How to create an effective charity communications strategy

This article will guide you through the key components of creating a comprehensive and effective charity communications strategy, including how to develop your messaging, understand your audience, and use communications channels in the best and most fruitful way.

By using this guide and putting a clear communications strategy in place, you can strengthen your impact in meaningful and powerful ways. We’ll share practical tips and step-by-step guidance to help you tell your story clearly, connect with the right people, and create a communications strategy that supports your charitable work.

Why a communications strategy is crucial for charities

Putting a robust communications strategy in place is crucial for charities because they rely so heavily on positive connections and relationships with such a varied group of people. Effective communications can have wide-reaching purposes, such as:

Showing your social value

A communications strategy is essential for charity brands to demonstrate the social value they hold. Social value considers the impact a charity’s decisions and actions have on people’s lives, looking far beyond the amount of money raised.

For staff and other people in the organisation, you need to be open and transparent about the changes you’ll make, the data that supports your decisions, and how your plans fit into your mission. This will help with reinforcing the ‘why’ behind everything you do, building trust, and making it easier to align teams and move forward as one.

For all of your external communities, showing your social value will mean they understand how your mission affects the world in a positive way. Plus, they will see that your mission is achievable. Seeing these tangible examples of your positive impact will garner support and attract volunteers and donations.

But that’s not all. Your communications strategy also demonstrates what makes you different from other charities, and helps you amplify your voice, change attitudes, and help you build your case for change in policy, legislation, and more.

Recognising and inspiring your supporters

Supporters of all kinds are the lifeblood of any charity, and a strong communications strategy will energise and inspire confidence in your volunteers and donors. Especially with larger organisations, donors will often wonder if they’re really having an impact and if their money is being spent in the places they want it to be. If people know who you are, what you stand for, and what you’re doing to achieve your goals, they’re more likely to get—and stay—on board with you.

Volunteers will be able to identify with your cause and understand the kind of help you need, and donors will be able to see the direct impact their generosity has if you employ clear, consistent comms.

Aligning and unifying your staff

Charity communications are as important inside the organisation as they are outside it. Organisations in the third sector have to be incredibly flexible with their resources, and a unified staff who are clear on their purpose and goals is an incredibly powerful thing.

For instance, well-organised and thoughtfully crafted internal communications will make your goals clear to everyone working for you, allowing teams to prioritise their work and coordinate effectively. It also helps to reinforce the meaning behind all of the effort they put in for your cause.

For new recruits—both volunteers and paid staff—communications written specifically for their positions can settle them into their role and cement their sense of place. It can speed up training, keep them engaged, and even give you opportunities to celebrate their work in the organisation to boost retention.

All in all, communications strategies have great internal and external benefits. Within the organisation, great communication can align decision-making and foster understanding. For your target audience, it can educate and engage supporters, showcase your social value, and demonstrate your impact for sustainable support.

So, how can a charity develop an effective communications strategy to engage donors and supporters? Keep reading to learn more.

Key components of an effective charity communications strategy

So, what goes into an effective charity communications strategy?

1. Crystal clear messaging: You should distil your messaging until it can be instantly understood by everyone, whatever audience you’re talking to. Simplicity in messaging is memorable, too, and makes it easier to apply and adapt your comms across a range of channels.

2. A deep understanding of the audience: Drilling down into who you’re targeting with each type of communication will take away a lot of uncertainty and costly guesswork. Consider who is engaging with your charity and why, and how different groups of people interact with your organisation. Perhaps younger people are more likely to spread your message digitally, while older generations may be more likely to donate financially. Maybe certain demographics are keen to organise fundraising events, while others may prefer simply to keep up with your charity through email communications. With this data, you can more easily analyse who’s engaging where, understand what they expect from you and why they’re interested in helping you succeed, and break down and understand audience feedback on a deeper level. Plus, working within the limits of a specific demographic can give you the creative boost to generate new and unexpected ideas, too.

3. Nimble use of channels:Avoid relying on a single channel, or applying the same communications strategy across every channel. Make sure you have a plan in place for how you’d use press releases, Instagram, email, and LinkedIn, for instance, instead of just designing a strategy for one outlet and applying it to every channel you decide to use. This way, you can be strategic and intentional in how you engage and connect with your audiences. You can consider the 5×5 communications strategy here, which suggests communicating your most important message five times in five different ways to help it land with different audiences and reach as many relevant people as possible. In marketing, this means you can be creative with how you communicate key messages across different channels and formats.

