Strategic Communications in the Digital Age

According to the Benton Foundation: "Effective communications is mission critical. Information and communications technologies must be leadership and CEO concerns in any organization that wants to be a powerful agent of social change. The emerging - and converging - digital media environment also brings new potential for partnerships and collaborations, inviting qualitatively different relationships between organizations and their constituencies, members and donors."

As part of a capacity-building project, the Benton Foundation documented best practices and lessons learned by non-profits located primarily in the United States about the impact, successes, failures, and struggles in using strategic communications. This toolkit catalogues those lessons on what it takes to design and fund an effective communications technology strategy, including planning, audience development, message shaping, evaluation, and funding.

This is an archived resource; it was last updated May 2002.

It includes the following sections:

• Think it Through
  The nuts and bolts of designing and funding an effective communications technology strategy, including: planning; audience development; message shaping; evaluation; and funding.
• Put it to Work
  Profiles, resources and tools to help implement plans for use of technology in advocacy, building community, creating partnerships, and reaching an audience.
• What to Watch
  Links and resources to articles on communication trends in funding, electronic commerce, non-profit policy, etc.
• Funders Corner
  Links and resources to trends in communications technology capacity-building.

And the following papers:

• Partners in Public Service: A Working Guide for Public Broadcasters and Community Organizations
  The stories of eight partnerships between public television stations and museums and libraries.
• Reassessing Your Communications Initiatives: Lessons from Environmental Defense
  Successful experimentation with communication technologies in the early and late 1990s signaled to Environmental Defense the importance of new communication vehicles. The Benton Foundation examines the organisation's evolving strategy to address new audiences and collaborate with like-minded organisations to expand their reach.
• Pro-Choice Partnership Pays Off
  The partnership between the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League Foundation Foundation and Planned Parenthood on the Pro Choice Voice Project resulted in 1 million new pro-choice supporters. This article examines the lessons learned in maintaining a working partnership between these two organisations.