 Welcome to for being here. We're so glad that you are for another episode of the nonprofit show. If you joined us for the green room chatter, we've had a really lovely conversation already with our guest, Nikalina Noel. She joins us from sunny San Diego and she is a communication strategist and she's going to share with us five top tips of how your nonprofit can create a robust communication strategy. So stay with us because she has a lot to cover in a little bit of time. And before we dive into the conversation with you, Nikalina, we want to remind all of our viewers and our guests who we are, if we haven't had the pleasure to meet you yet or this is your first time joining us. So hello to you, Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy and I'm Jarrett Ransom, your nonprofit nerd and CEO of the Raven Group. So grateful to be alongside you Julia and alongside with our amazing presenting sponsors that allow us these opportunities to have conversations about any and all things that really impact the nonprofit community. So this week we have quite the lineup. So a shout out to our friends at Blimering American Nonprofit Academy, Fundraising Academy at National University, nonprofit thought leader, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, non-profit nerd as well as nonprofit tech talk. So many of these companies have been with us from the very beginning, helped us to produce over 850 episodes marching towards our 900th episode. We'll reach that milestone in October which seems like a long way away but it's around the corner. It's going to be here soon. If you missed any of the episodes or you want to go back and binge watch, we invite you to do that. You can download the app, just scan that QR code. You can also find us on streaming broadcast as well as podcast platforms. So again, binge watch, listen, whatever you like to do wherever you stream your entertainment, we are there and with AI's help I think we're going to get that hologram launch this year Julia. Yeah, we'll be sitting on your sofa. Like you said, this is the thing that freaks me out. If you have a smart TV and you have a smart remote where it's voice activated, you can literally say into it. And I have done this, it freaks me out. The nonprofit show and we come up. And so sitting on the sofa next to you, Julia and Jarrah, that's around the corner sister. That's right. I know, it is soon. But again, check us out wherever you choose to consume your entertainment. We've got tons of those episodes for you, you know, again marching towards 900th. So thank you for all of that. And thank you, Nickalina, for being so patient as we get through some of our housekeeping. Again, for those of you watching and listening today, I am so grateful to have this guest with us who I had the pleasure of meeting in person at the fundraising academy National University's conference cultivate in June. So not too long ago. So Nickalina Noel, she is a communication strategist. You can check her website out at nickalinanoel.com. Welcome to you. Thank you, Jarrah. Thank you, Julia as well. It's a pleasure to be here. It's a lot of fun. You know, communication is like one of my things I love. And I see so many problems with it in the nonprofit sector and it breaks my heart. Also, because honestly, I see organizations that I just don't think are that worthy, but they get all the attention because they have great communication strategy and plans and then I see organizations and I'm like, oh my God, they're doing the work of the angels. They're so important. Nobody knows about them because there's no communications strategy. So this my friend is gonna be one of those things that I hope gets us on track. So the first thing that you talked to us about and advise us is to create measurable objectives. What does that even mean? That's a fantastic question, Julia. So like you mentioned, we typically don't see a lot of communication strategy within the nonprofit space. And so a lot of great work is not being seen or getting the recognition that it deserves. And so when you're building out a communication strategy and what is that? So just to give you a simple definition of a communication strategy, it is an outline, a comprehensive outline of outcomes that your organization would like to achieve. And so when we're thinking about that, we need to answer some questions concerning what we'd like to achieve with this outline or the strategy. And I like to use what journalists use when they're writing. They call it the 5Ws. And that is the who, what, when, where and why. These are some questions that you might need to answer when you're building out your communication strategy. Who is your target audience? What message or information would you like to relate to that audience? When do you intend to share this message or communicate with this audience? Where will you be communicating with them? Is in what channels do you intend to showcase your work or your message? And why? Why is now the time? Why would you like to engage with them? And why that's put on that specific strategy or objective? Another thing that you'll probably need to consider is creating a SWAT analysis that allows for you to get an overview of your internal and external factors that might either be an advantage or a disadvantage to your communication strategy, as well as opportunities and threats that might be something that you might need to consider, some challenge that you might need to mitigate. So these are just some factors that you might need to consider when creating your plan and structuring your strategy. And that brings us to what an objective is. The best way that I like to retain for you to retain what an objective is is to think of the acronym SMART. And what is that? It stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. So when we're working on our strategy, these are the factors that we need to consider. And to give you some examples of what an objective might sound like, one could be to increase website traffic by 20% within three months. So that is a specific goal that you like to, a specific objective that you like to achieve. It's measurable because we've indicated by what percentage. It is attainable or achievable because it's a practical number to deal with. It's relevant because it ties back to whatever goals that you'd like to achieve. And it is time-bound because we've indicated in the timeframe that we'd