4 Unconventional Communications Strategies

For two and a half years, one of my principal client projects was managing and implementing communications strategy for a tiny nonprofit. 

As happens in many grassroots small nonprofits, I wore many hats during this time. I did everything from recruiting, managing and recognizing volunteers to crafting and sharing fundraising comms; cooperatively supporting the logistical execution of events, advising the executive director on matters including reputational risk and funder communications…all while actually doing the majority of the communications work that reached the org’s supporters, community partners and a broader public audience.

Here are four of my top takeaways - four unconventional communications strategies:

Number 1

Build relationships beyond social media.

One of the hallmarks of this client’s support base was that it was intergenerational. That meant a percentage of people who didn’t use social media were on its list. I needed to find ways to engage these - and all kinds of supporters away from social media platforms.

The most common tool for non-socials engagement is having a supporter list to whom you regularly send email communications.

Changes over the past two years to Google and Apple’s email services affected the amount of legitimate emails landing in spam folders or being marked as read when in fact the recipient never opened them. These changes resulted in harder to decipher email open rate analytics, such as those shown on mailing service platforms.

All email lists are built on relationships, even if just transactional (think of the subscriptions you’ve accepted when buying clothing items, for instance). A tiny, grassroots nonprofit can do something that is much harder in certain larger organizations, retail businesses and major corporations- it can have meaningful, non-transactional interactions with values-aligned supporters.

I turned this challenge into an opportunity. One of the best tools for ensuring that future email list communications (newsletters, volunteer group emails, etc.) end up in the supporters inbox and opened is to build those relationships through multiple types of communications. Through mailed correspondence, individual emails, occasionally a phone call, and by talking with supporters in person at events, I was able to nurture relationships and encourage people to watch out for and open the org’s emails when they arrived. Email open rates trended upward and continued to rise.

Being in personal contact with supporters is a big part of relationship management. People want to know you’re paying attention to them, individually, and that their engagement matters to the people behind the organization.

Number 2

Brand flexibility is a must, but so is hewing to organizational values.

This client was selected for a branding inventory by a group of marketing students at a local university. In the summary report the group’s recommendations included re-naming the org and shifting the branding to something that read as more positive. The group felt that the issues the organization were communicating about were kind of - their words - doom and gloom, and needed more sparkle.

The organization’s core audience was LGBTQIA+ people. The communities that comprise the LGBTQIA+ umbrella are often impacted by social, health and financial disparities and, as is obvious again now, are the targets of political maneuverings. People in these communities have experienced a lot of difficult and traumatic things, and this organization was not shy about providing space where community members could connect to talk about the hard things, and could lean into shared stories of survival and thriving beyond those hard things. The complexities of those experiences should never be watered down in marketing - that does much more harm than good.

As a team, the ED and I decided to address the brand strategy the marketing students shared by more explicitly sharing the org’s core values of connection, belonging and well-being across generations and social divisions. Centering those messages while still being honest about the challenges faced with the community resulted in qualitative feedback about brand resonance from supporters and community partners.

Number 3

The complexities of being community responsive are worth it.

As you might be noting, there’s a theme here about being in relationship with community members. Relationship includes listening, caring, and responding to feedback and requests.

This organization’s leader often talked about how the model they had developed for storytelling events had evolved over the years as community members held them accountable on issues of equity, access and radical hospitality. Their model was often hailed by community members as one that made people attending feel welcomed, safe, cared for, heard and made visible.

As the communications manager, I took that idea of radical hospitality and shifted into the communications realm. I ensured that our communications were warm and personal, and that there was always an open door to readers who wanted to give feedback or simply just respond. I worked to avoid jargon, to simplify ideas, and to create consistency both in the form and the timing of our comms.

Some people think that listening to community members whose approaches get under your skin is a waste of time.

I counter that with this: recognizing the humanity in that person and practicing hearing what they have to say through the idea that everything shared is either a please or a thank you allows us to make connections, get clearer on what supporters really want, and to refine how communications strategies and approaches align with organizational values.

Number 4

Relationships are at the heart of both communications and narrative strategy.

All of my work happens through a relational approach. And what is at the heart of relationships? Stories.

Here’s my unique take on how the stories at the heart of relationships inform strategy:

Communications strategies are essentially values-driven maps that guide what will be communicated and how, when, and to whom those communications will be directed.

Communications strategies always need to include an investment in where and from whom within the organization information will be coming. Because communications is engaged with almost every single department or team within an organization, it is essential that those internal relationships are also considered.

Sometimes, if a team or an organizational culture has been struggling around issues of equity, compatibility, leadership and shared goals, it’s actually essential to do some collective care work and building/rebuilding of the organizational culture to get at which internal stories need to be shifted for these teams to more humanly coexist.


Narrative strategy is the process of building with the stories of a community, a cause, and/or a movement in a way that engages more people in actions that create meaningful and desired changes socially, collectively and politically.

In narrative strategy we work with a complex network and the complex web of stories and interrelationships those individuals in the network hold. Narrative strategy often engages multiple community groups who might be coming at the same issue with different stories. Part of the work is to assess which versions of those stories are resonating in a motivating way and reaching bigger audiences.

One of my core skills is the ability to understand how our stories can create separation instead of connection. My work as a narrative strategist includes using that relational approach to identify alignments and collaboratively weave them into stories centering love, justice, humanity, care and reciprocity.