Strategic thinking is not something that’s just reserved for the “top table” or for a specific day of the year: it’s the bridge between a daily task and your charity’s mission. For marketing and communications to be truly integrated, strategy must be viewed as part of every role and function, regardless of seniority.
When every team member thinks strategically, they move from simply “doing marketing” to making impact.
Strategic thinking at any level involves stopping and asking, “How does this work help us reach our goals?”. Those goals might be overall organisational ones or agreed across your teams – or a mix of both.
Here we outline how this can work in practice across different levels and types of work you and your team are doing.
The “how”: Operational strategies
At this level, strategic thinking is about execution, prioritisation and consistency. It ensures that tactical work and business as usual, like social media or internal comms, aligns with your broader organisational brand and values.
The goal: Feeding into high-level strategy through the delivery of outputs for different audiences and actions.
What this might look like in practice
- Social media: instead of just posting because “it’s Tuesday,” the social team chooses a story specifically to drive click-through rates that support a live fundraising appeal.
- Data entry: ensuring CRM data is clean and up-to-date because the teams knows that accurate data leads to better-targeted messaging and higher engagement rate across campaigns.
- Internal comms: proactively sharing a “win” from a local project on a shared channel to build a culture of storytelling and celebration across the whole team.
The “what”: Tactical strategies
Managers bridge the gap between leadership’s vision and the team’s capacity and delivery. A big part of their strategic role is to monitor impact and adjust.
The goal: Translating the strategy into plans, ensuring your marketing and comms function is adequately resourced and that KPIs are meaningful (and understood across the team).
What this might look like in practice
- Reprioritisation: noticing the team is overstretched and strategically deciding to pause a low-performing newsletter to focus resources on a high-impact policy campaign.
- Audience-led approaches: using A/B testing for emails to refine messaging, rather than sticking to “how we’ve always done it”.
- Collaboration: Setting up regular meetings with other teams to ensure social media and direct mail campaigns are synchronised, rather than competing for attention.
The “why”: Vision strategies
At higher levels, strategic thinking is about vision, governance and influence. Leaders ensure comms has a seat at the table from the very beginning of any project.
The goal: positioning comms and marketing as a vital strategic function at the heart of your organisation by demonstrating its impact.
What this might look like in practice
- Governance: a trustee with comms expertise advises the board on how a proposed policy change might impact your charity’s brand reputation.
- Board reporting: regularly reporting comms impact (like sentiment or influence) alongside financial results to show how storytelling drives your mission.
- External advocacy: your CEO uses their LinkedIn profile to share evidence-based insights that aim to influence public opinion or government policy.
It’s important to note that everyone can input or deliver on strategic thinking across all levels. For example, an officer might work with the CEO to uncover audience insights, create a social media post to engage and gain traction, and reinforce buy-in for the value of comms.
How to embed strategic thinking
Strategic thinking is the difference between being “busy” and being “effective.” Operational, tactical and vision-based plans must work together to ensure that everything you do is rooted in your charity’s mission. This reframing helps to move the communications function from being seen as a “support role” to being recognised as a strategic enabler of the organisation’s goals.
Here are some examples of how common marketing tasks can be transformed when viewed through a strategic lens. The actual task itself hasn’t essentially changed – it’s the intention behind it that provides a more concrete rationale that shows the “why” as well as the “how”.
| Task | Operational approach | Tactical approach | Strategic approach |
| Creating a piece of content | Creating something to “fill a gap” in the schedule. | Making content to address a specific donor concern identified in recent data. | Ensuring all content works within a rounded plan. |
| Event promotional emails | Sending out a blanket invite to the whole list. | Segmenting the list and writing different versions to ensure the message resonates with specific audience needs. | Utilising your network to filter email invitations to extend reach. |
| Reporting on social media | Listing the number of “likes” received on social media posts. | Showing how likes have increased over time, and what drives engagement. | Reporting on how social engagement led to key actions, e.g. a 5% increase in volunteer sign-ups. |
By adopting a more strategic approach, teams can ensure that every piece of content, event or report directly advances high-level objectives such as raising awareness, driving donations or influencing policy.
It also allows for better resourcing by prioritising high-impact activities over routine tasks, as well as helping individuals to understand the impact their work is having to further your charity’s mission.
Everyone can be strategic in their thinking; we just need the understanding and framework to articulate it more clearly.
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