This is a toolkit for civic, open-source, and/or nonprofit technology teams undertaking communications projects. 

Messaging who you are and what you do is a crucial opportunity to unlock your impact. However, many teams aren’t experienced with scoping, managing, or implementing projects in this area. Communications work is often left out of funding proposals and seen as something that will naturally happen on its own.

With the support of the Open Technology Fund’s Learning Lab, we at Superbloom set out to make a set of resources to help organizations scope and undertake identity and communications projects.

These resources are for you if:

• Your organization’s public face doesn’t reflect your work as well as it could, and you’d like to fix that
• You believe that the communities you work with should be involved in your communications process
• You would like to do a project around identity (branding) or another element of communications, but you don’t know how to scope or plan it
• You need some perspective and guidance in the middle of a communications project in progress

These resources are geared towards smaller organizations who don’t have a dedicated communications staff.

(We’ll use the word “organization” from here on out, but please substitute “team,” “project,” “group,” “community,” or whatever description best suits what you are working on.)

Why it’s all about the roadmap

This toolkit is not just about how to do communications work, but about how to scope and plan it. 

Planning and scoping your communications project is a crucial, and challenging, part of the work, whether you are working internally, working with a partner organization, or bringing on individual freelancers. 

We have seen that the planning process – assessing needs, estimating timelines and work hours, and mapping out projected deliverables – can be a barrier to doing (and funding) communications work. Just like any other project, communications projects can be planned and scoped.

Our aim is to demystify how communications projects work, so that you can confidently get started. If you’re working internally, you’ll be able to resource the project and plan your team’s time. If you’re working with external partners, you’ll be able to clearly articulate what you need from them and why, leading to a more pleasant and productive collaboration. And when you involve your community in the process, you’ll be able to be clear with them about what you need, when you need it, and how you use it, so that you’re respecting their time.

Investing in communications: why it’s worth it

Reading the time estimates in our guide to scoping projects may discourage you from undertaking communications work. After all, those hours could be spent on pursuing your primary mission, right? 

We’d like to frame the question differently: your primary mission deserves an investment in communications. Creating an identity, crafting a communications strategy, and designing communications collateral are directly related to both the impact you’ll have, and the support and sustainability you’ll be able to achieve. 

This sounds logical, so why is it relatively rare to see an investment in communications?

In our experience, it often feels like communication will happen more or less organically: that messaging what we care about will come easily, and that quality work will naturally draw attention and create buzz. It would be nice if this were true! We can tell you from our own experience that you need to plan external communications, or it won’t happen.

You’ll create a memorable impression in a crowded space

It’s safe to say that anyone working in nonprofit technology is deluged with new information. We work at the crossroads of many different fields, and we are all trying to stay up-to-date on conferences, reports, release announcements, press releases… we’re tired just thinking about it. Additionally, social media is in a complicated transition: neither federation nor intransparent behemoths have fully won out, and people stay up to date using many different channels.

To stand out in this chaos, a distinctive, and consistent look and feel is an absolute must-have. A memorable identity – name, visuals, tagline, voice, and overall personality – gives you the shot at impact and sustainability that your work deserves. 

You can say who you are, not just what you do

Not only do you want to be memorable – you want to be memorable for the right reasons. You want to share what your mission is. You also want to give people the right impression about how you go about this work. Are you serious or casual? Technical or humanistic? Ironic or earnest? Are you reliable and established, or hip and socially engaged? 

Communications work gives you the opportunity to tell people these things in a subtle way, using tools like color, type, images, and associations. It lets you pick how you make people feel. The phrase “a picture speaks a thousand words” has plenty of truth to it. Take the opportunity to craft an accurate visual and emotional impression for your community, and you’ll have spared yourself a great deal of explanation effort.

You’ll save time

Building out a communications and identity infrastructure is absolutely a time-saver. You’ll see the benefits the first time you are able to find a logo file instantly, create a presentation from a template, or put together a social media post in 15 minutes.

Once you have a library of elements to draw from, you’ll be able to focus on your content, without fiddling with templates and searching for graphics every time you need to create a piece of public-facing collateral.

Three building blocks of communications

We’ll help you through three building blocks of your organizational communications:

• Identity
• Communications strategy
• Communications design

Resource	To help you with
Guide: Scoping projects	Estimating project length. Gives example scopes for small, medium, and large scopes for these three areas.
Guide: Participatory approaches	How and why to involve your community in your communications project.

Identity

An identity is a structured system of elements that work together to communicate your project or organization’s mission, values, and character. It’s unique and recognizable, working on a mostly subconscious level to build a sense of belonging and pride. It helps people remember you, associate your work with you, and notice where you’re present. Your identity is an incredible opportunity to shape and reflect the emotional relationship of communities and funders towards you.

Your identity consists of many different elements. Some of these elements are easy to isolate and identify: name, tagline, colors, logo, and typefaces. Some of them are more subtle: the way you use images, the way you write, the way you use space and alignment.

When the building blocks of your identity harmonize well together and send the message you want to send: congratulations! Your identity is working well for you.

But in many cases, these building blocks aren’t working effectively together. If this is the case, you probably already know it. You will have a gut feeling that something isn’t quite right. But it can be hard to put your finger on what the problem is (it’s almost never just your logo!), and also hard to justify putting in the effort to diagnose and fix the issue.

