Let’s face it: 2025 was a tough year for communicators, especially in the nonprofit sector. An endless cavalcade of crises stressed the sector, platforms continued splintering and devolving, and AI slop, well, slopped all over the place.
If all you wanted was a long winter’s nap, who am I to blame you?
But I’m guessing your future self wants clarity and focus in your communications. If you’re hoping to enter 2026 with something resembling a communications strategy, now’s the time to take just a few steps.
Look Back (Briefly!) to Move Forward
To know where you’re going, you have to know where you’ve been. Start by reflecting on two simple questions:
- What worked surprisingly well in 2025?
- What felt frustrating, messy, challenging, or unclear?
Don’t write a whole memoir here. Just take a few notes on where you felt momentum versus where you were grinding gears. Then take a minute to step back and look for patterns.
Comms leaders, this is a great exercise to use during a team meeting, or even in a Slack thread. You’ll yield great insights from the folks with their hands directly in the work.
Pick Three Anchor Moments for 2026
Next, choose three anchor points to build comms around during 2026. Those might be any of the following:
- The start of the legislative session in your state;
- An upcoming program or service launch;
- Your annual conference;
- That awareness month you always leverage;
- Giving Tuesday/End-of-year fundraising (You know you’re going to build a campaign around it, so why not think about it now?); or
- The release of your impact or annual report.
(I’m sure you can think of more, but hopefully this sparks some ideas.)
Start building your annual calendar around those three moments. Will you be asked to communicate about more than these? Of course. But just getting these top priorities in place gives you a stronger framework on which to hang the rest of the year.
Choose One Call-to-Action Per Month
Finally, decide what’s most important for your audience to accomplish before, during, and after each of these moments. Don’t overcommit or overcomplicate this, just think of one single action you’d like your audience (or one of your audiences) to take each month.
Would you like them to donate? Contact a legislator? Register for an event? Reflect on the work you’re doing? Share that work with a friend? Read your report?
One key thing about calls to action is that they can’t just happen during the moment. You also need to think about how you can prime the audience before the moment, engage them during the moment, and keep them connected to your mission after the moment has passed.
A Little Planning Now Will Pay Off in 2026
Communications planning can feel daunting, but when you take time to do even just a little bit of strategic thinking, it sets you up for more proactive work all year long.
You don’t have to squeeze in a full-blown strategic retreat this week. But taking a few small steps this week to build out the bones of a plan for next year will serve you well! And if you get stuck and need support on your journey, reach out. You don’t have to do this alone.