like to achieve this goal. And I'm gonna be throwing around goals and tactics as well. So I'd like to give you an understanding of what that is. A goal, I like to think of it as an umbrella that's gonna shelter your objective and your tactic. A goal refers to an overarching or a broad outcome that you'd like to achieve. A tactic refers to something more practical. It's the action or method that you're gonna take to achieve your objective. So an example of a goal for the objective that I gave you to increase website traffic, that goal could be to improve your brand awareness or increase your website traffic and conversions. For example, your tactic could be more specific. It's the actual action that you're gonna take to achieve your objective. So it could be to create search engine optimized content for your blog or website. And that's just an overview of what those three key elements are. And it's so important to have those detailed at the start of your strategic plan. You know, that is so important. One of the things I'm seeing is a lot of the clients, I work small, mid-sized, some larger, even non-profits, Nicklina, and they don't have a separate communications team, right? So it becomes the MarkCom dev team, right? The marketing communications development, kind of, you know, and everything else that goes in the kitchen drawer within the development team. So let's move into number two as you talk about identifying our audience because there's a lot of audiences, right? When it comes to the nonprofit community. So talk to us a little bit about the identification of this. So there are numerous ways for us to define our target audience. In nonprofit, we typically use our donors, as our target audience. And we can further break down our donors as into segments, so new donors, recurring, mid-level, plant giving donors, major donors. These are just ways that we can continue to break down that target audience. And there are other ways that we can do so, create our target audience. And it all depends on what your objective is. So for example, you're looking to engage volunteers, that could be your target audience. We can further break it down by supporters or advocates or corporate partners. And we can also break it down by generation. And Julia, I know you have that media background. So you're familiar with the generational breakdown, having a Gen Z or baby boomers or Gen Alpha as your target audience. This was something that we can thank media outlets for and sociologists for. You can further break it down by demographic or psychographic. So it's all dependent upon who you're looking to communicate with and ensuring that you're building a profile of that target audience, ensuring that you know what platforms they use or what channels they use, what you, we're gonna discuss further. And ensuring that your message is gonna resonate with that specific group. And we're gonna discuss messaging shortly after, but having an understanding of what that target audience looks like is gonna help you achieve your objective. I love that you said that because I think there is different messaging for different needs, for different voices, especially as your nonprofit grows, you might have an action that really is gonna resonate with grandparents and then another one that's gonna resonate with volunteers or funders, people involved in policy. So yeah, I really appreciate that. And this kind of goes to that next piece then because if you do have so many constituencies that you're trying to communicate to, some are gonna blend, some are not, how do you craft a message? Are you crafting a different message for each group or help us understand how we can look at this? So when we say message, we're referring to content or information that we'd like to share with this specific target audience. Our messages would need to be structured, like you mentioned, it needs to be compelling, it needs to be consistent, it needs to be clear, it needs to resonate with that target audience, like I mentioned earlier, and it needs to reinforce your organization's mission and values. So when we're building out our message, we wanna consider exactly what we'd like to relay and how our target audience is gonna perceive that message. You might wanna share some information concerning a call to act. You've just built out a new program or a new endeavor and you'd like for your community to support you. You might want to show donor recognition. And so building your messaging surrounding your donors and ensuring that you have an understanding of where they'd like to be communicated with or what kind of information they'd like to hear from you. You can be working on your fundraising appeals, which is very common for nonprofits. We're always creating fundraisers, we're hosting our gala, we're hosting a walk or a run ensuring that your messaging is relevant and ensuring that you're considering your target audience and what kinds of messages they'd like to hear from you and that you're building a plan that really enforces your organization's mission and values is quite important. So much great information here. And again, she's got five to cover. So we've gone through number one, create the measurable objectives to identify your audience. We were just talking about number three, craft a message. All of this builds into the channels, right? I mean, we talk about, you have talked about demographics, we've talked about all of these great opportunities. But how do we select these right channels? And then I have to add, Nikolita, more channels are added constantly, right? How do we balance this as well as our sanity so that we can tell the message within our audience but know the right channel to do that in? That's a fantastic question. And that's something that a lot of us struggle with even in my personal life, I struggle with figuring out where would I like to be and where would I like to showcase my brand? It was communication theorist, Marshall McLuhan, who said the medium is the message. And what he meant by that was the channel that we choose to relate a message is gonna impact the way that the message is perceived. So ensuring that you know what channels are gonna really showcase your work is quite important. And we can break down channels by traditional and digital. And what I mean by traditional, it refers to print mail, for example, phone calls. Whereas digital refers to everything that is tech