STRATEGIC
COMMUNICATIONS
Strategic Communications: The purposeful and planned use of communication to achieve specific organizational goals. It involves carefully selecting the right message, channel, and audience to influence perceptions and behaviors in line with an organization's objectives.
As a field, strategic communications is relatively recent. It borrows from the best writing strategies of journalism, salesmanship from marketing, and messaging from politicians. It’s a loud world, and trying to angle for attention by strategizing your messaging makes sense — but it’s more humane to take a deep breath and ask yourself some questions — What do I have to say? Who truly needs to hear it? Is now the right time to say it?
Your organization is interested in meaningful content that reflects its values. We find and share the stories that celebrate your work. You appreciate that a clear message, delivered without unnecessary bells is more effective than every billboard you could ever buy!
Services
Reports & Proposals
White papers, grants, and project proposals all require someone who can get to know your organization quickly and ask the right questions. These longer pieces of writing benefit from someone can tell an effective story, and who can weave together various kinds of information, including data, history, and anecdotes. Steeped in facts, this writing comes alive under the care of someone who knows how to locate and use your organization’s voice.
Newsletters & Annual Reports
These mundane publications cannot be underestimated as useful ways to stay in touch with your audience. Just a light touch to remind people of an important win, provide an educational tip, introduce a new team member — all will help you maintain a sense of connection. Annual Reports are a chance to tell a story — think of it as a vignette — of what you’ve accomplished, who you’ve collaborated with, what mattered.
Interviews
The previous kinds of writing may entail interviews, but sometimes a project is all about going out and getting stories. You need to be able to ask good questions and to listen. I’ve conducted hundreds of interviews, both in research toward writing projects, and more formally for public events. The stories harvested during these interviews have anchored social media campaigns, fundraising brochures, and community engagement projects.