Before coming to Brain Traffic, I was managing a publishing department at a nonprofit called Search Institute, an organization that conducts research about children and teenagers. In fact, that’s where I was working when someone in our office building named Kristina Halvorson asked if she could use our Wi-Fi temporarily. In exchange, she’d offer us a workshop about something called “content strategy.”

You can probably see where this is headed.

As we listened to the introductory speech about tying user-centered content to the business model, I saw several of my colleagues nodding in agreement. I returned to my desk thinking, “Eureka! We’ve found it!”

And then? Reality set in:

• “We don’t have the resources for that.”
• “Everyone is too busy to take on anything new.”
• “It sounds like a great idea, but we need to focus on our funded projects.”

Most of these comments are pretty typical when people initially feel overwhelmed by content strategy. But I continued having conversations until I came to some unique conclusions: In our nonprofit setting, the business model was a moving target. Funding came and went. Sometimes there were multiyear, multimillion-dollar grants, and other times we survived from small project to small project.

With all of this uncertainty, it was difficult to land on a single strategy—much less to deploy the people and hours needed to implement it.

You’ve gotta start somewhere

I’d love to tell you that an anonymous donor gave us a big bag of unrestricted content strategy money, but that didn’t happen. Our dreams of best practices gave way to best efforts. Although we couldn’t afford to restructure and rewrite all of our content, we soon discovered that a little bit of alignment and analysis can go a long way.

If you’re in the content trenches at a nonprofit organization, here are a few places to focus your limited resources:

• Document what you have and what’s working. If at all possible, conduct a content inventory or a more in-depth qualitative audit, exploring whether you’re getting results. How often are people viewing your PDFs? Are people following social media links back to your articles? And where is all of this content coming from? It’s important to know who’s creating what and if all of that hard work is paying off. You might be surprised to discover that a funny holiday message got more traction than a free white paper.
• Spend time on workflow. Nonprofit organizations attract people who a) believe passionately in what they do and b) want to help. Unfortunately, this puts your content creators at risk of getting spread too thin or duplicating each other’s efforts. At my previous job, a brief study of our newsletters revealed that four individuals were creating four different newsletters for only two audiences. Consolidating resources and introducing a unified editorial calendar resulted in less work and higher quality.
• Know your audiences. You might have a mentoring program that serves underprivileged kids in rural communities, but those kids probably aren’t checking out your website. So, who is? Are corporate funders investigating your credibility? Are volunteers looking for logistical information? You need to understand who is using your content, and for what purpose. Even if you can’t afford a full-scale user research study, a few phone calls, an in-house brainstorming session, or an online survey can help you start to collect this information.
• Pay attention to your business model. Some nonprofits get so caught up in providing free information and services that they neglect the audiences who are footing the bill for their good work. Are you dependent on individual donations? If so, make it easy to donate (and receive receipts!) online. Do corporate sponsors distribute internal copies of your annual report? Offer a printer-friendly version. Do other organizations purchase your materials or services with grant money? Give them links and tools that make it easier to obtain that funding.

You don’t have to beat people over the head with donation requests. Simply remember that meeting users’ needs for information is ideal, but meeting users’ needs when they are trying to give you money is essential.

Keep hope alive

It’s discouraging to list all of the things you can’t accomplish, so ... don’t! Get started in whatever small way you can. Celebrate every victory. Document the value content strategy has provided—both internally and to your supporters. And, who knows? Maybe that magical anonymous donor will show up with a cartoonish money bag someday.

Have you used content strategy in a nonprofit setting? What tips can you share with the rest of us?