Here are the following three sections that you should include in your strategic communications plan:

• Strategic Business Objectives
As a reminder that communications are tied to business goals, be sure to list your most important organizational objectives and/or milestones in the communications plan.

Keeping these front and center will allow you to map them side by side and focus your communications activities towards meeting those goals. Your business/organizational goals may be things such as expanding into new regions, launching your website, building capacity, increasing participation in your programs, raising a specific amount of money, hiring new and accomplished staff, developing new partnerships, increasing sales of your product or service, attracting new clients or customers, or whatever else meets the specific needs of your organization.

Some of these will remain relatively constant over the years, while some will be finite, time-sensitive initiatives.

• Communications Objectives
This is the heart of your communications plan. Here you really want to hone in on how you’ll use communications to help you achieve your strategic business goals.

These may include things such as reaching out to a new target audience or market segment, driving attendance for a specific event or participation in a fundraising campaign, promoting a new partnership or program, increasing awareness of your organization (or a specific issue) amongst your stakeholders, influencing policy maker opinion on an important issue, generating buzz about a new product or service, and so on.

The words you’ll use to describe your communications objectives should be direct and action-oriented; Inform, Educate, Drive, Build Awareness, Respond, Promote, Launch, Engage, Outreach, Demonstrate, Reinforce…

Your objectives must be clear, succinct and measurable. And you should include some sort of timelines for when you will both initiate and achieve them.

• Key Messages
Incorporate your key messages into your communications plan, so you are focused and consistent in what you communicate to others, regardless of the channel of communication or activity. (Again, you’ve already done the homework, so this should be easy!)

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Diana L. Reid, Conscious Communications.

As I’ve already sort of beaten into your heads (subtle, aren’t I?), communications and marketing can have tremendously powerful impacts for social entrepreneurs.

The fruits of a solid communications plan can mean the difference between a high growth, thriving global organization that is changing the world, and one that constantly struggles for funds, staffing and its own survival.

While the day-to-day operations of your organization and/or current events can often change the direction of your communications strategy or provide new opportunities, it’s never wise to drive without a roadmap.

When you sit down with your staff and/or board and map out your organization’s strategic plan for the coming year(s), be sure to incorporate your communications needs and goals at the same time. The two should always complement and support one another.

In creating your strategic communications plan, you may wish to consider including the following 10 sections:

1. Situation Analysis
2. Stakeholder Analysis
3. Strategic Business Objectives
4. Communications Objectives
5. Key Messages
6. Communications Strategies
7. Communications Tactics
8. Communications Tools
9. Budget
10. Timeline

Let’s start with the first two:

1. Situation Analysis
What is happening in your industry, in the world, amongst your stakeholders and within your organization? How can you leverage the landscape to propel your organization forward? What themes or trends can you take advantage of to tell the story of your organization? It’s wise also to include a funding and resource analysis. What resources and/or limitations may help or hinder your communications efforts? Do you need to seek additional resources to support your goals?

2. Stakeholder Analysis
We just covered this topic in my previous posts. The important stuff here is to note who your most important stakeholders are and how they are best reached with communications tactics. You may need to do a bit of further audience analysis here to really get to the heart of each stakeholder group. You’ll want to know what their views are, who or what influences them, where they tend to get their news and information, what events or conferences they attend, what publications they read, are they web-savvy or more old school, etc.

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Diana L. Reid, Conscious Communications.

At Starbucks Coffee Company, my Public Affairs role focused on developing communications strategies and strong relationships with a variety of stakeholder groups in the areas of ethical sourcing, Fair Trade, shade grown and organic coffee, and overall supply chain transparency (or, in layman’s terms: How Starbucks buys coffee).

The primary objective was to ensure that Starbucks commitment to purchasing coffee in a fair, transparent and equitable manner is well known and widely understood – and to ensure consumers feel good about the coffee they are buying and drinking.

It was also important for Starbucks to develop and maintain positive relationships with policy makers, governmental and non-governmental organizations and other groups concerned with social justice and environmental issues in coffee growing regions – in order to help ensure a steady supply of high quality coffee beans and to protect Starbucks reputation and overall “license to operate.”

As a result, the list of primary stakeholders included the following:

• Starbucks employees (the company’s primary and most powerful connection to customers)
• Customers
• Shareholders (the socially responsible investment community continues to be an important audience for many public companies)
• Partner organizations (licensed stores, food service accounts, etc.)
• Government organizations (such as USAID, as well as national governments in coffee growing countries such as Costa Rica, Guatemala, Kenya, Nicaragua and Tanzania)
• Non-government organizations and/or activist groups focused on human rights, social justice, environmental issues, microfinance and other related areas
• University student organizations (an increasingly important and influential audience – based on brand preference development and trends towards activism) and academic institutions
• Regional community groups
• Media

In the end, it all goes back to the beginning… Who you communicate with (and what you communicate) should be directly tied to your organization’s mission, goals and operations.

With a little strategic analysis, planning and prioritization, your communications will fall on just the right ears (and in front of the right eyes) – and inspire, motivate and compel people to respond.

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Diana L. Reid, Conscious Communications.

Of course your work doesn’t stop once you have a list.

• You must weigh each audience against your organization’s mission and objectives and assess their relative power for good (or harm).
• You must understand interconnections and spheres of influence between stakeholder groups.
• You must build a comprehensive list, and then you must pare it down to the most important (as we all know your resources are often constrained!) and leveraged audiences.
• And then you must get inside their heads and habits and communicate “where they live” and where their hearts are.

No small feat.

But you wouldn’t be a social entrepreneur if you weren’t willing to climb a few mountains or read a few minds…

An example:

Several years ago I worked for a growing non-profit organization in San Francisco called the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs, with a mission of accelerating women-led businesses in the high tech and life sciences sectors.

Our primary stakeholders included people and/or organizations that could help our organization directly (with funding, volunteers, business services, etc.) and those that could provide support and resources for our main constituents (women entrepreneurs).

Thus, our stakeholder list looked something like this:

• Women entrepreneurs (founders and executives of high growth tech or biotech companies)
• Women business executives (who might become entrepreneurs or who had experience that was relevant to entrepreneurs and were willing to mentor and provide support)
• Venture capitalists (who could provide funding and/or business expertise for women entrepreneurs)
• Service provides (lawyers, investment bankers, web design firms, marketing consultants, PR agencies, etc. – folks that provided services critical to a fledgling business)
• Foundations, corporations and high net worth individuals (for FWE’s own funding needs)
• Media (to tell our story and to draw attention to the topic and needs of women entrepreneurs, as well as to provide publicity for FWE-supported entrepreneurs)
• Men & women interested and/or invested in the topic of entrepreneurship, women in technology, women’s leadership styles, girls and women’s education in math and sciences, etc. (this included potential partner organizations and academic institutions such as Springboard Enterprises, the National Women’s Business Council, Catalyst, Stanford University, Haas School of Business and many others).

Diana L. Reid, Conscious Communications.

So how do you decide who is most important to communicate with? This is not always easy, and for some organizations, it can be ever-shifting – depending on your stage of growth and development, your scope and mission.

So, to get you started, here are a few questions to consider:


Answering these questions will help you understand more clearly who needs to hear from you – and start to give you a glimmer of what you might need to tell them.

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Diana L. Reid, Conscious Communications.