Grace Oduor

Communications and Fundraising Guide Communications and Fundraising Guide All NGOs need to fundraise and create awareness about their projects. This guide is designed to help professionals in the NGO sector to think about how to plan and implement effective communications and fundraising activities for the success of the organization. SOSTAC® is referenced in this communication and fundraising plan template. It is a planning model, originally developed in the 1990s to help with marketing and communications planning. SOSTAC® stands for: • Situation – where are we now? • Objectives – where do we want to be? • Strategy – how do we get there? • Tactics – how exactly do we get there? • Action – what is our plan? • Control – did we get there? SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS When developing a communications plan, it’s always useful to provide a brief summary of your organization. 2.0 Research (Describe any research you have done to better understand the problem solved by your NGO, competitors and the NGO and donor sector.) 2.1 SWOT analysis (Describe any strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that you have identified to better understand your NGO and the current environment.) . OBJECTIVES Describe the attitude, opinion or behavior you want to change. Make your objectives SMART — specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely. Objectives create a basis for later evaluation on the success of your project. Example:  To achieve 20% increase in donations by end of 2020  To create awareness about GBV and drive positive change in the community  To provide mentorship to over 1000 youth in Kibera by mid 2021. STRATEGY Describe how you will approach the challenge of reaching your objectives. You can have multiple strategies for each objective. Example: Develop promotional materials featuring information about the project and the benefits of funding the activities to make a difference or to achieve a fundraising target of kshs. 1M by February 2021. TARGET AUDIENCE List the primary and secondary audiences with which you need to communicate. • Examples: youth, volunteers, donors, media, community, government, staff etc. KEY MESSAGES Develop at least 2-3 clear and consistent main messages you need to deliver to each of your audiences. Examples:  Donors: You can help us protect children in our community and foster growth through mentorship.  Staff: We help protect children in our community and make a difference in their education journey.  Key messages relayed on online and offline channels should have a strong call to action i.e donate now, support us, volunteer etc with links to the website. TACTICS Describe the specific activities and tools you will use to achieve your measurable objectives. You can have multiple tactics for each strategy. Activity 1: Brand visibility and content development • Content development: Develop an organization profile, brochure, concept note, proposal etc outlining key areas including name of the organization, ,mission, vision, objectives, target audience, contact details, project activities, expected outcomes,, achievement to date , fundraising strategy etc. • Branding guideline: development of a branding guideline and related branding aspects including the logo, tagline/slogan, fonts, logo use, image use, key messages etc to ensure consistency in all communications materials. • Content development: developing messaging targeted at specific stakeholders and developing content for use on marketing materials i.e. business cards, e-posters, ebrochures, banners, infographics, quarterly e-newsletters, presentation decks, monthly reports, website, and social media platforms. • Multimedia production: taking high-quality project photos and producing videos of your impact and how your beneficiaries lives have changed as part of effective storytelling to gauge donor’ interest. Activity 2: Communications and Fundraising tactics  Research: Conducting research weekly to identify donors focusing on your activities e.g USAID, IKEA, Mastercard Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Mpesa Foundation, Safaricom Foundation,. Equity Foundation, KCB Foundation etc. Conduct research weekly to identify companies that are willing to support your NGO as part of CSR initiatives. E.g Johnson and Johnson, Davis & Shirtliff, Isuzu, Ford, Sanergy etc. This information can be obtained from     • • • • • other NGO websites or reports. Request existing donors to share some contacts. Develop one contact list with names, email addresses and phone numbers to share latest updates with them. NGO insights: subscribe to NGO blogs for insights and follow other NGOS such as GirlEffect, Save the Children, ChildFund, SHOFCO etc to borrow some ideas on how your NGO can be successful. Join large groups on Facebook such as Africa Leading Ladies to expand your networks, take part in useful conversations, learn and grow. Fundraising: Encourage your team members to be active brand ambassadors and engage individuals and promote on a daily basis. Subscriptions: Subscribe to donor newsletters and also subscribe to Google alerts for funding opportunities in Kenya and fundforngos.com for open calls for proposals. Crowdfunding: Join and create detailed profiles on websites such as M-Changa, Global Giving, Charity Connect, Gofundme etc to increase chances of receive multiple donations. Marketing campaign: Developing an integrated major marketing campaign to be rolled out on both online and offline channels highlighting how your project will transform lives and call to action (donate now, volunteer etc). The campaign can be rolled out on email, social media, magazines, newspapers, display ads etc to drive visibility. Influencers/referrals: Reach out to key influencers (strong activists in human rights and influencers such as Edga Obare to share information about your project within their large networks on social media. Supporting influencers’ by promoting, tweeting and commenting on their content and also invite them to your events. Advertising: development a cost effective advertisement campaign to appear on online platforms such as East African. Freebies: Provide free t-shirts, caps etc to volunteers and community members. Mobile marketing: Call new and existing contacts, post posters on whatsapp groups and create a whatsapp group to keep members updated on your progress and send SMS messages to thank everyone who has donated. Activity 