We’ve seen a few common patterns in organizations whose identity needs some revision. In our experience, here are some signs that it’s time to allocate resources to identity work:

• You feel you are spending too much time explaining your organization
• Your community gives you feedback on your identity (this is a great opportunity for learning – ask them for more details!)
• You avoid using your identity elements because you think they will hold you back in certain contexts, or with certain communities
• Your identity reflects an outdated understanding of a field or of a community
• Your organization or group has changed structure or ownership (e.g. is now under a new umbrella organization, has become a workers’ cooperative, has merged with another group)
• Someone has asked you to change parts of your identity, whether as a favor or via legal avenues
• People seem to confuse you often with another organization, or have a hard time remembering your organization
• Your identity is all over the place (e.g. the font looks playful, but the illustrations look serious)

Identity work is much, much more than logo design. It is challenging and time-consuming. It requires a high degree of internal participation, commitment, and humility. It also needs input and buy-in from your community. It should not be undertaken lightly.

But an identity that isn’t working is holding you back and needs your attention. In the end, identity work serves your community and deepens your impact, and the payoff will last a long time.

It’s not just decoration for your work: it shows who has done the work. It saves you time; it helps people connect with you; and it tells your story for you.

Resource	To help you with
Questionnaire: High level scoping questions for brand development (Google Docs)	Identifying specifically what aspects of your brand need to be worked on.
Questionnaire: High level scoping questions for naming (Google Docs)	Identifying specifically what aspects of your name need to be worked on.
Guide: Brand development process	The steps to creating a brand, from research to feedback.
Guide: Brand guideline toolkit	Understanding and documenting the various aspects of a brand.
Template: Naming workshop template (Miro)	Naming or renaming a product, project, or team.

Communications strategy

Your organization has an identity. Maybe you’ve worked on the templates and collateral to use that identity in your communications. Now, how do you actually put these elements into practice?

A successful communications practice means something different for every organization. You need to understand your goals before you create a communications strategy. Are you aiming to build a closer connection with the community you serve? Do you want to network with partner organizations? Are you hoping to build your profile among funders? Is there a particular way you’d like to position yourself in the landscape?

Your internal needs, resources, and interests are as important as your external goals. Are you a tiny software team with nobody who particularly enjoys writing? Blog about your conference presentations, but don’t bother with an email newsletter. Is your staff impressively multilingual? Think about how you can use this to your advantage on social media.

The current social media landscape is full of contradictions, and reading about current trends can feel overwhelming. (Is federated social media on the rise, or do Meta and TikTok rule the market? Does everyone need to make short vertical videos, or are email newsletters where it’s at?) You don’t have to be everything to everyone. Focusing on a particular audience, and the channels and content they’re likely to appreciate, will help you conserve your energy.

Resource	To help you with
Resource list: Communications strategy	A list of resources to guide you in developing your organization’s communication strategy.
Questionnaire: High level scoping questions for writing projects (Google Docs)	Identifying the scope and specifications of writing projects such as blogs, articles, reports, press releases, etc.
Guide: Scoping communications projects	Planning and resourcing your communications projects, with examples of small, medium, and large scopes.
Template: Social media strategy workshop (Miro)	Matching your social media strategy with your organization’s needs.

Communications design

Do you copy and paste a recent presentation, report, or document every time you need to create a new one? You’re not alone. When an organization is getting started, templates for communications design usually aren’t the first priority. However, once more people are involved and the trail of documents and presentations gets longer, the benefits of a communications design system begins to become clear.

Without a communications design system:

• You can’t make any synchronized changes to your identity. Different people may have different “templates” they are privately using, so there’s no way for everyone to change elements like color scheme or image treatment.

• Onboarding new people who don’t have ambient knowledge of past communications is challenging. They are missing the tools to create effective communications without help from somebody who has been around for longer.

• Your outward face is inconsistent and confusing. It may not be clear whether certain communications are actually from you or not.

• You are wasting time reinventing the wheel – time you could be spending doing other work! Create a template once, store it in a place that’s easy to find, and you never need to make the same document again.

A communications design system uses elements from your identity, taking into account your strategy. Most communications design systems include overall guidance about visuals and tone, as well as a variety of specific templates. Sample presentations, social media posts, reports, documents, letterheads, and press releases are all common templates that can save you and your team time and effort.

Resource	To help you with
Questionnaire: High level scoping questions for social media graphics (Google Docs)	Identifying the specific aspects of the social media communications that need to be worked on.
Resource list: Social media posts	A list of resources to help you plan and execute social media posts.
Template: Social media text (Google Docs)	Planning your text for social media.
Template: Social media visuals (Miro)	Preparing images in the recommended sizes before you post.
Questionnaire: Tone & voice (Google Docs)	Establishing a consistent and impactful tone and voice in your communications efforts.
Guide: Crafting a press release	Crafting a press release.
Template: Social media content calendar (Google Sheet)	Creating a schedule for posting content.
Template: Lightning talk (Google Slides)
Template: Organizational overview (Google Slides)
Template: Research shareout (Google Slides)
Template: Report (Google Docs)	Creating a report with ready-to-use formatting. Insert your own fonts and colors.
Template: Press release (Google Docs)	Creating a press release with ready-to-use formatting. Insert your own fonts and colors.

This toolkit was developed with the support of the Open Technology Fund Learning Lab. Got feedback? Want to work together? Please write to us at [email protected].