• Why you need a communications plan
• When to do a communications plan
• The elements of a communications plan
  • Background: where are you now?
  • Objectives: what do you want to accomplish?
  • Messages: what do you want to say?
  • Target audiences: who do you want to say it to?
  • Strategic considerations: what else should you consider when communicating?
  • Approach and activities: how will you get your message out?
  • Resources: money and people
  • Evaluation: how will you know your plan is working?
• Putting your plan into action
• Revising the plan

Why you need a communications plan (a.k.a. communications strategy)

Model forests have much to say to many different people. They may need to keep people in the local area up to date on projects and events, and persuade them to become model forest partners. Model forests may want to make sure that policy-makers know about their experiments with new ways of implementing sustainable forest management. And they need to share their successes and challenges with other model forests in the international network.

It's difficult to do all of this well without a plan. But your communications strategy doesn't have to be complex. In fact, the best strategies are often the simplest ones.  

Perhaps the most important thing to remember when writing a communications plan is to have fun and be creative. When you're enthusiastic about what's going on in the model forest, it's easier to get other people interested as well.

When to do a communications plan

You need a communications plan whenever you communicating with the public. It's a good idea to have an overarching strategy for all model forest communications, as well as "mini" communications plans for projects such as a newsletter, or a major event, such as a conference. The overarching strategy could be a one- or two-year plan, or longer. 

The elements of a communications plan

Background: Where are you now?

Start by thinking about how the model forest is communicating now. Are you saying what you want to say, to the people you want to say it to? By taking some time to think about the current situation, you'll be ready for the next step—setting some objectives.

Objectives: What do you want to accomplish?

Why do you want to communicate with people? Is it to raise the profile of the model forest among decision-makers? To get people interested in supporting research projects? Or to encourage local people to adopt new techniques developed in the model forest?

Of course you can't do everything, so try to keep your objectives realistic. The best communications plans have no more than four to six objectives.

Messages: What do you want to say?

The best messages are short and simple. Using the examples in the first paragraph, the messages might be the following:

• Model forests are leaders in sustainable forest management
• Model forest research is practical and leads to improvements in forest management
• Model forests are a source of new approaches to forest management that will work well for local people

Target audiences: Who do you want to say it to?

Most model forests communicate with many different audiences, including:

• policy-makers (local and national)
• like-minded organizations
• the media
• academics, researchers and educational institutions
• the forest industry
• Aboriginal peoples
• community groups
• environmentalists, recreationalists and conservationists

In a bulleted list, such as the one above, list all of the audiences—local, national and international—you want to reach.

Strategic considerations: What else should you consider when communicating?

Make a list of the most important influences—local, national and international—on the way the model forest communicates. You may want to consider local views of the model forest, national forest initiatives, and the activities or priorities of the International Model Forest Network, for example. 

Approach and activities: How will you get your message out?

Everything you've done so far is preparation for this part of the plan, where you set out how you're going to achieve your objectives. Don't forget to keep your messages, audiences and strategic considerations in mind.

Start by deciding on your approach, then make a list of activities that support it.

For example, if your objective is to raise the profile of the model forest among decision-makers, your approach to achieving this objective could be to support efforts to share the results of model forest research with local, national and international decision-makers.

Activities that support this approach could include organizing workshops to demonstrate new techniques developed in the model forest to decision-makers, or putting together a newsletter about model forest research and distributing it to decision-makers.

Resources: Money and people

What you can do depends on how many people can help with communications and how much money you have to spend. Estimating how much money you can dedicate to communications as a whole, as well as to each activity, is essential. This is another reason for doing a communications strategy—by helping you figure out what the most important messages are and the best ways to get them across, a strategy helps you ensure that your resources are well-used. 

Evaluation: How will you know if your plan is working?

If your objective is to encourage local people to adopt new techniques developed in the model forest, how will you know whether you've accomplished this? By counting the number of people who attend a workshop? By visiting local communities and seeing whether the techniques are being used?

Putting the plan into action

Your communications plan should include an action plan that explains:

• what you're going to do
• when you're going to do it
• who is going to do it
• how much it will cost

For example, if part of your communications plan is to launch a newsletter, part of your action plan might look like this:

Date	Activity	Lead	Support	Costs
February 2004 to March 2004	write articles for spring newsletter	the person leading the writing	people supporting the work (e.g., writers)
April 2004	edit and lay out articles	the person in charge of editing and layout	editor, designer
May 2004	print and distribute the newsletter	the person in charge of this stage of the project	printer, distributors

Revising the plan

No one can predict the future. You may find that the objectives you had in January have changed by May. You may find that an approach isn't working, and need to find another way to get your message across. You may have fewer resources than you had thought, or some extra money or people may make it possible to do something you hadn't considered possible. Keep the communications plan simple, and it will be easy to update it as things change.