Episode 180: Is it time to reboot your communications strategy?

Summary

The Smart Communications Podcast: Episode 180 Summary
Title: Is it Time to Reboot Your Communications Strategy?
Release Date: February 19, 2025
Host: Farrah Trampeter
Guest: Kivi LaRue Miller, Founder and CEO of Nonprofit Marketing Guide

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Introduction

In Episode 180 of The Smart Communications Podcast, host Farrah Trampeter engages in a compelling conversation with Kivi LaRue Miller, a seasoned expert in nonprofit communications. The episode centers around the pivotal question: Is it time to reboot your communications strategy? Drawing insights from the 15th Annual Nonprofit Communications Trends Report, Kivi and Farrah delve into the evolving landscape of nonprofit communications, addressing challenges, emerging trends, and strategic approaches to enhance organizational impact.

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Highlighting the Annual Trends Report

Farrah Trampeter introduces the episode by discussing the 15th Annual Nonprofit Communications Trends Report, which surveyed 463 communications and marketing professionals in the nonprofit sector. The report's theme—Control, Adapt, Reflect—serves as a framework for nonprofits to reassess and rejuvenate their communication strategies amidst a rapidly changing environment.

Kivi LaRue Miller emphasizes the importance of the theme:

"[02:32] Kivi LaRue Miller: ...it's time for the nonprofit sector to reflect on how they fit into those themes and how they don’t."

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Recurring Challenges in Nonprofit Communications

A significant revelation from the report is the persistence of longstanding challenges:

1. Lack of Time to Produce Quality Content
2. Insufficient Budget for Direct Expenses
3. Inability to Measure Effectiveness
4. Lack of Clear Strategy

Farrah probes why these issues remain unchanged over the past decade:

"[05:00] Farrah Trampeter: ...why has nothing really changed... Where is that change or that stuckness or maybe some might positively say steadiness?"

Kivi attributes the first two challenges—time and budget—as endemic problems in the nonprofit sector, often stemming from limited funding and staffing. However, she highlights that the latter two issues—measuring effectiveness and having a clear strategy—are within the control of organizations:

"[05:57] Kivi LaRue Miller: ...the third and fourth ones about being able to measure effectiveness and having a clear strategy are totally within our Control..."

She encourages nonprofits to take agency over their time, advocating for better prioritization and the ability to say no to non-essential tasks:

"[05:57] Kivi LaRue Miller: ...learning how to say no to other people, not being so people pleasing..."

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Strategic Focus and Team Dynamics

Farrah connects the challenges of time and budget to the necessity of having a clear strategy. She underscores the importance of focused communication efforts to maximize limited resources:

"[06:50] Farrah Trampeter: ...when we have a clear strategy, when we know the goals... it helps address so many of these problems."

Kivi discusses the current state of communications teams within nonprofits:

"[08:14] Kivi LaRue Miller: ...too many people still think [communications] is this kind of nice to have optional thing..."

She points out that many communications professionals are new to their roles, often the first to fill such positions, which adds to the complexity and workload:

"[09:55] Kivi LaRue Miller: ...it's a very young profession in the Nonprofit sector where 2 out of 5 people are the first person to fill that role."

Farrah echoes the importance of integrating communications leaders into the organizational leadership:

"[10:21] Farrah Trampeter: Or do you make all these decisions, then tell communications to do it...?"

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Effective Communication Channels

The discussion shifts to the effectiveness of various communication channels. Contrary to the surge of newer platforms, traditional channels like in-person events, email, and LinkedIn remain highly effective:

"[11:57] Kivi LaRue Miller: ...in person events, email and LinkedIn... ranked as the top three and were above Instagram, website and Facebook."

Notable Insights:

• LinkedIn is gaining traction, especially for professional networking, though its effectiveness varies based on organizational communication goals.
• Facebook exhibits a split in effectiveness perceptions, making its future uncertain within the nonprofit sector.
• Twitter X is considered on the decline, with limited usage primarily among those needing to engage with elected officials.

Farrah encourages organizations to evaluate where their communities are active and to cultivate their presence accordingly:

"[14:17] Farrah Trampeter: ...actively cultivating a community versus maintaining an account and perhaps broadcasting content."

