The Hinton Center provides individuals and church groups with opportunities to reflect and renew commitments to themselves, their communities and their faith. Money earned by the Center is used to improve housing in its rural North Carolina community. But with a small staff and tight budget, communications routinely fell off the radar.
Hinton staff attended our communications bootcamp sponsored by the North Carolina Network of Grantmakers. Together we prepared a strategic communications plan focused on core tactics. We prepared a social media strategy; developed a comprehensive media list; assembled a marketing calendar for the year; and began collecting testimonals.
Efforts to increase awareness worked. In just one year, the Hinton team increased website traffic by more than 20,000 visitors; a newsletter went from two to 10 issues a year; Facebook friends increased 500 percent.