Our step-by-step guide to developing a charity communications strategy

Coming up with a communications strategy can seem overwhelming, and you might be tempted to just try a range of ideas and see what sticks. But it’s simpler to get on top of your comms strategy than you think, and it will save you a lot of time and wasted effort. Below, we’ll take you through how to create a communications strategy, step by step.

What’s in a communications strategy?

You shouldn’t come up with your content ideas at the very start of your strategy development, even if that is the most exciting part. Instead, you should focus on the broad organisational strokes, meaning that your communications strategy will include:

• The goals you want to hit with your communications. For instance, do you want to raise awareness, attract volunteers, drive donations, or influence policy? Define your key objectives early.
• Who your target audience is. Is it young people? Older generations? Or perhaps your work speaks to specific groups, such as parents, carers, animal lovers or those who cherish the outdoors?
• The communication channels you’ll use to reach those people. Find out where your audience spends time and meet them there.
• The messages you want to put out on each channel. Tailor your communications to the type of content each channel supports, the people who use that platform, and the kinds of messaging they will respond to.
• A strategy for analysing the success and impact of your communications. Keep on improving with actionable data from each campaign or event you put out there.

Get organised with a content calendar

Effective communication relies heavily on strong organisational skills. Without a solid action plan and a way to see exactly what’s coming up in the year ahead, your teams won’t be able to do their best work and make the most of the resources you have.

So, what is a content calendar? How can it help? In short, a content calendar is a scheduling tool that lets you see the big picture when it comes to your communications strategy. You can use it to organise and schedule your communications across all of the different channels you’re targeting.

It will show which messages you’re sharing and when, from your social media channels to your email marketing and internal comms, on a monthly, weekly, and daily basis. It will highlight any quiet periods and when you might have a bit too much going on. It will help you keep output consistent and develop stories across the year to engage your audience and attract support.

It’s an essential tool in any business’s marketing strategy, and keeping on top of your communications plan will keep your messaging clear, consistent, and relevant, and help you to stay on track with your goals.

Prep for the year with a communications plan

Once you’ve got your calendar sorted, you can see where your main events, awareness days, and other important dates are, and when you’ll need to prioritise certain messaging. You can use these as anchor points for your overall communications plan, which will also include all the details on who is working on what, when your copy and visual assets need to be delivered, and how long certain campaigns will run. This plan helps everyone understand the shape of your year and takes a lot of stress off your communications teams. It also means you can assess whether your messaging is aligned across the whole organisation and sticks to your brand guidelines.

Remember that it’s especially important to plan for delays. Set your deadlines one or two weeks before you really need all the work completed, so you can plan for staff holidays, workflow delays, and the all-important final checks to make sure your messaging has been approved, your visuals are on point, and your copy is typo-free.

Coming up with content ideas at random and seeing what works isn’t the most efficient or effective way to roll out your communications. It can be great to leave space for spontaneity—after all, social media, especially, is a constantly evolving space where trends come and go on an almost weekly basis—and some of the best ideas come from a runaway moment of creativity and from responding quickly to a trend that feels relevant to your organisation. But you can’t rely on these moments for your entire content plan. If you do, you risk devaluing your messaging and hurting the perception of your brand. And chances are, you’d be putting in a lot of last-minute effort for relatively small gains.

Plan your budget

Although some communications options are very cost-effective, there will be costs that you need to keep an eye on. After all, your supporters want to know that their donations are being used wisely and for the right reasons, so keep your financial documentation tight and your budget controlled.

Put it all into action

Take stakeholders through your completed communications strategy so they’re all on board and know exactly what lies ahead. Then, listen to feedback and make changes as appropriate before you officially roll it out.

Best practices for charity communication

Now let’s look at how to build and roll out your communications strategy in the best ways possible.

Social media

Social media is a constantly moving landscape, but it’s a fantastic way to build awareness of your charity and connect people with your cause.

