Last year, I offered my top advice for small and mighty communications teams. So much has happened in the world since — impacting the way nonprofits prioritize, communicate and navigate evolving dynamics. Yet, despite these changes, communications leaders continue to punch far above their weight to support their communities. The one question I get most often from comms staffers remains, “How can I do even more with my limited time and resources?”

Here are some reminders and new tips to consider for teams of one:

  1. Look for helpers. If you maintain core volunteers, ask for their help with activities that match their talent and availability. No core group? Make a list of 10 potential helpers from across the following categories: former staffers still tied to the mission, retirees who have expertise and enthusiasm, or student groups looking for workplace experience or community service credit. Bring in these new volunteers to join you in execution.
  2. Embrace an editorial calendar over a to-do list. At the very least, your editorial calendar should include major moments over the next six months when your organization plans to raise its voice and the gist of what it will say. This could be as high level as listing “Giving Tuesday; highlight maternal health care efforts with one community story per week across each digital platform.” Use these plans to assign supporting tasks to volunteers. To-do lists rarely look past the current week and are easily co-opted by other colleagues’ agendas. A proactive plan keeps the work moving forward and disperses it. 
  3. Refine the storytelling scope. Great stories bring your values and visions to life, and people remember them for far longer than just data points or fact sheets. Gathering and sharing these stories, however, takes considerable time. Remember that you don’t need to tell all of your organization’s great stories. Alongside your colleagues, identify the three to four stories you want to focus on this year. Harness your energy into building out these stories well. Spend the rest of the year leveraging them in different formats (such as for grant reports, social media and speeches). Do the same next year, intentionally building out your story bank at a sustainable pace.
  4. Bucket out your top priorities. Wondering how to prioritize all of your organizationwide goals and asks from leadership month over month or year over year? Consider prioritizing your most pressing tasks into three main buckets: 1) development, 2) internal and 3) mission-aligned. This will help you clarify whom you need to engage in the near term (e.g., funders, management or direct service partners) and determine which communications tasks are most timely v. regular or nonnegotiable.
  5. Identify opportunities for content crossover. Don’t recreate the wheel every time you need new content. Look for opportunities to reuse, recycle and repurpose by taking inventory of what you have already and identifying which content you could use for multiple communications priorities. This could be as easy as republishing a blog or thought piece with a connection to something relevant in the news or commenting on a partner post that also highlights or speaks to your own work. Once your inventory is complete, develop explicit and written processes to make the most of short-term help (as noted in Tip 1), and look for opportunities to amplify partner content or co-create together.  

Spitfire is launching the second iteration of our Small and Mighty Series to share these and other strategies with team-of-one communicators. This series is five sessions that cover what it takes to effectively run a communications operation — even with limited time and resources. I’m teaching this cohort alongside my colleague, Nima Shirazi, and invite you to join us.

We know you need easy-to-use tools that are easy to incorporate in your day-to-day work while addressing the demands of leadership, staff and partners. This training will help you organize your many priorities and confidently determine which activities are feasible and strategic to implement. Hope to see you there.