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The Rise of Artificial Intelligence in Communications

Farrah brings up the topic of Artificial Intelligence (AI), a critical aspect of modern communications strategies. Organizations are grappling with how to integrate AI while addressing concerns around privacy and equity.

Kivi observes that AI is pervasive, often integrated into the software tools nonprofits use:

"[16:20] Kivi LaRue Miller: ...everyone is using it, whether they think they are or not..."

She stresses the necessity of AI policies within organizations to oversee AI-generated content and ensure accountability:

"[17:48] Kivi LaRue Miller: ...you have to have a policy... who's supervising that new staff member and who's taking responsibility for that."

Farrah supports this by referencing resources from N10 on creating equitable AI frameworks:

"[17:48] Farrah Trampeter: ...N10 put out a helpful [e-mail]."

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Reflecting and Moving Forward

As the conversation nears its conclusion, Kivi advises nonprofit communicators to focus on what they can control, such as time management and strategic prioritization:

"[18:25] Kivi LaRue Miller: ...focus on the things that we can move the needle, where you can actually make some change and go for it."

She advocates for an experimental approach, encouraging organizations to test different channels and strategies to discover what yields the best results:

"[19:51] Kivi LaRue Miller: ...experiment, learn... playing the game better next time."

Farrah wraps up by urging listeners to download the full report for deeper insights and to utilize the resources provided by the Nonprofit Marketing Guide.

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Closing Thoughts

In her final remarks, Kivi emphasizes resilience and dedication, urging communication professionals to persist despite challenges:

"[20:40] Kivi LaRue Miller: ...we really want to encourage you to stick it out, work through these issues, and damn it, go make a difference in the world."

Farrah concludes by directing listeners to access the report and engage with the podcast's resources, reinforcing the episode's central message of strategic rejuvenation in nonprofit communications.

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Key Takeaways

1. Persistent Challenges: Time and budget constraints remain critical issues, but strategic planning and effective measurement can mitigate some challenges.
2. Strategic Role of Communications: Elevating communications to a strategic function is essential for organizational success and mission fulfillment.
3. Channel Effectiveness: Traditional channels like in-person events, email, and LinkedIn continue to outperform newer platforms in terms of effectiveness.
4. AI Integration: The ubiquitous presence of AI necessitates robust policies to manage its use responsibly and ethically within communications strategies.
5. Control, Adapt, Reflect: Nonprofits should focus on controllable elements, adapt to evolving landscapes, and reflect on past practices to enhance future communications.

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Resources Mentioned

• 15th Annual Nonprofit Communications Trends Report: nonprofitmarketingguide.com/trends
• AI for an Equitable World Framework by N10: ntenntenten.org
• Connect with Kivi LaRue Miller: LinkedIn | Blue Sky

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For a comprehensive understanding and actionable strategies, listeners are encouraged to download the full Nonprofit Communications Trends Report and engage with the resources provided by Big Duck and Nonprofit Marketing Guide.

Transcript

[Kivi LaRue Miller]

This is the Smart Communications Smart Communications.

[Farrah Trampeter]

Smart Communications Podcast Developing the Voices Developing.

[Big Duck]

The Voices of Determined Nonprofits brought to.

[Kivi LaRue Miller]

You by Big Duck.

[Farrah Trampeter]

Welcome to the Smart Communications Podcast. This is Farrah Trampeter, co director and worker owner at Big Duck. Today we're going to ask the question, is it time to reboot your communication strategy? And I am delighted to be in conversation with Kivi LaRue Miller. Kivi has been on the podcast many times before and we love to talk with her about the latest nonprofit communications trends and how to build strong communications teams. Kivi uses sheher pronouns and is the founder and CEO of Nonprofit Marketing Guide where she is the lead trainer and coach for hundreds of nonprofit communicators. She is also the award winning author of three books on nonprofit marketing and communications used in many university and certificate programs and she's a cat lady just like me. So Kivi, welcome back to the show.

[Kivi LaRue Miller]

That is right. I am so happy to be here with you, Farrah.

