Developing a Communication Strategy

Communication strategies are blueprints for developing and disseminating a message to an intended audience. Using a communication strategy to share the evaluation outcomes of your harm reduction program can effectively increase awareness of the impact of your program and demonstrate the importance of sustaining the work within the community. Having a communication strategy in place also helps ensure your communication effort is efficient, effective, and intentional.

Bringing in your evaluation team, as well as other members of the program team, to brainstorm the specifics of the strategy is a good first step. Consider facilitating conversations that answer the following questions:

• Who is your intended audience? (e.g., funders, partners, clients, the general public)
• Why do you want to communicate with this audience? (i.e., the purpose of your communication effort)
• What is the message you want to share with this audience? What do they need to know about your program that they may not know?
• How will your evaluation results be used to help you deliver this message?
• What communication channels are appropriate to use to maximize access to the information?
• What resources are needed (e.g., people, financial, technology) to effectively use those channels to distribute your message?

Once you have the answers to these questions, you will have all the information you need to begin to put your communication strategy in motion.

As we saw in the previous section, different audiences will have different perspectives and will likely be most drawn to the components of your program that align with their interests and values. Leaning into the expertise and insights of your evaluation team and other trusted community members can help you decipher the message and communication channels to invest in that will be most impactful.

Essentially, the steps to developing a program evaluation communication strategy are:

Determining your audience. When determining your audience, one of the first things to decide is whether you are reaching out to a defined group (e.g., program participants) or a more general group (e.g., people who reside in your city). Determining your specific audience early in the process helps ensure that your community efforts are appropriately framed to align with what makes sense for the audience to understand about your program.

Establishing the purpose. Here is where you outline what you are hoping to accomplish as a result of this communication effort. There are many reasons that harm reduction programs elect to develop a communication strategy, and here are just a few:

• Raising funds to support program sustainability.
• Becoming known, or better known, in the community.
• Educating the public on drug user health and the benefits of harm reduction interventions.
• Recruiting or retaining program participants.
• Recruiting volunteers to support the work.
• Mobilizing supporters, or the general public, to engage in political action.
• Announcing events or celebrating accomplishments.
• Countering the misinformation about harm reduction that may be circulating in the community.
• Addressing an organizational crisis that has become public knowledge (e.g., a staff member who has passed away).

Framing the message. When creating messages, it is helpful to consider how the following components will be incorporated:

Utilizing your evaluation data. Utilizing your program evaluation data can be a powerful way to ground and reinforce your message within tangible data, quotes, and community stories.

Committing the needed resources. Consider how many resources you have to devote to your communication effort. Resources can be people specific (e.g., your staffing capacity to carry out communication activities), funding specific (e.g., the amount of funds your program can allocate for this effort), or logistics specific (e.g., the tools and software that your program needs to successfully engage in this effort). Committing necessary resources can ensure that your communication strategy maintains momentum from the beginning through to the end.

Executing the strategy. A part of executing your communication strategy is ensuring that you document and monitor your approach and the outcomes. Remember, any number of things can shift and change throughout the planning and execution of your communication strategy. As such, it is also helpful to remain flexible and create contingencies, or a backup plan, in the event the original strategy is no longer viable.

Here are some related resources that may prove helpful as you build your communication plan:

• Creating a Communications Action Plan by Viasport
• Communications Planning by Mindtools
• How to Develop a Success Story by CDC
• Developing a Plan for Communication by Community Toolbox