Note from Beth: By the time you read this post, I will be in the USA from doing a training in Tunisia for NGOs and trainers who will deliver training to women entrepreneurs as part of the WES program and also improve their NGO’s use of social media. This past week, I had the opportunity to work some amazing trainers and NGOs in that country to share and adapt instructional techniques and information about using social media as part of an integrated strategy. One of the most important exercises I do is a “Fishbowl” where participants go through the process of generating ideas for an editorial calendar.
The best ever resource and template for an editorial calendar comes from my colleague, Holly Minch at LightBox Collaborative. It was fun to see NGOs in Tunisia begin to embrace, adapt, and apply the concept. The template itself is geared for the USA, but since Holly has so generously shared it for free in Google document, I suspect it could be easily localized for NGOs in many other places of the world and easily converted to other languages.
Holly published the 2013 version back in December, but you can never have too much of a good and incredibly useful resource!!! Here’s another simplified template that is also pretty from John Haydon. And, if you want to dive deeper into content marketing for nonprofits, go subscribe to Kivi Leroux Miller’s blog. I hear she is working or has finished a second book on content marketing for nonprofits, and if you haven’t read her first book, here’s where to find it.
It’s Not Too Late To Set Your Communications Agenda with LightBox Collaborative’s 2013 Editorial Calendar – Guest Post by Holly Minch, Lightbox Collaborative
The LightBox Collaborative 2013 Editorial Calendaris here!
Three years ago, we released our first editorial calendar with the hopes that our fellow nonprofit communicators would be inspired to think of new and interesting ways to get their message out, essentially acting as their own publisher.
Since then, this practical tool has received great feedback and praise from our colleagues:
Beth Kanter, author of Beth’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media and co-author of “The Networked Nonprofit” says “It’s not every day that you come across high quality content shared freely with the community – it helps lift all the boats.”
Nelson Layag, Training Director of CompassPoint Nonprofit Services says “Having an editorial calendar has anchored a team-based approach to communications. It’s given structure to what was a wild wild west approach to reaching out to our community.” (Nelson offers more insights on CompassPoint’s experiencehere on Kivi Leroux Miller’s excellent blog nonprofitmarketinggiude.com.)
If you are new to the concept of an editorial calendar, it is a user-friendly tool for mapping relevant, compelling content to your media channels. Since the Calendar is presented as a Google spreadsheet, you can tailor it to keep your team informed and aligned about communications opportunities. Our colleagues and clients who use the tool also find that it sparks new ideas from staff, especially when customized with your team’s work plan. For example, our colleagues at VolunteerMatch used the tool as an inspiration to create their 2012 volunteer engagement calendar.
This year, we’ve further refined this handy tool, and tested it with a number of our clients. So now the 2013 version has twice the hooks to inspire nonprofit communications. Download a copy now and add your own calendar hooks, program dates, events and other important dates that your organization can leverage for successful communications. Read last year’s blog post for more details.
Let us know what dates you think we should have on the 2013 radar. And we look forward to hearing your tips on how you customized your 2013 editorial calendar.
P.S.: We’ll update the Editorial Calendar mid-year, and will share other tips and tools for content strategy, so sign up for inbox delivery to stay up-to-date.
Holly Minch is LightBox’s founder and hopes the 2013 Editorial Calendar helps you achieve greater communications impact during the coming year.
