Nonprofit staff have become more sophisticated in prioritizing the goals, audiences, strategies, and tactics to guide their communications. Listen in as Sarah Durham and Farra Trompeter talk about the changes in communication approaches and activities and the importance of communications in the nonprofit sector.
How can you use donor personas to guide your communications? At Big Duck, we define personas as tools that define a segment of your audience, who they are in connection to your work, what they care about, how to best reach them, where to find them, and more. Farra Trompeter chats with Mica Bevington, US director of communications and development at Humanity and Inclusion about how their team defines personas.
Equity helps leaders create more inclusive organizations using human-centered design and behavior change principles. Farra Trompeter talks with Minal Bopaiah, founder of Brevity & Wit and author of “Equity: How to Design Organizations Where Everyone Thrives” about her passion for equity and why it is critical for nonprofit organizations.
A classic brand identity is hard to change. Old perceptions about your organization’s brand or internal shifts can be challenging. Listen in as Sarah Durham talks with Mark Graham, chief marketing & communications officer at American Friends Service Committee about AFSC’s distinctive brand and the organization’s journey to evolve its iconic identity.
Ever wondered what a good tagline can do for your organization? In this episode of the Smart Communications Podcast, Farra Trompeter, partner and chief growth officer, discusses taglines, brand strategy, engaging community in your brand, social justice, and more with Chandra M. Hayslett, communications director, from the Center for Constitutional Rights and Ambar Mentor-Truppa, vice president of communications, from the Shriver Center on Poverty Law.
COVID-19 has changed everything and nonprofits have shifted how they offer programming and services from in-person to digital channels. Virtual events, galas, and conferences can help us connect and reach more people. How do we create experiences that are engaging and memorable? Chris Tuttle, founder and principal of TuttleCo, discusses the future of virtual events with Farra Trompeter, partner and chief growth officer, in this episode of the Smart Communications Podcast.
Urgency can present itself in a number of ways and is a key characteristic of white supremacy culture. Former senior strategist Laura FIsher, and chief growth officer and partner, Farra Trompeter, discuss how urgency can impact your organization’s team and offer useful ways to question it in this episode of the Smart Communications Podcast.
Your brand is how your organization expresses its voice. Knowing whose voices are being centered in your brand strategy and assets is a key element to developing or shifting your brand, and making sure the process is inclusive is essential. Listen in as Sarah Durham, CEO, and Farra Trompeter, partner and chief growth officer, share insights on how to use your brand to connect with donors and your community.
Google Analytics is a powerful tool and can help you understand how people use your website. Sarah Durham sits down with Heather Wozniak, technical strategist at Advomatic to discuss ways you can get started using Google Analytics to make strategic decisions about your content.
If you are a nonprofit communicator, the Nonprofit Communications Trends Report, a yearly report released by The Nonprofit Marketing Guide is a great fact-based, research-based tool about marketing and communications within nonprofits. Sarah Durham chats with award-winning author, and founder and CEO of The Nonprofit Marketing Guide, Kivi Leroux Miller about the impact these trends have had during the COVID-19 pandemic in this episode of the Smart Communications Podcast.
Are you looking to hire an agency or freelancer and questioning whether or not to go with a fixed fee or time-and-materials for the project? This solocast with Sarah Durham examines the differences between the two and what structure is best when choosing who to work with.
Is your website secure and flexible? A lot of the nonprofit sector are not techies. Sarah Durham talks with Dave Hansen-Lange, Advomatic's Director of Technical Strategy about what open source is and tips on keeping your website up to date in this episode of the Smart Communications Podcast.
Is it strategic? Strategy is the practice of defining what you want to achieve and identifying the best ways to achieve it. Sarah Durham and Laura Fisher unpack terms like goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics and offer background and examples of how they intersect. Listen in as they answer a few questions frequently by nonprofit communicators, and apply these terms and pressure test for strategy.
What norms should you challenge and disrupt? Sarah Durham and Hannah Thomas unpack “thoughtful disruption” and offer different ways of challenging nonprofit communications norms and assumptions.
