Top nonprofit leaders know this — do you?

Cutting a nonprofit's communications budget doesn't save money — it undercuts success.

Working with program leaders at organizations like the Gates Foundation, World Wildlife Fund, the American Red Cross and the Wilderness Society, I've seen firsthand what strategic communications can achieve when it's considered essential to maximizing program results. I've also seen the other side — programs across sectors and continents leaving positive impacts on the table simply because strategic communications was never built in.

Here's what that looks like.

A program director builds something important. They know their target audiences. They produce reports, press releases, social media content — and the communications box gets checked. But nobody asked and answered the harder questions: How could strategic communications improve program results? What tangible change must happen over the tenure of this program for it to succeed? What do the right people need to believe and do to make that possible? What will move them from awareness to action, or from interest to investment?

Without those answers, communications becomes broadcasting. And broadcasting, however polished, rarely drives the outcomes a program was built to achieve.

I once worked with a global climate policy think tank that had no communications strategy for translating its policy expertise into international influence. Starting from a blank slate, we built a program that culminated in a showcase event at a UN Climate Conference — introducing government ministers to new policy proposals and securing international endorsement and new funding. That outcome wasn't a communications add-on to the program. It was communications integrated into the program's strategic goals from the beginning.

The distinction matters.

When a communications expert is brought in after a program is designed — handed a finished strategy and asked to spread the word — they can execute. What they cannot do is change the outcome. The window where their expertise could have meaningfully boosted results has already closed.

When I built the communications program for the Niger Delta Partnership Initiative Foundation, strategic engagement wasn't layered on after the work was done. It was designed alongside it — identifying the right local community voices and stories, planning events that attracted the right international investors and ultimately helping secure $92 million in new funding. The communications didn't describe the program's success. It was instrumental in producing it. That is a fundamentally different standard. And it produces fundamentally different results.

The communications didn't describe the program's success. It was instrumental in producing it.

If you're a nonprofit leader, think about your most important program right now. Can you answer these three questions: Exactly who needs to take what action for this program to succeed? What do they currently believe? What communication strategies and tactics will engage and drive them to take action? If those questions were asked and answered before your program plan was written, you're ahead of most. If they weren't — you're probably leaving a measurable impact on the table.

Think about the last major program your organization invested in. When did communications enter the picture — at the beginning, or after everything else was already decided? I'd genuinely like to know what you discover.

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This is the first in a series of articles for nonprofit leaders on how strategic communications drives program success — drawn from decades of work on climate action, public health, disaster response and economic development.