NEW PROFIT
Communicating Impact to Reach Key Audiences

It’s often the most amazing organizations that have a difficult time finding the words to describe their work. New Profit, the country’s leading nonprofit venture philanthropy fund that makes multi-year investments in a portfolio of visionary social entrepreneurs, is such an organization. Their investments enable innovative organizations to create solutions to intractable social problems and change conventional thinking to achieve widespread system impact in the fields of education, workforce development and public health. Part of the key to their success has been the high performance measures it holds its portfolio organizations to in order to measure the impact of its work. Yet, New Profit has struggled to communicate this impact to the audiences that mattered most.

In mid-2008 the board and managing partners decided they needed to develop a strategic communications plan to raise the visibility of the impact of their investments. SM& conducted an analysis of New Profit’s current communications efforts as well as a full communications audit interviewing nearly two dozen stakeholders. The result was a communications plan to help key audiences understand New Profit’s mission and impact and draw distinctions from other nonprofits or venture philanthropy funds. The communications plan included recommendations for media relations, social media, community relations, marketing materials, thought leadership and executive visibility.