Here are ways to get the most out of your social media content:

• Define your audience: Know which segments of your audience are active on each platform, as different demographics will use different platforms. Once you know this, you can make sure your content suits the platform and the people who will see it.
• Hone your tone of voice: Instagram prioritises images, X keeps posts short and sweet, and Facebook is great for organising events, fundraisers, and more. All of these platforms demand a different tone of voice, but you should make sure it always sounds like you.
• Share your impact: Use real-world stories to show how your charity is making an impact. This will demonstrate your social value and build trust, as people will be able to see exactly what their support is helping you work towards. Be clear that you’re a registered charity, too, as trust in brands can fluctuate quickly online.
• Create varied content: Plan out a mix of educational content alongside fundraising marketing, fun community-building polls, quizzes, and livestreams to make sure there’s something for everyone in your output.

Email marketing

We’re all getting a lot of emails day in, day out, so your email content needs to stand out. Creating clear, intriguing subject lines can increase open rates. Keeping your content succinct, engaging, and rooted in real-world stories will encourage people to read through to the all-important call to action.

The call to action, or CTA, is essential in email marketing. Every email you send should include a clear CTA that urges people to donate, volunteer, share, or support you in another way. What you ask people to do will differ depending on their relationship with your charity, so another important element to consider is audience segmentation.

Consider tailoring your email content to people based on demographics, interests, and their history as a donor. You can even personalise your emails to build even stronger connections and make your readers feel included in your mission.

Media engagement

Building strong relationships with your local journalists and news outlets can create valuable opportunities to get your messages out there to a huge number of people. It’s one of the most valuable comms activities you can try.

However, you shouldn’t send press releases to just anyone, and any staff member speaking to journalists or appearing on the news should definitely be media-trained. Think carefully about which news outlets regularly cover relevant stories, have a social or political slant that suits your cause, or reach out to an audience similar to yours.

Being strategic here is incredibly valuable, but you’ll also need to capture the attention of busy journalists receiving a high volume of news stories each day. So, write high-quality press releases that highlight the newsworthy events and progress you’re heading up. You can also establish yourself as a trusted authority in your area of the charity sector and increase brand awareness by contributing interviews, stories, and opinion articles to suitable publications.

However you reach out, make sure you’ve honed your key messaging and calls to action to get the most out of every story.

Events

Charities are all about people power, and getting people together is a staple in raising funds and awareness and fostering meaningful and lasting connections with the communities you represent and serve.

Just think about Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life, Red Nose Day for Comic Relief, and Movember. All of these are leading charity fundraising events that have built nationwide awareness and continue to achieve incredible things each year. But what goes into creating an event that will run and run?

• Defining goals: What do you want to achieve from your event? Fundraising, awareness, and engaging your community are typical areas charities focus on, and having clear, strategic objectives will help you organise all the necessary work and utilise your resources effectively.
• Working out the hook: What form will your event take? Do you want people to get involved with a fitness event like a run or bike ride, or do you want to gather people for talks, music or comedy performances, or online quiz nights? Picking an event that feels relevant to your work and mission will build brand cohesion and help people associate your event with your charity and vice versa.
• Following up: Thanking people for their attendance, effort, fundraising, and support gives everyone a feel-good moment once the fun is over. It also gives you the opportunity to celebrate what you’ve achieved and how your event is going to help beneficiaries and feed into your future work.
• Analysing the impact: Make sure to decide what metrics to analyse to measure the success and impact of your event after the fact. Do you want to know about funds raised, new donors gained, or something else? Including audience feedback surveys in your external communications plan is an easy way to give you some incredibly valuable insight into what went well and what you can work on in the future.

Case studies of successful charity communications

Need some real-world inspiration? Let’s look at some examples of great charity communications that boosted awareness, brought communities together, and made a meaningful impact for important causes.

The RSPCA’s user-generated content

Getting your audience to generate content for you on social media is an incredibly cost-effective way of building social connection and increasing awareness of your work. So, animal welfare charities such as the RSPCA often use adopter stories and pet imagery to build emotional connection online, creating positive, emotionally engaging content.

It’s such a simple idea, but it simultaneously builds strong emotional connections and demonstrates the RSPCA’s purpose and impact in a very rich social environment. Existing donors and adopters get a renewed sense of pride and love for their pet, and they’re living examples of the value and impact of the RSPCA’s work.

