Optimizing Nonprofit Communication: Insights from PR to AI with Sarah Wood

Unlock the secrets to effective communication within purpose-driven organizations as host Peter Woolfolk talks with Sarah Wood, CEO of Sarah Wood Communications. Discover how nonprofits and associations can amplify their reach by layering public relations on top of existing channels such as newsletters, blogs, websites, and social media. Through engaging examples like an affordable housing organization, Sarah reveals how maintaining consistent, strategic communication fosters strong relationships with target audiences, ensuring long-term visibility and support even when media attention fades. 

Ever wondered how AI can revolutionize your storytelling and communication strategy? We explore the practical benefits of AI with Sarah, from brainstorming and generating rough drafts to conducting preliminary research. Yet, we stress that the human touch is irreplaceable for creating content that truly resonates. Learn how AI can handle repetitive tasks, freeing up more time for high-value activities and crafting strategic messages. Get inspired by innovative AI applications like video avatars for podcast promotion, and understand the importance of catering to audience preferences to drive desired actions. Don’t miss this insightful conversation that blends the best of technology and human creativity.

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Chapters

• 1:10 Public Relations and Corporate Communications Integration
• 13:01 AI and Storytelling in Communication

Transcript

Announcer: 1:11

Welcome. This is the Public Relations Review Podcast, a program to discuss the many facets of public relations with seasoned professionals, educators, authors and others. Now here is your host, peter Woolfolk.

Peter Woolfolk: 1:31

Welcome to the Public Relations Review Podcast and to our listeners all across America and around the world. Now this podcast is ranked by Apple as being among the top 1% of podcasts worldwide. So thank you to all of our guests and listeners for making this a reality and, of course, if you enjoy the podcast, please leave us a review. Now a question for you Are corporate communications and public relations complementary elements of an overarching communication strategy? Well, my guest says yes, yes, they are. She says purpose-driven organizations such as nonprofits and associations should layer public relations on top of the foundation and relationships they've developed with their target audience through the use of corporate communications channels such as newsletters, blog posts, websites, social media and so forth. So here to talk about this communication strategy is my guest today, sarah Wood. She is CEO of Sarah Wood Communications and she joins us today from Fairfax County, virginia, which happens to be a suburb of my hometown of Washington DC. So, sarah, welcome to the podcast.

Sarah Wood: 2:39

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to get a chance to talk with you and your audience today.

Peter Woolfolk: 2:44

Well, good. So now let's talk about how you have used and integrated, if you would, public relations and corporate communications channels with your various clients.

Sarah Wood: 2:54

Sure. So I own a boutique communication agency and we work primarily with purpose-driven organizations and by that I mean nonprofits, associations, organizations that are trying to make the world a better place.

Sarah Wood: 3:07

Right, and a lot of them are doing it with limited funds, possibly staff, and they're they're trying to juggle multiple balls. Right, and they'll have something that they want to share. Right, they're doing some great work, they want to put it out into the universe and they'll say, oh, we need to use public relations or we need to issue a press release or something along those lines. Right, and that can be very, very helpful. But if you're doing that by itself, without focusing on all the corporate communication channels that you have available, then you're really going to be missing the boat, right? You can't just reach out to people, your audience, without having that foundational relationship, and that's what consistent, strategic, ongoing communication with your audiences gets you.

Peter Woolfolk: 3:58

So let's talk about how you've engaged some of those particular platforms, such as your blog posts and websites, and so forth.

Sarah Wood: 4:05

Right. So let me use a specific example here. I was working with an organization and they were in the affordable housing and preventing homelessness space and they had press releases of major things that were happening. Right, maybe they purchased a new building, they got a major donation of like millions of dollars, that type of thing. That's news, right, and you can issue a press release for that and you're going to get some coverage.

Sarah Wood: 4:29

But they also had ongoing programs. Right, they had their existing buildings, they had the programming and the support services that they were providing to residents at those existing buildings, and that ongoing information is not necessarily going to warrant a press release right, it's not going to warrant media coverage, but it's important. It's important to your donors, it's important to the people that are receiving the services or could be eligible to receive the services, and so we really were reaching out through a lot of channels to those people, and that was through email newsletters, it was through their website, it was through social media, it was through creating blog posts, it was through social media, it was through creating blog posts. So it was consistently communicating with those audiences who are already in your fold and not only trying to reach people that are outside of your normal audience.

