Communication 101
One way to build support in the community and across the country is to describe exactly what your organization does and why it matters.
Successful communicators get the right message to the right people at the right time. With clear objectives, defined target audiences and compelling, tailored messages, you, too, can cut through the "clutter" of daily chatter and make sure your organization is noticed by the people who matter most.
This toolkit is designed to provide you with strategies, tactics and tools to maximize the effectiveness of your communication. With it, you can build a bigger base of support and advance higher education issues that are important to your organization and the people you serve.
By aligning communication with strategic objectives for your organization, you can effectively:
- Raise visibility in the community for your issues and beneficiaries.
- Call attention to your mission and purpose.
- Pave the way for successful development efforts.
- Ensure the delivery of important services.
Lumina Foundation's take on communication
Since 2000, Lumina Foundation's mission has been to help more students enter and succeed in higher education. Because the problems we seek to solve are too big for us to solve alone, communication has always been a vital part of what we do.
Communication fosters a public understanding about access and success and builds public will for improvement. Through the years, we've used communication as a leveraging force by conveying important information about research, policy and practice, and by the sharing of lessons we learn. That information helps us expand the impact of our work to those we cannot directly help through grants.
So what are we talking about exactly?
Making sure your messages are heard and moving people to act is the bottom line. Successful communication begins with understanding your purpose and clearly understanding your audiences' needs. That means translating your message to show how it impacts your audience—take it from "we do" to "you get." It also means effectively using a variety of communication "channels" that will reach your audiences.
Ideas, tips, tactics and techniques are contained in this toolkit to give you both food for thought and tools to use to make communication easier.
