Best Communication Applications for CEVGV

In my time as a consultant for the Center for Empowering Victims of Gender-Based Violence (CEVGV), one of the main strategies that remains constant is the importance of using consistent, strategic and concise communication. This holds true more than most when considering that CEVGV is a non-profit organization with scarce resources. Utilizing the what, how, and where of communication from CEVGV is shared affects the effectiveness of CEVGV's success in reaching a wider community, raising awareness, empowering survivors, and collaboration efforts. In my Business Communications class, I was able to test and compare a variety of business communication applications and tools. I found three that really stood out that would be extremely beneficial to have in CEVGV's wheelhouse. 

 Trello – 

Slogan - "Trello helps teams work more collaboratively and get more done."

Focuses: Teamwork, Project Management and Organization

Trello boasts itself as a resourceful, simple, but effective tool. It is a tasks board that is able to foster collaboration between teams by managing team responsibilities and assigning different tasks, deadlines, and archiving information for future retrieval. Accessibility is a benefit when utilizing Trello among teams. Whoever creates the task board is able to invite other members and allow different levels of access. When considering CEVGV, Trello can organize social media content and planning, events, marketing, meeting, and coordination efforts by members of the CEVGV team. Boards can be customized into columns meeting each users or organizations needs. Examples include, To Do, In Progress, and Complete. This is an extremely beneficial feature with teams needing to track their progress in a quick and efficient manner. 

Trello was specifically utilized in my Business Communications course to delegate tasks, assign responsibilities, create deadlines, and create accountability. By streamlining the workflow process, every team member is able to work together asynchronously. 

Canva – 
Slogan - "Empowering the world to design."
Focuses: Making design accessible to everyone, despite their professional background, by offering easy to use graphic design platform. 
Canva is a design application and tool that allows its user to create graphics in a variety of different formats, that are both professional in design and visually appealing. Graphics and templates available include social media content, presentations, whiteboards, flyers, and many more products. CEVGV can use Canva to create content and products that are visually engaging and consistent across all formats and platforms. The best part is this application is free and while there is a pro version if someone wishes to access some of the more sophisticated features and graphics, even that version is affordable to most. This eliminates the needs for a dedicated design team member. Canva can also be public, so many team members will be able to access and edit content as needed. 
Throughout the CEVGV's campaign to design data driven social media content for my Business Communication course, Canva was an easy choice considering its user-friendly interface, great amount of available templates and features, and branding consistency. This allowed me to create both impactful and visually appealing content that would help drive engagement. 
Buffer – 
Slogan - "A simpler way to publish on social media."
Buffer is a social media management tool and platform application that teams can access to post content on a schedule, track their engagement performance, and crosspost on multiple social media platforms, all with the click of a button. This would be absolutely beneficial to CEVGV, which likely does not have the time or resources to keep a social media manager on staff. 

Consistently posting on social media can become a challenge, especially if you are relying on different team members to rotate that responsibility. Buffer eliminates some of that burden by allowing users to plan content ahead to be posted, analyze performance data, and use that data to adjust their social media content and campaign to increase performance. Buffer offers an easy-to-use interface that teams can use to moderate their comment sections. 

Buffer would be ideal when creating a social media campaign such as Survivor Stories Spotlight series. It also offers a discount to verifiable nonprofit organizations that need access to better resources and applications. 

Trello, Canva, and Buffer offer CEVGV a chance to elevate their communication strategies. These applications offer graphic design tools, social media management and engagement, and organization and project management techniques. CEVGV can effectively operate, collaborate, organize, and manage their efforts to reach further and make more of an impact than ever before. 

Resources: 

Trello (Atlassian)

Atlassian. (n.d.). Trello – Collaborate, manage projects, and reach new productivity peaks. https://trello.com/

Canva

Canva. (n.d.). Empowering the world to design. https://www.canva.com/

Buffer

Buffer. (n.d.). A simpler way to schedule, publish, and analyze your social media posts. https://buffer.com/

Nonprofit Communication Strategy (General Reference)

Greenberg, M., & MacAulay, M. (2009). Nonprofit communication effectiveness. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 19(3), 295–320. https://doi.org/10.1002/nml.217