Peter Woolfolk: 5:24

So how many organizations have you dealt with that you bring this sort of information to, so that they understand that there's more than just a press release that may be needed?

Sarah Wood: 5:33

some organizations understand that more than others, right, I I would say that people generally understand the concept when you talk to them about it, even if they come to you to start with and they say, hey, I need a press release. Or potentially they come and they say, hey, why I issued this press release, why am I not getting any traction with it? Right, they understand when you talk to them about it that it's really a long game. Right, you're building the foundation by consistently communicating with your audiences, you're building your reputation, you're building your brand, you're consistently sharing the stories of your good work. And then, when you layer public relations on top of that, you're more likely to be getting that media coverage, that more top tier names, than potentially you were in the past. So I wouldn't say it's a number, right, I wouldn't say it's like I wouldn't. You know, I don't go talk to everyone and they are thinking like, oh, it's just a press release, send it out and I'm done.

Sarah Wood: 6:30

That's not always the case, right, and typically, even if it is, once you kind of explain to them and walk through the process, they understand that really, it's important to be dedicating resources and time and energy to some of these other elements too. It's not a one and done right. I mean, you know this. You can bring on a public relations agency and they can do great work for you, but at some point then the media value of your story runs out right, and what are you going to do then? You need something to have legs to stand on right. You need to keep being putting yourself out there and you're not necessarily going to have a media worthy story, you know, once a month you might have one, once a year, once every six months. I mean it depends on your industry and the type of news that you're making, right, but it's not going to have the ongoing impact that a corporate communication campaign can have.

Peter Woolfolk: 7:25

So what I'm getting from this right now is that, let's say, you're beginning a new relationship, particularly with an association or nonprofit, then part of the discovery if you will use that term is to have an understanding of the various platforms they have. Do you have a newsletter?

Peter Woolfolk: 7:42

I'm sure most people at least have a website? Do you use social media, those kinds of things, so that you can get a comprehensive idea of what it is that they have and what they don't have, and then what steps might need to be taken to engage all of those other platforms into their, let's say, public relations plan as a whole?

Sarah Wood: 8:04

absolutely. I mean, we always start with trying to figure out. We call it a communication inventory or you can call it communication audit. Where are you already at? What are you already at? What are you sending out? What results are you seeing from that? Is that where your audience actually is? Are you addressing the target audience that you actually? Are you actually reaching your target audience? Where should you be putting your resources?

Sarah Wood: 8:27

Everybody has a limited amount of resources. You have to be realistic. You can create the best communication strategy in the entire world, but if you don't have the financial or manpower resources or woman power to make that happen, then that strategy is just going to sit on a shelf and it's not going to do you any good, right? You have to have a realistic communication strategy and we start that by saying what are you doing now? How is that working for you? What is it that you want to do? Right, what do you want to get out of this? A lot of people will say to me and they'll be like well, I know we're not communicating well, or I know we need to communicate about this, and I'll be like okay, but why Like? What is it that you want to get out of this. Do you want to ultimately get more donations? Do you want to raise your profile? You know what is the end goal here. We always want your communication goals to match up with your overall goals for your organization.

Peter Woolfolk: 9:22

Perhaps one of the questions I should have asked ahead of time is because when I think of associations and nonprofits, a lot of them have let's say, maybe some of them do have a public affairs officer. But I also look at the background of some of those people, because they might not have the quality or breadth of background that they know of the wide range of things that need to be done. So have you run into that situation where they probably might have a public relations person but their background is limited, so that they're're actually desperately needing help, but maybe they didn't want to ask for it. So you, have you run across situations like that?

Sarah Wood: 9:58

I would say that I the in-house staff that I have worked with a nonprofit has always been really stellar. It's more an issue of they don't necessarily have the time or the internal resources to dedicate to it. Okay, and that's assuming I mean, that's assuming that they do have some staff associated with this. I've also been in situations where there were no staff associated with this and it was kind of something that was being done on the side, right. There wasn't a full-time person dedicated to this. It's not that they don't know what they're doing or that they don't know how to do it Although obviously you always hope you're bringing in some sort of new information and expertise as well, right but it's not that they can't handle the situation.

