Evaluating Non-Profit Communications Initiatives

Evaluating Non-Profit Communications Initiatives is a wonderful paper by a lot of heavy hitters in communicaiton and communication theory folks. The paper is very interesting ( I really like the focus on "media trigger events") in context of "awareness communicaitons" . The frame work falls short in that it does not look at communicaitons campaigns "in battle" with an opposition campaign (most of the work we do). However, it is definately worth a read.

This Working Paper suggests that evaluating media campaigns is often a multi-phase effort, with no single "roadmap." However, numerous guideposts can be observed, as detailed here.

The paper’s objective has been to give foundations and non-profits a realistic set of guidelines to use as they evaluate communications efforts. It is important that members of the evaluation community have a realistic overview of what can and cannot be expected as they seek to assess communications projects in the non-profit arena.

The next steps will be for CCMC to work with interested foundations and non-profits to apply these guidelines to assess ongoing communications efforts. This will enable CCMC, foundations and the non-profits to judge the effectiveness of the guidelines suggested and to modify them where necessary.

Kudos to CCMC for pushing evaluation, communicaitons theory and communicaitons strategy to a new level.