of the game is to keep folks targeted on what they do best, use your comms supervisor to create and run a donor relations program. Here’s why. Taking care of donors, building on those relationships, ensuring they get the stories they want, the phone updates and invites to occasions is everyone’s enterprise. But the issue with one thi ng being everyone’s enterprise is that it becomes nobody’s enterprise. Each particular person takes on a fraction from the corner of their desk and sooner or later opportunities get missed and there is no coherence to any of it. Someone in the office has to be accountable for the bigger image but you need your fundraisers focused on the calls that may result in the next gift. Current donors, having given their monetary assist no less than once, are part of a special group that demands special care. A communications practitioner to know the needs and calls for of their audience while balancing those with presumably totally different wants and demands from the organization. A good comms individual can design a strong stewardship plan round a high end donor that keeps the fundraiser involved, brings the ED or Board members in on the acceptable time and customarily retains the donor in control on the group, its work and priorities. In truth, for consistency of message, creating appr opriate materials, and coordinating a variety of needs, a comms person can finest help this special group of present donors and help you maintain your fundraisers centered on raising money. Let’s take a look at an instance. Jodie is a supervisor of major presents and has simply secured a big donation to her group. Now she turns to Communications Manager Kent who works together with her to design a communications observe-up plan for this donor. The plan might embody the following: Kent’s coaching as a communications/public relations expert allows him to concentrate on things that are not directly related to asking for funds but which, over the long-term, can lead to bigger presents. His coursework in stakeholder relations allows him to know why Jodie must proceed constructing her relationship with the donor and why it is important for the Executive Director to have a powerful relationship too. Kent is really putting his publicity competencies to the service a smaller, highly targ eted, mission crucial viewers. Using a communications manager simply as a publicity officer is to miss the very real training in relationship building and stakeholder administration their education offers. What’s extra, it takes the job of donor relations off the facet of Jodie’s desk and keeps her focus squarely on her core competencies. Keeping your folks centered on what they were employed to do is the Holy Grail for small organizations nevertheless it’s still fairly robust when you're a big one too. Understanding what and how much your communications department can handle can help you to grab that grail from its hiding place. Heather Ferguson, MCM, ABC, CFRE ( ) is a consultant residing in Victoria BC. Her expertise lies in managing key accounts as well as non-revenue management, major gift fundraising and content marketing communications. She is passionate in regards to the non-profit world and is convinced we are on the verge of a golden age of doing good. Heather could be contacted at Post navigation Fill in your particulars below or click on an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. (Log Out/ Change) You are commenting using your Google account. (Log Out/ Change) You are commenting using your Twitter account. (Log Out/ Change) You are commenting utilizing your Facebook account. (Log Out/ Change) Connecting to %s Notify me of latest feedback via e-mail. Notify me of new posts via email. Email Subscription Enter your email handle to comply with my NEW blog and stay on top of the latest career opportunities and fundraising news. Sign me up! Follow On Twitter Browse by Category Phil’s Careers Tweets Error: Twitter did not respond. Please wait a couple of minutes and refresh this web page.