From Impact to Action: Year-End Messaging & Marketing for Any Organization

December 3

1:00 PM  to 2:30 PM

FREE

Year-end is an opportunity to tell the story of what your organization accomplished, demonstrate its impact, and set the stage for the challenges and opportunities ahead. This webinar will help housing and homeless service organizations identify the successes, outcomes, and stories from the past year that are most meaningful to funders, partners, policymakers, and the public.

Participants will learn how to move beyond simply reporting activities and numbers to communicate impact—what changed, who benefited, and why the work matters.

Participants will walk through a simple, practical process for developing an annual marketing and messaging plan that identifies priority audiences, core messages, communication channels, content, and goals.

The webinar will introduce essential communications tools, including Canva for accessible graphic design and Hootsuite for planning, scheduling, and managing social media content.

Participants will also learn strategies for getting more value from existing resources by repurposing one success story, data point, or program update across newsletters, social media, websites, presentations, and stakeholder communications. Attendees will leave with a straightforward framework they can use to turn their organization’s accomplishments and priorities into a focused 2027 communications plan—even without a dedicated communications staff or large marketing budget.

 Amy Stephenson, Director of Communications

Amy Stephenson is a communications and nonprofit leader whose career has spanned education, the private sector, international work, and community-based advocacy. Her professional journey includes experience with Okemos-based Radmoor Montessori, work internationally in Europe and Mexico, and time in the legal sector, giving her a diverse perspective on communications, organizational leadership, and community engagement. She later brought that experience to the nonprofit sector, including serving as a founder and executive with Helping Women Period, where she helped advance the organization’s work addressing period poverty and access to essential health and hygiene products.

Today, Amy serves as Director of Communications for the Michigan Coalition Against Homelessness, where she uses marketing, messaging, public education, and storytelling to strengthen the Coalition’s statewide work. She helps translate complex issues surrounding homelessness and housing into accessible messages that engage service providers, advocates, policymakers, partners, and the public. Throughout her career, Amy’s work has centered on using communications not simply to promote organizations, but to build awareness, elevate community needs, and motivate people to take action.