[Farrah Trampeter]

So I am excited to talk with you Today about the 15th annual Nonprofit Communications Trends Report. And we often have this show with you where we say it is called what are the latest Nonprofit Communications Trends? Which is what we're going to talk about today. But we're lifting up some higher themes and ideas. And before we get into that, just for those who may not be familiar with the report or going to wonder, who is this report? Among the report compiled insights from a survey taken by 463 people who spend at least 50% of their time on communications or marketing work at nonprofits. With 79% of participants in the U.S. 11% in Canada, and the rest from other nations around the world. So many of us are really looking forward to this report every year. And the theme of this year's report is control. Alt reflect where you encourage marketing and communication staff and nonprofits to first control, recognize and focus on what's within their sphere of influence. Alt Adapt to stay effective as the communications landscape rapidly evolves and reflect. Learn from the past, but stay grounded in the present. So I love that theme and I want to get into it. So let's start there. Let's talk about this theme theme and why nonprofits may need to reboot their communication strategy.

[Kivi LaRue Miller]

All right, let's do it. So we are recording this in early 2025 and we just came off of an extraordinary election year in the United States. Extraordinary in a lot of different ways that we don't have to rehash for everybody. But I do think presidential years have a way of really magnifying a lot of the changes that are happening in the communications we world, how messages get out, how messages are received. And we definitely saw that in 2024. And I think it's time for the nonprofit sector to reflect on how they fit into those themes and how they don't. And lots of times, frankly, we don't.

[Farrah Trampeter]

Yeah, it's interesting to think about the messages, but also the messengers.

[Kivi LaRue Miller]

Yes.

[Farrah Trampeter]

The people, the communications channels. Right. We're going to get into all of that in this conversation. And this idea of rebooting. Right. The computer's not working anymore. Before we call the IT department or get on the phone with any kind of custom here, shut it off and on, like reboot it.

[Kivi LaRue Miller]

Just restart.

[Farrah Trampeter]

That's. That's a helpful analogy to think about in this moment. I might just need to, like, really reboot it. Some things I might have to drastically change. Some things I just may need a little refresh or reset. So I'm excited to see you take that theme, and I really appreciate how in the report you break down your findings in those three categories. We'll talk about where you can get that report. Well, spoiler. Nonprofit marketing guide dot com. We'll talk about it again as we go. But as we were preparing for this conversation, I was particularly interested in some of the bigger picture shifts that you highlighted. I know that you asked a question this time around in the 15th annual report that you asked 10 years ago. You asked the same exact question around the biggest problems people were facing. And folks were given the same choices. And the responses were almost identical with the problems ranking from top to bottom as lack of time to produce quality content, lack of budget for direct expenses, inability to measure effectiveness, and lack of clear strategy. So, you know, why has nothing really changed in particular to the role of being in nonprofit communications, the nonprofit sector, or is it something else? Where is that change or that stuckness or maybe some might positively say steadiness? Where is all that coming from? Why are we seeing the same problems as we were 10 years ago? And what can we expect to see in the future? Or what maybe should we even try to change what's within our control to do?

[Kivi LaRue Miller]

Right. Well, I think the first two, the time and the budget are sort of endemic problems in our sector. Right. The nonprofit sector is just never fully funded or fully staffed. Doesn't mean there's nothing you can do about it. But I think those are much harder issues to tackle. The third and fourth ones about being able to measure effectiveness and having a clear strategy are totally within our Control doesn't mean they're going to be easy conversations or easy decisions, but there's certainly things we can do about that. So I really want to encourage people to embrace that idea that they do have some agency. And frankly, you have agency over your time too. I think a lot of people give up way more of their time to their colleagues than they probably should for a variety of different reasons, but really learning how to say no to other people, not being so people pleasing, certainly being kind, but you don't have to put your schedule at the whim of everybody else. Take control of your workday.

[Farrah Trampeter]

Yeah, I appreciate that. And I remember last year we spoke a lot about the idea of saying no. That was a big thing in the last report and you wrote a great blog about that. All of which we'll link to our show, notes from the last conversation and to things that you've shared about that. And it's interesting because I also think this challenge of time and budget also does connect to strategy. Because when we have a clear strategy, when we know the goals of what we're trying to do, who we're trying to engage, where we should really be spending that limited time, then it helps address so many of these problems. I know that your team, our team, do a lot of work around communications planning and you know, the whole goal of that. You can't anticipate everything that's going to come up, but giving you a roadmap of things you should be focusing on. And again, so much of this work, if we can, is about saying no, is about honing in on what is going to have the most impact. So just echoing that approach.

