Comms Handbook

Impact

How Well Made Strategy can support you to make an impact

Over the past fifteen years we have developed a team of communications specialists with expertise in pedagogy, policy and persuasion. We have experience of journalism, advertising, diplomacy and learning; we have worked on sexual and reproductive health rights, financial inclusion, the environment and education. But above all, we have used strategic communications to help pioneers in those fields and the donors who fund them to achieve the impact they desire.

Case Study:
Strategic Communications

Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER)

Image © ISER

Country

Uganda

Sector

Business and Human Rights, Health, Education, Accountability and Transparency

Deliverable

Communications strategy for key programmes: Education, Health, Business and Human Rights and Economic Policy​​

Challenge

To develop an evidence-based communications approach to support ISER in working with partner communities to do advocacy around regulation of private actors

Approach

  • WMS carried out a full review of ISER’s existing communications to understand the gaps and advantages to their approach
  • We carried out deep audience research to inform the new ISER communications strategy. Through this research we also delivered an audience research plan
  • We co-developed a communications strategy with ISER staff through a rigorous participatory learning process so that they could confidently use evidence-based communications throughout their work
  • We supported ISER in promoting more effective community advocacy work by organising a feedback forum with its audiences and community stakeholders

Outcome

  • Objective, strategy, tactics (OST) is now a mantra within ISER for communications – no communications tactics are planned without going through the OST process.
  • ISER filed a complaint, developed with and presented by community representatives, to the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) regarding equitable allocation of resources to primary schools. ISER has seen they can involve communities more in their work, with good audience research and relationship building, so they speak with one voice to influence government action.
  • Following the forum with its stakeholders, ISER committed to having six monthly reviews of their communications with stakeholders.

Case Study: Coaching, Advisory & Support

Hewlett Foundation

Country

Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya

Sector

Education

Deliverable

To develop and deliver a strategic communications curriculum for 15 Hewlett Foundation grantees, create a communications strategy for each grantee and support implementation

Challenge

To support 15 Hewlett Foundation grantees in communicating more strategically and developing stronger networks

Approach

  • We worked closely with the Hewlett Foundation to design a communications curriculum that would address every organisation’s most critical needs with an emphasis on objectives, audiences and MEL
  • Well Made Strategy designed a template that obliged grantees to go through a clear set of steps in developing their communications strategies
  • Our staff travelled the region, taking grantee staff through the template and adapting it through a series of workshops

Outcome

Well Made Strategy greatly improved the work of all the grantees and improved their communications. There is now a cadre of education professionals who do their work much better and more strategically:
  • APHRC now punches well above its weight in the learning field. It is active on government committees identified as influential and it directly influences education policy
  • East African education ministries anticipate Twaweza/Uwezo assessment findings and techniques learned through WMS are now being transferred worldwide - from Nigeria to Mexico – through the PAL Network
  • Lessons learned supporting Hewlett networks in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda are now helping to guide the East African Regional Education Learning Initiative which WMS supports with strategic communications advice

Case Study: Narrative

International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) / Kenya Legal & Ethical Issues Network (KELIN)

Country

Kenya

Sector

Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights​

Deliverable

Develop, test and deploy value-based frames and messages

Challenge

To make contraceptive information and services accessible to adolescent girls in Nakuru and Kisumu County

Approach

  • In order to connect with adolescent girls, we realised we needed to align our messaging with the values of the community members that influence these girls’ lives. We focused on mapping “swayable middle audience”: Parents, guardians, health workers and teachers
  • We conducted message testing in 8 Kenyan counties and winning messages were identified for each of the audiences
  • We co-designed message dissemination activities with a sample of the target audience in two design workshops held in Nakuru and Kisumu

Outcome

  • After conducting a pilot campaign with KELIN (Kenya), we were able to curate and share our learnings and approaches through a community of practice with Planned Parenthood Federation (Nigeria) and UMATI (Tanzania)
  • We also developed a multi-media toolkit on strategic communications with examples and case studies for the SRHR community hosted on IPPF's Movement Accelerator platform

Case Study: Crisis Communications

Children's Investment Fund Foundation

Image © ISER

Country

Kenya, Ethiopia

Sector

Governance and Health

Deliverable

Crisis communications plans for Kenya and Ethiopia with attention to ASRH, Covid 19 impacts and elections

Challenge

To prepare for the unknowable

Approach

  • WMS worked with CIFF teams in Kenya and Ethiopia to review and assess their processes for dealing with communications in a crisis. Constrained by Covid 19, a lot of the work was done online with team members we had not been able to meet in person. This highlighted the importance of communicating clearly and helped the work to excel
  • We designed a methodology that teams could follow rather than preparing for specific crises; the crisis that arises is never the one for which you have prepared
  • Team members practiced a process that would work in the event of any crisis: who needed to be informed when and who needed to sign off on which communications

Outcome

  • CIFF now has in place a process that can be followed whatever the crisis and whomever is available to deal with it
  • Both Ethiopia and Kenya offices were well prepared to communicate about the crises that emerged over the last few years - fighting and hunger in Tigray and Amhara, ultimately peaceful elections and drought in Kenya
  • There is now a clear process in place that ensures that staff and dependants hear of crises before they appear in the media, and that both teams realise when to communicate and when to bring in the comms team to minimise reputational risk. Team members are confident of what they should and shouldn't do and are aware that management puts their safety and the safety of their partners first
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