Who is your community? They often tend to be more expansive than we think. Listen in as Sarah Durham unpacks the word “community” in fundraising and communications with Michelle Shireen Muri, the founder of Freedom Conspiracy, Co-Chair of the founding Seattle chapter for Community-Centric Fundraising and host of The Ethical Rainmaker podcast. Learn about community mapping and more in this episode of the Smart Community Podcast.
Equity is about process and outcomes. Making sure everyone, regardless of color, has the same access and opportunity requires a skillset many of us are striving to learn. This podcast, Sponsored by Bloomerang, examines equity, issues of equity, and equity-focused research, and offers valuable insights for nonprofits looking to make research practices, and their organization more unbiased.
Active listening and research. These are just a couple of key facilitation skills shared in this episode of The Smart Communications Podcast with Ally Dommu, director of strategy, and Sarah Durham as they discuss how to facilitate meetings and why it’s so important.
No matter what you are working towards in your organizations when approaching both strategic planning and communications it’s important to know what is unchanging, and what is variable. Ally Dommu, director of strategy, sits down with Sarah Durham to talk about developing communications in connection to a bigger organizational vision in this episode of The Smart Communications Podcast.
Staff cuts and running an organization on a skeleton crew have become an unfortunate effect of the difficult times we have been facing. Sponsored by Bloomerang, here’s an inspirational boost and re-air of one of our most popular podcasts from the Spring of 2018 with Wayne Ho, President and CEO of the Chinese American Planning Council, about how he manages he manages without a communications staff.
In this episode of the Smart Communications Podcast, Sarah Durham sits down with Samantha Campbell, marketing and communications expert and former Director of Marketing, Communication and Sales at the Apollo Theater, to examine the differences between marketing and communications.
Does your organization practice it’s values in tangible ways? Listen to this podcast to gain insight from NTEN’s CEO, Amy Sample Ward, on how to center your strength using your values during difficult times.
Is your organization looking for innovative ways to convert crisis donors into regular givers? This podcast explores how to attract and retain new donors.
Do robots make bad fundraisers? In this episode of the Smart Communications Podcast, Sarah Durham chats with Steven Shattuck, author of the book, “Robots Make Bad Fundraisers” and Chief Engagement Officer at Bloomerang, about ways to apply time-tested principles of philanthropy to the modern technology available to fundraisers.
A good tagline can inspire you to think, feel, maybe even react. In the episode of The Smart Communications Podcast, Sarah Durham and Big Duck Copywriter, Ryan Gerhardt, break down three structures for taglines that can strengthen your organization’s brand strategy.
Ever find yourself stuck on how to approach a big project that you have to do, but you just don't see how you're going to get it anytime soon? This podcast unpacks the process of tackling projects and offers a roadmap and tips on how to get started.
Whether you consider yourself a pro at setting communications strategy, or you are just getting started, this podcast, back by popular demand, offers useful insights to help you get a sense of the terms: goals, objectives, strategy, and tactics from a non-profit communications perspective.
In this episode of the Smart Communications Podcast, Sarah Durham examines some of the common barriers that make it hard for nonprofits to establish successful communications. What are the common pitfalls? Tune in and find out.
To gala or not to gala. In this replay of a 2018 Smart Communications Podcast, Stephanie Thomas, founder of Stetwin Consulting, discusses the value of galas, and whether or not they still work as a fundraising vehicle. Tune in as she shares her over 25 years of experience and offers useful and relevant tips to assist your organization in this new normal.
Thought leader and host of the “Nonprofits are Messy” podcast, Joan Garry, talks about what an effective nonprofit communications strategy can look like and provides some tips on how to become a five-star storyteller.
Sarah Durham discusses how nonprofits generate sustainable momentum in their communications. She identifies common challenges, including bottlenecks created by leadership micromanagement and a lack of staff accountability, and offers ways to address them. Tune in to hear about the six key elements that can help your organization create sustainable momentum in its communications.
