Most of us are working from home and sheltering in place through the COVID-19 pandemic. For some of you, that might mean that you’re working remotely for the first time ever. I remember that being a challenging transition for me when I started working from home in 2013. Aside from figuring out how to manage myself and my time, having the right digital tools in place to work with a remote team made a world of difference. One of the tools I rely most heavily on is Trello.
Trello is a great option for project management for nonprofits. It can be used to manage so many things from blog content, content banks, PR outreach, and more. In addition to using Trello for The Storytelling Non-Profit, I use it personally for meal planning and household management. Here are a few ways you can use Trello boards to managing your communications program.
Story Bank
If your non-profit wants to share stories and get more mileage out of your best stories, you need to have a story bank. A story bank is central place to capture any text, audio, video and photos associated with a story. You can also use a Trello story bank to track any leads you get for stories and keep your story interview notes for future reference. Personally, I like to create a new card for every story that goes into a Trello story bank and then I add any information associated with that story on to the card. Organization FTW!
Here’s my step-by-step tutorial for setting up a story bank.
Newsletter Workflow
Whether your non-profit sends a digital or paper newsletter, you know that getting that newsletter out to your community is a whole process. You come up with a theme, develop content, source images, proof read, and get approval from the necessary folks before it gets published. Trello boards can help you manage your newsletter publication process so you can see where you are and what needs to get done. You can also add collaborators to your board (like folks involved in your approval process) so they can easily read through the content and lessen the number of back and forth emails in the approval process.
Weekly Task Management
I mentioned earlier in this post that one of the skills we develop when we work from home is learning how to manage ourselves and our time in a non-office environment. One of the strategies that’s helped me the most is creating a Trello board for my weekly task management. I have a list for each day of the week and then create a card for each of the most important tasks I want to do that day. I often keep this board open in my browser all day so that I can refer back to it and stay on task. I also use this board during my weekly planning process. I find getting to see all of my to dos in one place gives me a reality check as to whether or not I’m over committing to too many to dos for that week.
90 Day Plans
One of my most popular YouTube videos is on creating a 90 Day Nonprofit Communications plan. I suggest this planning timeline to all of my clients and students because 90 days is a very realistic and tangible amount of time to plan for. You can set clear medium term goals, identify a few projects or initiatives to help you meet your goals, and break down that tasks that you’ll do for each project. You can put your 90 day plan into a Trello board for you and your team. If you have weekly or bi-weekly communications meetings, this board is a great focal point for your agenda as you can refer back to your goals and make sure the majority of your team’s work is supporting these goals. There are so many uses for Trello when it comes to managing your non-profit’s communication program.
If you are interested in using Trello and need an out-of-the-box solution to get started, be sure to check out Trello for NP Comms.For $29 USD, you’ll get access to 9 pre-made Trello boards specifically designed for non-profit communications program that you can start using right away.
