What I can do for you

Bev will:

  • Advise senior management, your core group, or advisory committee on getting started: develop a work scope (including defining objectives) and a budget and then a plan.

  • Subcontract and oversee list management, design, and production services, as needed.

  • Work side by side with IT personnel to solve thorny Web-presence problems.

  • Organize and support staff around implementation of communications activities.

Characteristic short-term or long-term assignments include:

  • Promotion of new programs (building the audience).

  • Internal strategic communications during times of management and staff differences, program expansion, or reorganization.

  • Planning and implementation of high visibility intellectual events as a lever for advancing knowledge or promotion of new initiatives.

How communications helps you:

Often it takes time for senior management to acknowledge that the lack of movement on important needs or issues is highly related to communications problems.

Such problems may arise between staff and management, with external constituencies, or among staff when both time and money is at a premium and teamwork is essential.

Especially in organizations where progress depends on collegial relationships, inertia rather than forward movement can be the rule.

Add to this an atmosphere in which everyone is always asked to do more with less, and there can be a tangle of negative feelings and inefficiency. The communications problems multiply, sometimes hidden from view, but impede progress nonetheless.

Alternatively, you have no budget at all for communications or you may not have made the case for a budget. Yet you have pressing issues to communicate concerning an important capital campaign. Or about a new initiative relevant to students. Or about the roll-out of a crucially important direct service program.

Common mistakes:

  • Nonprofits are often slow to tout their strengths and accomplishments. As a result, you may feel unprepared to respond to important initiatives, e.g., to launch important outreach, make a strong case to a funding source, or develop a much-needed Web presence.

  • Demanding constituencies put staff on edge. Every day your staff deal with managers, vendors or peers, and students, donors, or faculty members, with very high expectations. Relationships strain, unless how to communicate, what to say and when, is addressed.

  • Nonprofits think that marketing and Web development have to be expensive. This is not the case. Asking a junior or midlevel staff person with many responsibilities to also create a Web site is usually not sustainable. How does one succeed? Encourage and streamline stakeholder involvement, and set reasonable goals. Help program units work with central administration and find compromises on look and content.
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