[Kivi LaRue Miller]

Absolutely, absolutely. You just can't do everything today. I mean, I know we'll talk about social media in a second, but just look at the number of potential platforms that you could be on right now. It's insanity. It really is. To think that one or two or even three people in a communications department and a nonprofit are going to manage six or seven social media channels, let alone email, print, the website, everything else. So you gotta choose.

[Farrah Trampeter]

Yeah, well, we definitely will come back to that because we always want to talk about channels, but I want to first talk about the teams themselves. I want to stick with this idea of staff, the challenges they're facing. One of the things that you also found was that many people were the first people to be directing communications at their organization, representing brand new roles, or maybe the first time that they had a director level role. You also found that the number of people whose communications teams grew or were expected to grow in this year, were down from last year. So we're seeing both. You know, this trend where people are finally getting to be in this director level role, but they may be new, may not have support. There's the teams are either staying the same or shrinking. And this just feels like it supports that perhaps nonprofit leaders and organizations are not budgeting enough for communications or that they don't fully recognize the importance of the function. Why do you think that is?

[Kivi LaRue Miller]

I think there is still a great deal of work for us to do in the sector to understand that communications and marketing is a truly strategic function within nonprofits to help you achieve your mission. Too many people still think it's this kind of nice to have optional thing or they associate it with more like it or hr where it's an operational function within the organization instead of a strategic way to fulfill a mission. And I'm always so thrilled. I just talked to a woman today, one of our mentoring program and she was saying, oh, I have great support. My director really thinks strategic communications is essential to the success of our organization. And those conversations are way too rare. Most people are still kind of pigeonholed off somewhere or they're seen as the people that just make the things pretty and sound better. Their roles are considered optional, sweet to have, but not required permissions success. So I think that's a huge problem. And then like you said, we have a lot of people. Again, it's still a very young profession in the Nonprofit sector where 2 out of 5 people are the first person to fill that role. So not only are they trying to do the job of creating all the content, setting the strategy, they're building basic foundational work within their organizations. What is an editorial calendar? What. What is a target audience? What are workflows? When you have to have somebody, you know, 10 different people look at a piece of content before it can be published, they're making all of this stuff up from scratch in these organizations. So it's really hard work. And I think it can be fun work too. But it's really hard work. Yeah.

[Farrah Trampeter]

Come on, Kibby. We want to encourage people to want to take these jobs.

[Kivi LaRue Miller]

I know, I know, but it's fun work, right? It is. I think it is, but it's hard. And people, people are not set up for success. I think because of the problem with not really thinking of it as strategic.

[Farrah Trampeter]

No, 100%. And I often talk to folks too about do they have the head of. If they have someone managing or leading communications, are they on the Leadership team.

[Kivi LaRue Miller]

Exactly.

[Farrah Trampeter]

Or do you make all these decisions, then tell communications to do it, and then hold them accountable for the thing that happened that they weren't even in the room to help decide to do? You were just asked them to execute it. And that's a challenge we see in a lot of organ organizations, too, and we've talked about it before on the podcast. You know, one of the things that I'm thinking of as you're talking is, again, this idea. We always say our work at Big Doc is to help you use communications to achieve your mission. That is totally. When we are doing work on branding, we're doing fundraising or outreach campaigns, we're helping organizations with a plan, or we're assessing their team, we're doing workshops. It's all laddering up to that. And we're always coming back to submission. And I think that is essential for people to understand. And if they don't understand that, we've got bigger problems.

[Kivi LaRue Miller]

Agreed.

[Farrah Trampeter]

And that's one of the first battles to fight for folks.

[Kivi LaRue Miller]

Absolutely.

[Farrah Trampeter]

So let's. Let's talk about communication channels. We know everybody is tuning in for that, and it is, it is essential for folks to really engage with their community and show up where their audiences are. The survey that you ran also asked folks which channels do they find most effective? And I was intrigued to find that in person events, email and LinkedIn, which some might argue are old or traditional, they've been around for over 20 years. In person events, certainly a lot longer than that, but those ranked as the top three and were above Instagram, website and Facebook. So I'm curious what came up for you when you saw that, that finding and if there were any other kind of nuggets of information as you dug through that data?

