Once you have identified your audience, it is time to shape ideas you want to communicate to your audience. These messages should be tied to the mission of your organization and the goals of your communications effort. In shaping your message it is important to ask certain questions:

• How large is my audience?
• What kind of message will they respond to?
• Through what platforms are they best reached (Internet, radio, TV, print)?
• What kind of information do they need from my organization?
• What language will resonate with my audience?

The following tools and resources will help you shape your message and write for the appropriate medium in a clear and articulate manner. Once you have shaped your message, you can implement an outreach campaign that specifically reaches the audience you have chosen.

Tools & Resources:
Use these how-to articles and tip sheets to learn how to shape your organization's message.

Message, Message, Message
These nine strategies for shaping message, developed for successful interviewing, can apply to thinking about developing a message for your communications effort. Green Room has also developed this message development tool to help organizations think through their key messages. (Adobe Acrobat Reader is needed to view this tool.)

Now Hear This: Clear, Simple, Concise Messages
This publication from Fenton Communications describes how a clear message can help build support for your cause. It also stresses the importance of those messages resonating with your target audience.

Evaluation Exchange: A Conversation with Susan Nall Bates
In the Winter 2001 issue of the Evaluation Exchange, Susan Nall Bates, president of the FrameWorks Institute, discusses strategic framing of messages for a communications campaign.

Op-Eds: A Cost-Effective Strategy for Advocacy
In addition to outlining strategies for using op-eds to educate the public, policymakers and the media, this Benton publication also includes several case studies. (49 pages, requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)

72 Reasons Why Email Is Still The Killer App
Email can be an effective means of communicating with your audience. The fourth issue of the Dot Org newsletter lists the ways email can streamline communications within your organization as well as aid in advocacy and outreach.

Sending Effective Email
Communicating through e-mail is very different from communicating in print. This guide from ONE/Northwest contains ten tips to help you create an effective message when using e-mail. See also their Making the Most of Email for software recommendations, tutorials and strategies for using email effectively and powerfully.

Are You Ready for Email Publishing?
If you've already made the decision to publish an email newsletter, this short tip sheet provides useful information on how to create it. Suggestions include keeping text short, formatting the information for optimum readability and sending audience-specific mailings.

Lights…Action…Camera! Creating a video message on the cheap
This article from the Nonprofit Times offers a step-by-step guide for using video to aid in the fundraising goals of your organization. This includes specific tips on how to storyboard such a video. The companion article Fundraising Videos: Part II outlines the various technical needs for producing such a video.

Good Documents
Writing for the Web is not the same as writing for print. Good Documents lists tips for content providers who write for the Web -- especially content that will be read on the screen.

Tips for Effective Online Media
These guidelines from NetAction suggest a few ways to shape your message and prepare press releases for e-mail distribution.