3: High-level stakeholder engagement • • • • • Outreach activities: engaging with companies, churches, universities, chama groups, youth groups, other NGOs etc to spread your message. Share posters with them on a regular basis. Take part in community meetings and church meetings to speak about your charity, network and request for support either in-kind (free phones, food etc) or cash. Owned events: planning of a lunch event , harambee, meetings with small groups to discuss your project and encourage people to support. Circulate posters within your community and circulate donation forms. Invite MCAs, chiefs, government officials, journalists, youth leaders, chama leaders etc. Meetings and conferences: identifying and mapping upcoming donor meetings and conferences. Taking part in such meetings will enable you to interact and network within the community and be recognized. Webinars: organizing monthly/quarterly webinar series to drive awareness and showcase impact of your project activities. Podcasts: Developing monthly recorded podcasts with beneficiaries •  Fireside chats: Organizing conversational fireside chats with beneficiaries to share experiences. Strategic partnerships: Building and maintaining relationships with new and existing donors, government officials, other NGOs etc. Activity 2: Media engagement Mainstream media engagement • Pitching a story about how your NGO is making a difference and sending to journalists. • Organizing press conferences and media briefings • • • • • Reach out to media for TV or radio interviews. Establishing strong relationships with the media to increase media coverage on TV (NTV. KTN) Print (Daily Nation, Standard) and Radio (Citizen FM). This can be done through identifying key journalists and communicating with them on a regular basis and following their conversations on social media. Publishing Press releases, Blogs, Op-ed articles, thought leadership articles, human interest stories, reports and case studies on various topics. Conducting media training with the internal team. Developing a crisis communication kit to help your crisis management team prepare for how to handle a crisis and respond to media during difficult times. Digital Media • Development of a digital marketing plan outlining social media platforms, when you will post, content for the posts, how you will handle comments and how to add followers etc. • Developing and constantly updating the website with latest news on your project, upcoming events, milestones, photos, blogs etc. • Email marketing; sharing insightful information i.e blogs, newsletters, latest events , success stories etc with your database on a regular basis. • Developing 2-3 posts per week and posting on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp, YouTube and LinkedIn (linkedin groups). Leveraging on Facebook and Instragram live stories as well. • Developing visuals using mobile apps such as Canva, and Freepik. • Telling compelling stories through use of text, photos and videos. • Online advertising i.e Hire a specialist to run social media sponsored ads for as low as 1k per 2 weeks to increase your visibility on social media. The specialist can also run google paid search, SEO, display ads, PPC, remarketing, video ads etc. to drive traffic to your website • Connecting with additional followers on the social media pages, retweeting posts, responding to queries, engaging with potential donors and monitoring social media analytics/performance. . Tools and platforms Communications and fundraising requires heavy investment in tools and resources such as;  Adobe indesign  Canva  Freepik/Unsplash  Drupal  Grammally  Wordpress  Google analytics  Survey Monkey  Sprout social/HubSpot  Mailchimp  Meltwater- media coverage tool  Zoho CRM  Trello  Events app Support Evaluate your in-house capabilities and consider hiring agencies/freelancers with resources, knowledge and expertise to execute some functions such as PR and digital advertising. Resources It is important to educate yourself on what is happening in the NGO and development sector and gather different perspectives that you can apply to your communicaitions’ and fundraising campaigns. The following list are some of our useful sites to subscribe to. • Fund for NGOS; https://www.fundsforngos.org/free-resources-for-ngos/development-blogging-tipsngos/ • • Humentum; https://www.humentum.org/ Devex; www.devex.com • Inside Philanthrophy: www.insidephilanthrophy.com • Non profit marketing guide: www.nonprofitmarketingguide.com/blog/ • Skills In order to successfully deliver, communicators and fundraisers must possess some of the traits listed below; #1 An ability to understand donors mission, needs and their processes. #2 Solid grasp of analytics. #3 The ability to communicate clearly, without jargon. #4 Basic spreadsheet skills. #6 Ability to tell a story. Excellent writing ability. #7 Experience with contemporary digital tools, platforms, and channels. #8 Critical thinking and problem-solving skills. #9 Continuous learning #10 Be results-driven BUDGET Develop a detailed budget with marketing and communications costs and add assumptions and rational associated with the spend. ACTION PLAN/TIMELINE Identify all the activities to be executed from the communication plan. Enter dates, deadlines and the responsible individuals on a gantt chart and review progress on a weekly basis. CONTROL Monitor and evaluate success of each communication efforts against the set objectives to determine success of the marketing and communications plan.        Donations: Increase in donations and contacts.  Email marketing: Increase in number of newsletter sign-ups, email open rates etc  Website: Increase in website traffic, number of users, bounce rate, sessions, average session duration etc.  Social media: Increase in social media engagement, likes, comments and shares  Media engagement: Increased media coverage, publication of press releases, Op-ed articles and blogs  Online advertising: Increase in reach and impressions  Events: Number of attendees  Qualitative feedback: capture comments and feedback from customers REPORTING Complete monthly reports to gauge performance, gather useful insights and adjust your communications and fundraising efforts based on data captured. Completing the activities mentioned above together with persistency, consistency and constant improvements will lead to your success. CONTACT US For more information, send an email to-or call-.