[Kivi LaRue Miller]

Yeah. So I think part of this is just the basic fragmentation that we're seeing across all communications channels. And there were a number of really interesting things in there, especially the rise of LinkedIn. We saw a hint of that last year, and it really is very clear this year. I think one of the problems with LinkedIn is people show up on LinkedIn as their professional selves and not as their personal selves. So I think it depends on your organization and how you're trying to communicate to people. Would you communicate to them in their sort of work life, or are you just trying to communicate to them in their personal life? LinkedIn may not work for you there, even though people really are seeing a lot of great engagement there. So that's one thing. You know, Facebook is always the love Hate. And of course, we use the terms effective, ineffective, not do you love it or do you hate it? But Facebook was basically equal in nonprofits that considered it effective and nonprofits that considered it ineffective. No doubt Twitter X, whatever you want to call it, is really on the deathbed in our nonprofit sector. The only people I know who are staying there are folks they feel like they really have to communicate with elected officials, and elected officials are not on some of the newer platforms at the same rate right now. But I really do expect Twitter X to be pretty much dead to the sector. Facebook could very well be next. I think with, like I said, half of nonprofits thinking it's effective and the other half not, that's a pretty precarious place for Facebook to be.

[Farrah Trampeter]

I don't think you probably asked about it, though. It's been around for, I think, three years. Blue sky, which was started as a project for from Twitter and then became its own channel, but then really has seen a rise in people using it since election day.

[Kivi LaRue Miller]

We did actually ask.

[Farrah Trampeter]

You did ask about Blue Sky.

[Kivi LaRue Miller]

We asked about Blue sky. We asked about TikTok. And the reality is is that the sort of penetration into the sector just isn't there. The numbers were, you know, in the 2 and 3%.

[Farrah Trampeter]

Yeah.

[Kivi LaRue Miller]

Which sort of falls off the chart.

[Farrah Trampeter]

I'll be interested to see next year. Right.

[Kivi LaRue Miller]

It'll be interesting next year. Exact how much. You know, some of these things do not change. Like email effectiveness has always been a really high number. But it'll be really interesting to see again if LinkedIn continues its ascent. And I'm assuming that Blue sky will probably be higher up in the chart, actually make it onto the chart next year. We'll see.

[Farrah Trampeter]

Yeah. And in the spirit of control, alt reflects like we cannot control. We see almost now daily some politics and policies around these social media channels changing, which can impact where your audience is. We can spend a moment to say, look, this is evolving. Where is our community now? What makes sense for us to have a presence given our mission? Where are we actively cultivating a community versus maintaining an account and perhaps broadcasting content? And then of course, reflecting on where really should we be given our mission and given our community. So I think these numbers are a helpful place. Of course, every organization needs to look at their own work and mission and decide what should they lean into more and what should they try. And I'll just highlight LinkedIn, I think, has been interesting. They've built a whole LinkedIn for nonprofits. They are trying to do more with the nonprofit sector. Again, LinkedIn was, was built for Kivi. And I remember the days when people used to talk about Rolodexes and maybe even had a rolodex. But. Right. LinkedIn was built to be a place for people, for job seekers and for people, for professional network. Become more than that. And there is more happening there. And if you haven't taken a fresh look at your LinkedIn approach, I would encourage people to do that this year. I think it's interesting when we talk about thought leadership, we talk about positioning staff in a certain way. We think about your brand. So we've done, we did a podcast on LinkedIn a year or two ago. We'll link to that in the notes for people who want to wrap their minds around that. But LinkedIn for nonprofits, check it out. Last plug on that. All right. Now, one thing we discussed last year, and I know continues to be on people's minds, minds is artificial intelligence or AI. And I've talked to lots of nonprofit leaders about it. There are still concerns about how to use it, when to use it. Some organizations are creating policies, some are still holding back and have lots of concerns about privacy and equity. I'm curious, how did AI show up in this year's survey results? How are nonprofits using AI and what are you seeing?