Sarah Wood: 10:43

It's that it's helpful to have an outside perspective an unbiased outside perspective that can come in and look and say, hey, I know you've been doing it this way for a really long time.

Sarah Wood: 10:55

And if they're in-house, they know probably the reasons why that is still happening in that particular way.

Sarah Wood: 11:00

Maybe it's just a carryover, maybe it was someone's pet project, maybe they grew really fast and so it kind of communication has been handled sporadically throughout different parts of the organization instead of being consolidated and consistent.

Sarah Wood: 11:18

There's a lot of factors that go into why a nonprofit or association would want to outsource or bring on fractional support, but it's not because their staff isn't talented, because you know, the people that work for nonprofits and associations are some of the most dedicated people in the universe, right?

Sarah Wood: 11:35

They're really committed to what they are doing and the goals of their organization and helping other people, but they can't do everything on their own Right, right. And so I say to people all the time you know, let your people do what they're good at. Let's put on someone else that can specialize in this and that lives and breathes this and knows this in and out and can help you without getting caught up in office politics or I'm going to hurt so-and-so's feelings if I do it this way. You know, it just really helps to have that cover of having someone from outside look in and say hey, I'm looking at this clearly, I'm looking at the data, I'm looking at your goals and I'm comparing. You know what what's happening to where your goals are, and here's where I'm seeing the opportunities okay.

Peter Woolfolk: 12:22

Well, that certainly makes a lot of sense to me. Have you run across some of these associations and nonprofits now beginning to ask questions about the use of artificial intelligence in their outreach efforts?

Sarah Wood: 12:34

That's a big conversation that's happening. I haven't had it a lot directly with nonprofits and associations. I've had it more with other people in the industry right, because I think there's a lot of conversation around is this going to upend the industry? How is it going to change it? Are we going to have careers? And I've told people I was like look, I am not worried about losing my job here, and you know why? Because I am not doing grunt work.

Sarah Wood: 13:01

I think AI is really helpful with brainstorming. It can be helpful with coming up with some rough drafts. It can be helpful for some research purposes although you always want to double-check any facts that you're getting through the use of AI. But what it's not doing is putting the human voice on something. It's not telling the story. It's not thinking strategically around what your messages are? What will best help you get to your goals? How do you best reach those audiences? How do you resonate with those audiences? Right, people want to work with other people, even in the organizational space. It needs to be personalized.

Sarah Wood: 13:43

Storytelling is, like you know, become the word of the day when it comes to communication, storytelling and narrative. But we've been doing that the whole time. Humans have been telling stories since before we had a written language right, the human brain is wired to respond to stories. It's to respond to things that feature other people and the impact that we're having on other people. And I don't think that AI at this point I mean, you know, who knows what could happen years in the future but I don't think it can handle the strategy, I don't think it can handle the personalization and the storytelling at this point.

Sarah Wood: 14:23

And if, if my, if one of my clients was to ask me that that's what I say, I would say say look into what you can use it for. Look into the brainstorming, the idea generation, the kind of base level research, before you actually dig into things. Use it for all those things Great, but don't just type things in and then cut and paste them onto your website or your blog or your social media, because it's not going to have that the human voice and the human touch, and that's really what your audiences are going to react to. It's not about volume, right. I mean you can use ai as a way to create volume in content, but it's not about the amount of content so much as it is. Is this content that is really resonating with your audience. Is this content that's going to make them take the actions that you really want them to take, have the feelings that you want them to have.

Peter Woolfolk: 15:18

Well, I think you know what you said there about how they use artificial intelligence is hugely important. Obviously, I use a lot of it here. The podcast because you know transcripts all my transcripts are handled by AI, so this one is going to go through the very same process and, you know, for the website, it gives the descriptions. It's all written Now I do read through it to make any changes that I want to make, but it saves me a lot of time. For my purposes it's a huge, huge time saver. From the time I finish this show until the time it gets uploaded, I save 40% of the time I used to spend doing all of those things myself. So for nonprofits as well as associations, large and small, that they perhaps need to look at artificial intelligence in their daily programs or efforts and find out how and perhaps with your oversight and assistance, how can this best benefit me? How can we best become more efficient as we use these various and synergy platforms that we have available to us?

