D645 Task 2 Persona and Communications Strategy Example

Meet Carol, and Thank Her by Thursday: A Research-Based Volunteer Persona and Internal and External Communications Strategy for a Composite Regional Food Bank

Student Name

School of Business, Western Governors University

D645: Crafting a Communications Strategy Through Research and Data Insights, Task 2

Course Instructor

Month Day, Year

Meet Carol, and Thank Her by Thursday: A Research-Based Volunteer Persona and Internal and External Communications Strategy for a Composite Regional Food Bank

Purpose

Audience research at Heartland Harvest, a composite regional food bank, found that 61% of volunteers came only once, mainly because they were not thanked, did not see their impact and did not know when help was needed. Strategic communication is the purposeful use of communication by an organization to fulfill its mission (Hallahan et al., 2007); for Heartland Harvest, the mission depends on volunteers who come back. This strategy turns the research into a primary persona and internal and external plans aimed at raising the return rate of first-time volunteers from 39% to 55% within a year.

Why a Persona

A persona is a fictional but data-driven profile of a typical member of an audience, used to keep decisions focused on real people's goals and frustrations. Personas are most useful when they are built from research and used throughout a project, not written once and forgotten (Pruitt & Adlin, 2006). Heartland Harvest's research identified three segments; the primary persona represents purpose-seeking retirees because they return at the highest rate, 58%, and more of them go on to lead shifts than any other group. Secondary personas for students and corporate volunteers are summarized below.

Primary Persona: Carol Jenkins

Profile: Carol is 64, a retired middle school teacher who lives in a suburb of Kansas City with her husband. Her children live out of state. She uses email daily, texts with family, reads the local newspaper online and uses social media mainly to see photos of her grandchildren.

Goals: to use her time for something that matters, to feel useful and to meet people now that she no longer sees colleagues every day.

Motivations: in the survey, volunteers aged 55 and older rated expressing their values and social connection as their top reasons, consistent with research showing that volunteers stay when their experiences meet the needs that brought them (Clary et al., 1998).

Pain points: after her first shift, Carol heard nothing. She was not sure the food bank needed her again and did not know which shifts were short. Packing boxes for three hours without learning where they went felt less meaningful than she expected.

Preferred channels: email for information, text for timely reminders, and personal conversation at the end of a shift.

Quote from the survey that shaped the persona: I would come every week if someone told me they needed me.

Secondary Personas

Jordan, 20, a college student completing service hours, wants flexible shifts and something to show for the experience. Messages emphasize skills and a certificate of hours, delivered by text and campus social media.

Kevin, 38, an employee attending a corporate team day, enjoyed the event but has never considered volunteering alone. Messages emphasize an easy personal return, such as bringing his children to a family shift.

Key Messages

For Carol: You made a difference, and we need you again. Each follow-up message states the concrete impact of her shift, such as your team packed 4,800 meals for families in Wyandotte County, and invites her to a specific upcoming shift.

For all volunteers: Hunger does not take a holiday, and neither do our neighbors, a line used for summer and post-holiday shortages.

External Strategy

A thank-you and impact email sent two days after a volunteer's first shift at the latest, with the meals packed, a photo from the shift and a one-click link to sign up again.

Opt-in text alerts for shifts that are less than half full, sent at most twice a week, which addresses the top reason volunteers gave for not returning.

Monthly volunteer newsletter by email telling one family's story, with permission, and showing the month's total impact.

Recruitment in community newspapers, senior centers and retirement associations featuring real regular volunteers like Carol, emphasizing company and purpose.

Internal Strategy

The research showed that appreciation and a sense of impact happen inside the organization, so staff and volunteer shift leads are central to the strategy. Every shift lead gets a short written guide, plus a half-hour training, on ending each shift with a thank-you, the shift's meal count and a personal invitation to return. Weekly internal emails will give leads the next week's understaffed shifts so they can mention them in person. Warehouse staff will add a five-minute story at the start of each shift about where the food goes. Staff will see return rates by shift each month and can connect their own thank-yous to the numbers.

Timeline and Budget

The strategy can start within six weeks and costs little. In the first two weeks, the communications team writes templates for the thank-you email, text alerts and shift lead guide, and the volunteer office sets up automated sending from the scheduling system, which already stores email addresses and mobile numbers for volunteers who opt in. Weeks three and four are for training the 40 current shift leads in small groups. In weeks five and six, the team tests the thank-you email on half of new volunteers and compares their return rate with the other half before sending it to everyone. The only new costs are the text message service, estimated at $1,200 a year, and printing for recruitment flyers at senior centers, about $800. Staff time is the main investment, roughly four hours a week from the volunteer coordinator once the system is running.

Measures

Return rate of first-time volunteers within 90 days, by segment, against a target of 55% overall and 70% for retirees; fill rate of shifts that received text alerts; email open and click rates for thank-you messages; and the number of volunteers who become regulars, defined as six or more shifts a year. Results will be reviewed quarterly and the persona updated with new survey data each year.

Conclusion

Carol is not hard to keep; she simply needs to be thanked, shown her impact and told when she is needed. Building the strategy around a research-based persona, and making staff and shift leads part of the communication, gives Heartland Harvest a practical way to turn one-time volunteers into regulars.

References

Clary, E. G., Snyder, M., Ridge, R. D., Copeland, J., Stukas, A. A., Haugen, J., & Miene, P. (1998). Understanding and assessing the motivations of volunteers: A functional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(6), 1516-1530. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.6.1516

Hallahan, K., Holtzhausen, D., van Ruler, B., Verčič, D., & Sriramesh, K. (2007). Defining strategic communication. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 1(1), 3-35. https://doi.org/10.1080/15531180701285244

Pruitt, J., & Adlin, T. (2006). The persona lifecycle: Keeping people in mind throughout product design. Morgan Kaufmann.