driven. It could be email, social media websites, video, for example. So that's quite important for us to figure out how we're gonna relay our messages. And it brings us back to our target audience, right? Where is our target audience? We'll need to figure that out. So having that profile of your target audience and you can figure that out by doing research. There's a ton of information online concerning generations and demographics and where do you like to be communicated with? What platforms they're using? So you can find that information online or you can survey your constituents to figure out how they want to be communicated with. You might find that they are more engaged on via email or more engaged via text. I discovered a donor who preferred text messaging. So you can build out your communications strategy through a text marketing campaign. So it all depends on your donor profile and what kinds of information they'd like to hear from you and where they'd like to receive that information. So it's also important to know the frequency of your communications as well. We need to be mindful of our cadence and how often we're gonna be, for example, how often we're gonna be communicating on a specific platform. So keeping that in mind, and like you mentioned earlier, Jared, that we non-profit people, we have a lot of hats to wear. So knowing who's gonna be responsible for what is so important and I'm gonna talk later about, well, I'll talk about how you can integrate your communication strategy with your donor stewardship plan. That might be a really efficient way to really help your team stay on track and to really help you just get an overview of what kind of messages you'd like to share with your constituents over the course of a year. I love using Asana. It's a project management platform. It's a great way to keep your team on track and ensuring that you know who's doing what and when your deadlines are approaching. So these are all just factors to consider when building out that messaging and content strategy. So great. Go ahead, Julia. You've got something that's up your tongue. No, I'm fascinated by this conversation because one of the things that's the hardest thing to reconcile and to really navigate within an organization, whether it be non-profit or for-profit, is this sense of what is it that communications does and what do we have to do in order to get our messaging out there? And I think that one of the first pieces is that most organizations don't understand that how many different messages and message groups there are, right? And so I loved that you started with this because it's not enough to just say, oh, we need stronger communications. We need the right communications. And so your concept of stepping back and creating this plan is really smart. I really appreciate how you've walked us through this. The last thing that you talk about, and that is kind of the wrap-up that helps us to understand if it's even moving in the direction we need it to, is the concept of strategy number five, which is measure and fine-tune. I guess this tells me here that we can adapt. It's not what you start with and end with. It's what's going on in between, right? I mean, is this a living, breathing thing? Absolutely. And it's so important to keep that in mind throughout the process. Because like I mentioned, your constituents might be responding more in specific platforms. So if your constituents are spending more time and engaging with you more on social media, then there are via email, perhaps you might need to spend more time and invest a little bit more in your social media plan. And so being mindful of that and being mindful of what key performance indicators you'd like to monitor and evaluate is important. In nonprofit, we tend to spend a lot. I mean, of course it's the core and it's the most important aspect of the work that we do, securing funding. But sometimes it's our key performance indicators. Don't always have to be that fundraising goal that we wanted to achieve. You can indicate success in your engagement rate, for example, if you're finding more people are on your website and they're interested in the content you're sharing on your website or they're looking to volunteer and they're applying to volunteer on your website or make a donation. That's something that you can further explore figure out how you can continue to drive more people to your website. Your email marketing, I'm sorry? No, I'm curious. I have a question about AB testing, right? So as we look to measure and we fine tune and you've given us all of these great strategies where do you recommend we do AB testing, right? Like let's try this in this platform, this a little differently. Can you talk to us about that? I'm curious. That's a great question, Jared. I think it's something that you should definitely explore and you can easily do it, Fiyera, your email marketing. I know some platforms allow for AB testing like constant contact. And you can play around with it on constant contact when you're creating your email campaigns, see what works with your audiences. Always ensure that your organization does not have a CRM and sure that you are getting those metrics concerning what your donors are clicking on, their conversion rates. You want to know that information so that you can better assess what you need to work on. So being able to see those metrics and those measurements would help you to be better, more strategic and more compelling when you're creating your email campaigns. I'm doing so via email. It's just, it's strategic, it's effective. Doing so on social media is just as strategic and effective as well. Ensuring that we know that people tend to engage more with faces. So if your organization would like to share content on social media, be mindful of that. These are things that really work well on that platform. Also ensuring that your content is branded is so important. Ensuring that you have an identifiable visual identity really helps you distinguish yourself on those platforms. So A.B. testing is quite efficient. It's quite helpful. Doing so on social media and email marketing campaigns is, it's definitely something that you should consider. Thank you. Yeah, I was really curious about that. And as you say and share all of this great insight and tips, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed, right? Oh, no. No, we look at our development teams and if