Sarah Wood: 16:18

I think that's true across the board. I think that's true with any type of organization, not just with nonprofits and associations, and I think it's true not just with communication but with many other topics as well. The world changes. You know. We have new technology, we have new opportunities, and the more efficient we can make the tasks that are time-consuming but don't really need a lot of that human capital, then the more time we have to spend on those more valuable items right, and that's where you want to be investing.

Sarah Wood: 16:53

You know, take the day to the day. You know little things that are sucking up your time and delegate that as much as possible, and then that frees your mind and your time up to really be collaborative, to think of. You know new and exciting ways to think about, things to really dig into. You know, I mean, maybe use AI to kind of say what would you know? What would my target persona be? You know what are some of the things that they might be interested in. I mean, you get some new ideas about ways you might be able to reach your audience and then you can kind of think more strategically about like, okay, if this is what we're going to do, if this is the path that we're going to go down. How are we going to go about that in a way that really makes sense and that has the most impact?

Peter Woolfolk: 17:39

You know, one of the things I've started doing with this podcast is that I'm beginning to use some of that AI video with the avatars and so forth, just to promote each individual episode. Now this one, for instance, it'll happen there too. I'll have maybe just three different slides, but you have an avatar and I say it, coming on whatever day we let this go such and such, and we'll be talking about A, b, c and D, and you can get it on wherever you go. Get your podcast, but it's visual and people can see it, they can hear it and, if I need to, I can add some music to it. Those kind of things help attract attention to, because, uh, with the podcast, this podcast and any other, it's all about trying to grow your audience. And you know, rather than just sending them an email now, I can send them a video that takes maybe 35, 40 seconds to look at, and they perhaps got a lot more out of that than they did just a a jury old email that comes across their table.

Sarah Wood: 18:31

Yeah, video has become so much more popular over time and, yeah, I think animated video is being part of that and it's really about what your audience wants, right. What is your audience interested? Do they want to hear it? Do they want to see it? Do they want to hear it? Do they want to see it? Do they want to read it? You know how do they want to get their information and how can you best handle that for them. And another thing I would say about layering corporate communications onto your public relations is that everything isn't news, right, everything is not media coverage.

Peter Woolfolk: 19:07

Not media worthy.

Sarah Wood: 19:12

You know, the general public may not necessarily care about a specific thing that is very important to you and your organization, that's right. But that doesn't mean that your subset, your targeted audience, isn't very invested in that information, right? And so you have to figure out how to get them that information without relying on mainstream media, right? And the easiest way to do that is to have your own communication channels that you are consistently reaching out to them on, so they know to expect hey, xyz organization is going to communicate with me when they have something going on. So you're going to talk about your events. You're going to talk about your conferences. You're going to talk about your major wins, right, your major donations, or if you've got a new grant or a new contract. You're going to talk about all those things. But you're also going to talk about the stories of the impact of what you're doing, right? Because really, when it comes down to it, when you're in the purpose-driven organization, that's what people care about. Right, they care about the impact. They care about you know, what is it that we're doing?

Sarah Wood: 20:19

But the media is not I shouldn't say never, because sometimes they do carry stories like this, but they're not typically going to be like, hey, susie was able to get her own apartment and maintain her own apartment and, you know, get groceries this month.

Sarah Wood: 20:38

Right, the mainstream media is not going to cover that one individual story, right, but that story is very important to your donors, it's important to your funders because it personalizes what it is that they're doing with their time, their effort, their money. But it's not news per se, right, it's important, it's important to a subset, but it's not news. And I'll say the same thing for case studies. Right, you might be doing a case study or a report which is kind of wrapping up, say so, you're doing an annual report, or you're doing a case study on the impact that your organization's had over the last five years and you're providing those examples. That's very interesting to a certain subset.