[Kivi LaRue Miller]

So we believe that everybody is using it, whether they think they are or not, just because, let's be honest, it's been integrated into every piece of software that we all use, and to the point that you really have to actively opt out in a lot of cases. So I think everybody's probably using it. So instead what we asked is, how are you using it? And we got a pretty good diverse list that you can see in the report of all the different ways the nonprofits are using it. I'm more interested in what you just said about the policy question, because I do think it's essentially like having another staff person in a lot of ways, this person is potentially making decisions for you. They're certainly writing copy for you, designing things. So who's supervising that new staff member and who's taking responsibility for that? So I think you've got to have a policy. And so we did ask a question about that, and we did see some movement that, with 15% saying they have a policy now, as opposed to 4% just last year. But of course, we'd like to see that well over half, if not everybody, ideally, just really talking about, I think the key issues are, you know, who's going to have oversight over the content. Regardless of what you're asking it to do for you, which human being is ultimately going to be responsible for saying yes, we own this or no, we don't. Just like you would have to with any editorial assistant or anything graphic designer on your staff. At some point somebody has to take responsibility.

[Farrah Trampeter]

Yeah, and I would just shout out and share that. N10 who is an organization. You and I are both members and active in that community. NTEM put out a helpful resource last year, a resource hub with a framework for AI for an equitable world. We'll link to that in the show. Notes. You can always get great content on these issues of overlapping communications and tech and [e-mail] as we close things out in the spirit of your report, let's take a moment to reflect. So what are some questions that you encourage nonprofit marketing and communication staff to ask themselves?

[Kivi LaRue Miller]

I would really focus on what you think you can control, and maybe it's something you think you can't control, but I'm encouraging you to second guess that and think about what you really can control, like your time. But there, you know, there's so many things we can't control. We can't control what Zuckerberg or Musk or Trump are doing, but we can certainly control our time. We can control the things that we focus on and what we leave aside. Like we said, really trying to just focus on a few things rather than all the things focusing on maybe two social media channels and not all of them. And you know, none of these decisions are made in stone. I think one of the really important things that we saw is that people want to be able to measure and want to be able to experiment and grow. And that means you have to be willing to try different things. So maybe you lean in really hard on LinkedIn for the first quarter or second quarter or third quarter, see how it works, maybe back off a little bit, lean in somewhere else, but really try things, experiment, learn. One of the things we close with in the report is we encourage you to play NPM games where if you really take a gaming approach to your work, then you're going to win some and you're going to lose some, but you're always going to be learning and you're always going to be playing the game better next time. So really get into that mindset, figure out where you can move the needle, where you can actually make some change and go for it.

[Farrah Trampeter]

For some reason, as you were talking, I just want to share. I had a little you got to Know when to hold them and know when to fold them a little. Kenny Rogers, gambler.

[Kivi LaRue Miller]

Yes, we can do that, too.

[Farrah Trampeter]

Whatever song comes to mind for you. Well, it's time to wrap things up. I really encourage folks to download the report and dive into it for yourself. Go to nonprofit marketingguide.com trends. You can also access resources, get training and coaching and more@nonprofit marketingguide.com download their app, join their free community, and so much more. Of course, you can connect with Kivi on LinkedIn and Blue Sky. Speaking of those communications channels, we'll make sure to hot link to those profiles if you would like to find Kivi there. Kivi, thank you so much for joining us. Before we go, anything else you'd like to share?

[Kivi LaRue Miller]

You know, if you know me, you know I'm not really giving off cheerleader vibes, but at the same time, we do really think of ourselves as cheerleaders for nonprofit communication professionals. We want you all to stay in the sector, do your best work to really change the world for the better. And so we really want to encourage you to stick it out, work through these issues, and damn it, go make a difference in the world.

[Farrah Trampeter]

There you go. All right. All right, everyone. With that, download the report, stay in it to win it, and thank you so much, Kimmy, for being here today.

[Kivi LaRue Miller]

Thanks, Farah.

[D]

Are you a fan of this podcast or Big Duck's other resources on nonprofit communications? If you are, we'd love to hear from you. Please drop us a line by writing to helloakedup.com to tell us what you're working on and what topics you need help with. We also welcome getting your feedback via reviews. You can review this podcast in itunes or wherever you listen. We'd love to hear from you.

[Farrah Trampeter]

This is the Smart Communications Podcast, Developing.

[Kivi LaRue Miller]

The Voices of Determined Nonprofits brought to you by Big Duck.

[Big Duck]

Big Duck is an agency that puts smart communications in the hands of nonprofits. We help our nonprofit clients develop strong brands, strong campaigns, and strong teams that advance their missions and achieve their goals.

[Farrah Trampeter]

Connect with us@bigduck dot.