Communication goals

They are the actual specific tactics to achieve your vision and are a more detailed road map of your organization’s mission.

Guiding you throughout Internal MakeOver of your organization we have worked on STRATEGIC PLAN of your organization. That plan represents a set of steps which are going to help you achieve your vision and mission. Speaking about Communication strategies they as well have certain aims.

            Aims of the communication strategy should reflect on the aims set in the strategic plan.

This means, communication strategy is a tool that will help you achieve your organizational aims, mission and vision.

So, for example if your vision was “life on Mars” and your consecutive mission was “offering cost friendly interplanetary transportation” your communication goal could be to create awareness of your specialized space craft transportation pods and get new users.

There are different kinds of communication goals. For NGOs, most relevant are:

• Building reputation of your organization;
• Building relationship with your existing followers and fans;
• Task management goals – communication to help you fulfill certain tasks.

Other basic goal ideas:

• Introducing your organization to new users/donors;
• Promoting your existing project/programs to more people;
• Creating new projects;
• Growing social media followers;
• Building your credibility and expertise;
• Supporting users and helping them with their needs.

There are many communication goals you can have and yes, you can have more than one at a time (if you feel equipped to achieve it) but the important thing is that you decide on the one(s) you are going after based on your vision and stick to them.

☞ Go back to strategic plan of your organization and reflect together with your team on your vision, mission and strategic goals;

☞ Discuss how communication can help you achieve those goals;

☞ Try to write it down with team consensus on its content.

If your goals are not matching your vision maybe you are working towards a different vision after all? Remember that ultimately success comes from harmony and alignment of elements within your communication tree. If you planted an apple don’t give it strawberry leaves. It’s not that they won’t work, it’s that there is no point in the apple if you wanted a strawberry. Reflect and be true to your cause and organization’s essence.

Now, we should make your goals more concrete. We will do that by defining communication objectives. Each communication goals have more than one communication objective.

The point of this goal system is to drill down into each of the goals and set further detailed expectations from them and define what success behind that goal would look like.

You start by defining 3-5 key objectives behind each goal. These objectives should be ambitious, qualitative, time bound and actionable by the person or team responsible for them. Key objectives should be quantifiable, achievable, lead to objective grading and be difficult, but not impossible. Objectives can be based on growth, performance, or engagement. Often, they are numerical, but they can also show if something is done or undone, so a binary 0 or 1.

One common approach widely used in defining objectives is SMART strategy. SMART objectives are written in one sentence and contain all following elements:

• Specific – show clearly what will be done;
• Measurable – includes number and allow for comparison;
• Achievable – think impossible but make achievable. This means to not make it easy;
• Relevant – outcome will contribute to the goal and organizational mission;
• Time bound – include time frame in which action will happen.

            Goal – Grow our social media presence.

            Objective – Increase YouTube subscribers to 100 000 by the end of next year.

When you have defined communication goals, lead your team toward defining communication objectives of your organization using everything shared above.