How to write a communications strategy – that also works for fundraising, marketing, etc.

Keeping strategy simple

An image showing the process of the steps to writing a comms strategy

The steps to a clear communications (or other flavour) of strategy

It can feel daunting when faced with writing a communications, fundraising, marketing or other flavour of strategy. But we are big fans of keeping strategy writing simple and visual. Particularly for smaller organisations where most of your energies and time is focussed on frontline delivery.

Understanding that there are logical steps to putting a strategy together can help it feel less daunting and help you to understand what you might already have in place to build on.

Free guide to writing a communications strategy

We have put together a free guide to writing a communications strategy. It was originally produced for a training session with CharityComms so it includes an example of a charity comms strategy. But you can use the steps and approaches to write fundraising, marketing, services or any other strategy covering any area of your organisation’s work. We’ve even used this approach to write whole organisational strategies.

Download our free guide to strategy writing here.

Strategy on a page

You will need to collate the content you gather from your audit and analysis, but when it comes to writing your strategy we suggest trying to fit it onto one page. Using the structure of a logic model or theory of change, you can set out the outcomes (or changes) you want to make. Then think about how you might measure these changes. And the activities and resources needed to achieve them. This visual approach means your strategy is really easy for everyone to understand. It clearly sets out the priorities and the steps needed to deliver them.

Download our free strategy on a page template with examples here. This one is an integrated fundraising and communications strategy but you can adapt it to fit your needs.

We hope you find these resources useful. Let us know what you think and you’ll find more on using the theory of change approach to communications strategies in this article.