Sarah Wood: 21:21

But you might not even reach that subset if you're trying to pitch that to a mainstream media outlet, because that's not necessarily where they're reading it, that's not where they're looking for this type of information from. So should you have a dissemination strategy? Or For any content that you're creating, absolutely. But that dissemination strategy does not always, and almost never should, be completely just exclusive of mainstream media. You know, it's great to get mainstream media coverage, but it shouldn't be the only thing you're relying on, and it is not enough to hang your hat on.

Peter Woolfolk: 21:56

Well, let me say this For the most part I certainly do agree with you about everything is not media-worthy. But one of the things I also do is ask myself how can I make this media-worthy? That's when I start looking around, is there somebody special or some organization or some event or something I can connect this with? You know, to try to pull that off. Sometimes I'm successful at it and then other times I'm not, but at least I'm going to look for that extra horsepower because, as you said, you have an idea of what makes this media worthy. Can I find it Run it past some of the TV folks or newspaper people to grab their attention? No question about that.

Sarah Wood: 22:35

Absolutely, and I think also leaning into trade media.

Sarah Wood: 22:41

You know, a lot of times people they just are kind of name dropping the organizations they know about. They might say like, oh, I want to be in the New York Times or I want to be in USA Today and I was like, okay, well, trade media might be a much better bet for you, depending on what your organization is right and who you're actually trying to inform with this piece of information and also organizational partnerships. I think people really sleep on that and it's like sometimes your other nonprofit organizations or associations that have a similar audience, that are trying to reach similar people, are really partnering with them. You may get more bang for your buck than anything else that you're doing and people forget about it and they or they feel like, oh, I don't want to ask or I don't want to borrow a bothersome someone and look, you don't get anything if you don't ask and absolutely, they're looking for the same thing, especially if you have a limited budget, right, Especially if you have a limited budget that can really be of high value.

Sarah Wood: 23:45

And it's like ask people you have relationships with. Ask them do you think your audience would be interested in this? I'd be happy to provide you with whatever you need, whether that's a newsletter blurb, whether it's a guest blog post, whether it's being a guest on a podcast, whether it's social media posts. You know, create that stuff, shop it around, because you would be surprised how many people will just take you up on it, Maybe. Like, yeah, my audience would be interested in this. I would love to include that. And of course there's. There are some organizations, you know, with massive, maybe a massive email list, right, and, and they may have a more formalized process for that type of thing, right, and you can go through that and walk through that process and make the decisions about what works best for your organization. But a lot of them are happy just to include some information that they think their audience would find of value.

Peter Woolfolk: 24:36

Well, sarah, let me say that you know the time we've spent with you today. You've provided some very, very exceptional information. Is there anything that you've left out that you think that the audience needs to hear about?

Sarah Wood: 24:46

I would just reiterate that you need to communicate consistently, strategically and on a regular basis in ways that really reach and resonate with your targeted audience. And public relations is great, I think absolutely. You should use that if it is warranted, but it is not the only tool in your arsenal. You should be using all the corporate communication elements that are at your disposal in order to make sure that you are tapping into your audience in as many ways, in as many formats, as you can right, because ultimately, it is very unlikely you're going to be annoying people so much that they're just opting out.

Sarah Wood: 25:30

If they've already opted into following you in some way, in whatever format they've chosen to do, that, they are not likely to just drop off because you happen to send them two emails and a social media post. Right, you are not the only thing in their inbox, you're not the only thing in their feed. So it is important to continuously be communicating with them, and I don't mean sending. Like you know, you shouldn't send 400 messages in a day, right, be realistic about it. But I think a lot of people have the mindset that, oh, we just told people about that or we already mentioned that, and they aren't thinking about the information overload that people are going through and the fact that you really do have to see things multiple times or hear or otherwise consume them multiple times in order for it to really kind of come into your consciousness.

Peter Woolfolk: 26:22

Well, Sarah. Thank you so very, very much for being a guest on our show today. Sarah Woods, CEO of Sarah Woods Communications, has provided us with some information that I'm sure will be of value to a lot of our listeners, and, if you've enjoyed the show, please we'd like to get a review from you. We'd also like you to share this with friends and colleagues and, of course, listen to us for the next edition of the Public Relations Review Podcast. Have a great day.

Announcer: 26:51

This podcast is produced by Communication Strategies, an award-winning public relations and public affairs firm headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. Thank you for joining us.