It’s here – our most popular download of the year highlighting the year’s nonprofit communications trends! The 2023 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report marks our 13th edition and this might be my favorite.
We were able to incorporate what nonprofits were thinking not only in the data, but also in their own words via some open-ended questions.
In this year’s report, we broke down the data based on team size. We noted any big differences making it easier to see how having more than one person on staff affects communications programs.
And we also learned more about what makes nonprofit communications staff happy at their jobs and what can be done to help retain talent. As the author of most of our #NPCOMMLIFE posts, the well-being of our community is very important to me. Knowing that data gave me some ideas on how I can better help.
As with all of our Communications Trends Report, we, of course, asked about communications best practices, team salaries (which went up!) and more.
Going through the data over the last several weeks, we found that this year’s communications trends report revealed five themes that need addressing in the nonprofit sector.
We think it’s time to:
- Find Your Voice and Role in Your Larger Community
- Fully Reevaluate Your Use of Social Media Including Video
- Reinvest in Email and Address Technology Integration Issues
- Set New Norms Around Communications Work Requests and Internal Collaboration
- Plan Now for Communications Team Growth and Retention
Now let’s get into some stats surrounding those themes.
Key Communications Trends:
Finding Your Voice and Role in Your Larger Community
- Less than 20% of nonprofits have crisis communications plans or responses in writing.
- Less than 20% of nonprofits say they frequently curate or share content from other organizations in their nonprofit’s communications channels.
Fully Reevaluating Your Use of Social Media Including Video
- 57% of nonprofits say they use social media for Increasing Participation Levels. Changes in Knowledge or Understanding followed with 52% of nonprofits choosing this objective.
- Just over half of nonprofits (52%) named Facebook as the platform that most reliably helped them achieve these objectives
- Larger teams with four or more communications staff were less likely to say Facebook. Only 43% said it was the most reliable platform compared to 50% for small teams and 59% for one-person teams.
- 69% of nonprofits are spending money to purchase ads on social media or to boost posts.
Want to get all of the highlights and insights? Get your FREE copy of the 2023 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report!
Reinvesting in Email and Addressing Technology Integration Issues
- 61% of nonprofits say they never stop emailing, even if the subscriber is clearly no longer engaged (a slight improvement with over 69% in the 2020).
- Only 8% of nonprofits are removing people from their active email lists after six months of no engagement, which is closer to the email industry’s recommendations.
- Other than sign-up forms, nonprofits aren’t doing much else to keep their email lists growing. Only 13% use Gated Content and 7% use quizzes/polls.
- Bigger teams with two or more staff were almost twice as likely to use Gated Content to build their email list than one-person teams.
- Almost half (46%) of nonprofits must manually integrate their email data with their donor database.
Setting New Norms Around Communications Work Requests and Internal Collaboration
- 74% of survey participants said it was difficult or very difficult to say No to their supervisors when they make a work request.
- 65% said it was difficult or very difficult to say No to a colleague.
- Only 5% report working in an office or work site exclusively.
Planning Now for Communications Team Growth and Retention
- Almost half of nonprofits surveyed (46%) have two or more FTE on their communications teams.
- Almost half (45%) said their teams grew since March 2020.
- For the first time in several years, we saw significant growth in salaries, especially in areas with high costs of living.
- A third (34%) of nonprofit communicators will be looking for a new place to work in 2023. Staffs of one to three people were more likely to be looking than those on teams of four or more.
At 46 pages, the 2023 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report is packed with not only helpful data, but also insights and encouragement to lead your nonprofit to meaningful change. Get your copy now. It’s FREE!
We’d like to thank Bloomerang for sponsoring the 2023 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report.