It also compels people who haven’t adopted from the RSPCA before to take a look at the animals who are still looking for a loving home, donate time or money, or share stories. There are many ways to build awareness and affection for your charity brand, but the RSPCA has used one of the simplest in the social media landscape.

The Donkey Sanctuary’s storytelling emails

The Donkey Sanctuary is a beloved charity that helps donkeys around the world find a peaceful life, while educating owners on donkey care and long-term wellbeing. The charity’s email communications are full of storytelling elements, and there is a great blend of uplifting success stories, more sombre awareness-focused emails that show how much work is yet to be done, and newsletters that update donors on global animal rights issues affecting donkeys.

Subject lines can be simple and story-led, focusing on individual donkeys, care updates or wider welfare challenges. These can work well to draw the recipient in, especially when updates specific to certain donkeys have that extra emotional pull. The Sanctuary also uses personalisation, emotional storytelling, powerful imagery, and uplifting calls to action for donkey adoptions and donations.

What results is a wonderful connection to the Sanctuary’s animals, paired with insights into how donor support affects not only the donkeys they care for but global legislation and attitudes on donkey care.

CALM’s ‘The Last Photo’ campaign

This one takes a unique angle and leaves a lasting impact. Mental health charity CALM set up an outdoor exhibition in central London called The Last Photo, which displayed the last photos of people who appeared happy in the images but later died by suicide. The message? You can’t always tell that someone is seriously struggling with their mental health.

It flips mental health stereotypes on their heads and tells the stories of people from all walks of life, creating a space in which sharing—one of the most powerful ways to challenge stigma and encourage people to seek support—helps to destigmatise suicide and highlight the scale of suicide in the UK.

The charity’s accompanying video reached millions of viewers and is clear in its messaging. While showing moving videos of people who later died by suicide, it offers a key statistic and follows up with what CALM aims to do to help. It also signposts how its audience can get involved.

Simple, powerful, and hard to forget, CALM’s campaign uses emotion and storytelling to communicate its purpose and mission, and highlight that all-important call to action.

Common challenges and how to overcome them

Despite the impact all of the action points above can have, charities and not-for-profits can face several challenges in implementing them. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible—far from it! Facing these challenges head-on can significantly enhance your outreach through effective communication, and there are plenty of tools at your disposal. Here are our tips on overcoming some of the most common challenges you might face in your communications strategy work.

Budget

Budget is one of the biggest constraints that charities and not-for-profits deal with, but there are plenty of free strategy templates, calendars, and guides online, and advice from reputable sources like the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) to dig into. You can also use free versions of social media accounts and design tools to make the best comms possible on a tight budget.

Outside of online tools, you can call on your volunteers and make sure you focus on the communications projects that will deliver the greatest value for your budget. Start small and well within your means, and slowly build up as momentum builds and the benefits start coming.

Engaging the right audience

We know that you want to reach as many people as possible with your communications and campaigns. But it’s important to make sense of your audience and drill down into who you should be focusing on.

Analyse your audience to understand the demographics you’re communicating with, and tailor your communications accordingly.

Be mindful of making your communications more accessible by using accessible design principles and features that help people using screen readers or other assistive technologies read, watch or listen to your communications more easily.

Staying consistent

If you have plans to roll out multiple types of communications, it’s essential that you’re consistent with your branding. This means your visuals, brand voice, and messaging should be recognisable as yours, whether you’re writing a newsletter, a social media post, or scripting a video. Your internal communications should also have this same consistency to keep staff and stakeholders at all levels of your organisation informed and, most importantly, aligned. This is where building a robust communications plan and calendar helps.

Conclusion

Creating a communications strategy is a fundamental part of a charity’s work. By structuring and organising your communications, you can streamline your work, align your staff, and enhance the power and reach of your messaging. It can even help you overcome the challenges that charities in the third sector experience, like budget constraints, limited resources, and a competitive market.

Putting the time, effort, and thought into a great communications strategy can bring small charities and well-known not-for-profit brands alike closer to their goals, drive meaningful change, and strengthen their community and advance their progress.

Looking to boost your charity comms?

We’ve worked with charities, well-established trusts, and more to create memorable brands that make an impact. Whatever your cause, we’re here to support you in your communications strategy, digging deep into your brand’s story to develop creative solutions for a stronger future.

If you’re ready to strengthen your charity communications, get in touch.