that is, you know, the department that's managing all of this, you know, it's a lot to cover. So I'm sure there's certain ways to simplify this. Any tips if we're going, okay, I'm drinking out of a fire hose right now, right? Like where do I start within these first five strategies? Definitely start with your SWOT analysis. Okay. I didn't really get the chance to break it down, but your SWOT analysis is gonna give you the opportunity to view yourself objectively, right? You're gonna look at your strengths, which are things that are your advantage. For example, your company's brand reputation could be an advantageous thing. Your weaknesses are things that might negatively affect you and that could be your team's capacity. So ensuring that you're ironing those details out or you're getting the landscape of things before moving forward is so helpful. You might find that you might need to hire a temp or you might need to hire a consultant to help you execute or just figuring out whether you might need more volunteer support or intern support. This will help you, your SWOT analysis will help you get an overview of your organization where you stand and as well as the opportunities and threats that you might face, what are the opportunities and you have the potential to increase your brand, your website traffic or to improve upon your brand's reputation, your threats, like what kind of things would you need to mitigate? What are donors' priorities right now? Are we facing an economic downturn? So the analysis is the starting point. It's key to help you analyze and figure out where you might need to expand or explore. You know, really interested and we don't have much time left, but when we look at this very organized logical process to go through, which I think is, you've done a beautiful job, Niklina, on this, what would be a good amount of time to step back and come up with these five, you know, actions and in these plans? How long is this going to take an organization to get this meetup, get this together, put it on paper and make sure that everybody's growing in the same direction? What does that look like to you? Well, it varies depending on the scope of the strategy or the message that you'd like to convey. So it all depends, it might take a few days, it might take a few weeks, it might, and it also depends on how many of your team members are gonna be involved in the process. So like I mentioned, the project management platforms and how they can be helpful in helping you keep track of things and determine who's gonna be responsible for what. It allows for you to also get a timeline of things. So perhaps creating your overall communication strategy in a project management platform would be a better guide and would help you ensure that you're meeting your deadlines and that you're meeting your objectives and your goals. Yeah, I like that because it helps you manage not only the process of getting this comms plan together, but then managing the actual process of activating it. So yeah, it's been fascinating to have you on. Honest to goodness. I mean, you're speaking my love language for sure because this is something that is just, I see it around us and I know Jared does too. I mean, the communications aspect of our sector is woefully unattended to. And yet when it is attended to, magic happens and we see this all the time. Nickalina Noel, communication strategist. If you joined us for the green room chatter, it was fascinating because this dear woman has just relocated from New York all the way across to the other side of the country in California. And so fascinating, I mean, the way we run our nonprofit business is different from coast to coast. I mean, a really exciting investment that you've made in yourself and in our sector. So we applaud you for that. Check out nickalinanoel.com for more information on how to navigate more of a conversation with Nickalina. This has been great. And I know that we've got to get you back on to drill down on some of these other topics because for me, this is the meat and potatoes of how a nonprofit, no matter what they're doing, can be successful. And so thank you very much. Jared, what a great way to start a Monday. A Monday, and yes, you're right, you're right. And I just can't get over the fact that too often this very critical element is simply absorbed within one of the many that we wear within our organization. So, Nickalina, thank you for shining light on this, having these five critical strategies to share with us. And to all of you that have joined us, realizing that SWAT analysis is a great place to start. So many of you have just also started your fiscal year. So dive into that. Julie and I always enjoy having these conversations with our guest and started these shows in March of 2020, moving forward fast and furious thanks to our amazing partnerships with our sponsors. So a shout out to our friends over at Bloomerang, American Nonprofit Academy, Fundraising Academy at National University, which is where I got the pleasure to meet you and Nickalina in person at their Cultivate Conference. So thank you. Also to non-profit thought leader, your part-time controller, staffing boutique, non-profit nerd, as well as non-profit tech talks. So thank you to our sponsors. And Julia, it's always a great day when we have a conversation like this. Yeah, it really is. And I think that what I really appreciated about Nickalina's tone, I'm speaking like you're not here with us, but what I appreciated is that you made it very logical. Like these are the steps that you need to take because it is an overwhelming concept. It's a frightening concept for a lot of organizations. And so to take a look at this and understand kind of what the process is and how you can manage it is really a great way to get organizations to understand that they can do this, even if they're small, because Jared is right. It falls too often into development and that's not their specialty. They need to work in concert and harmony, but this should be a separate thing. So it's been amazing. I've really, really enjoyed it. We have a Monday that kicks off our week that sets the tone. Communications is such a big part of everything. And we end every episode of the nonprofit show with our own communication. And it goes like this. To stay well, so you can do well. We hope that you enjoy this message today and have a fabulous week. Thank you, ladies, so much.