Here in Pittsburgh and many other places, it has certainly been a long, cold, lonely winter (you\u2019re welcome for placing The Beatles singing on a loop in your head). Traditionally, I\u2019ve never been one for spring cleaning (just ask my mother). As my eleven-year-old twins accumulate more and more things, I\u2019ve come to appreciate the value of de-cluttering every so often. And if that needs to coincide with turning a calendar page or becoming a year older, even better. Recently, it occurred to me that this notion of de-cluttering is also applicable to what we do in our non-profits. Think about it.<\/p>\n
Chances are, your non-profit has some crap to get rid of. Now, I\u2019m not talking about people. God knows the unemployment numbers are dismal enough and nobody wants to see them get any worse. What I am talking about is evaluating your communications in order to figure out what works and then eliminating the extraneous, the outdated, and the irrelevant messages that you as a communications professional are sending to your donors, your prospects, your circle of friends, your employees, your volunteers, and your clients\u2019 families (hopefully there is some overlap in that list).<\/p>\n
By communications professional, I don\u2019t care who you are: you can be the Executive Director or the Board President or the Social Media Manager or the volunteer newsletter editor. It doesn\u2019t matter. If you communicate in any way to any internal or external public connected to your organization, I\u2019m talking to you. This process is a non-profit de-cluttering, also known as a communications audit. Just like death and taxes, nothing is immune with this.<\/p>\n
Everything from your annual report to your Facebook statuses is fair game and open for scrutiny, as it should be. Are you still using letterhead with outdated board members\u2019 names? Are your newsletter and annual report photos in need of freshening up? Is every single thing on your website current? Are you :(ing a little too much about dreading Mondays and LOLing about getting the hell out of Dodge on Fridays on your non-profit\u2019s Facebook page? Does your organization\u2019s Facebook presence consist of inspirational quotes that everyone\u2019s read ad-nauseum after another?<\/p>\n
All of the above are real-life examples, from real-life organizations. Believe me, they\u2019re out there, untethered. It happens slowly, over time, because we get caught up in the minutiae of the hard, hard work of fund-raising and running a non-profit organization in these tough times. Or, we glom onto what self-proclaimed social media gurus, ninjas, and rock stars tell us we should be doing and our communications take on a life of its own. Which is why into every communications plan an audit must fall.<\/p>\n
Think of it not as a way of attacking the messenger, but as a process to determine whether or not your words are indeed ringing true to what you want to convey about your organization\u2019s mission, goals, and vision. Sometimes we\u2019re a little too close to the situation to do this kind of job effectively, in which case it can be beneficial to bring in a consultant or tap into a board member\u2019s communications or marketing expertise.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s absolutely essential. Indeed, I propose there is nothing more crucial. Communications audits are a non-profit\u2019s way of spring cleaning \u2013 a way of seeing the ice slowly melting and smiles returning to your donors\u2019 faces.<\/p>\n
What questions do you have about non-profit communications audits?\u00a0Email me<\/a>and I\u2019ll answer them on\u00a0my blog<\/a>\u00a0or in a future Nonprofit Strategist column. As always, thanks for reading. ~ Melissa<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here in Pittsburgh and many other places, it has certainly been a long, cold, lonely winter (you\u2019re welcome for placing The Beatles singing on a loop in your head). Traditionally, I\u2019ve never been one for spring cleaning (just ask my mother). As my eleven-year-old twins accumulate more and more things, I\u2019ve come to appreciate the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":231,"featured_media":12087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2186],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2186"],"yoast_head":"\n