In the summer of 2014, I created and implemented a name change for the Institute, from the Institute for Human Adjustment to the Mary A. Rackham Institute. At the same time, I was enrolled in a class entitled Writing for Nonprofits, in which I learned extensively about communication for nonprofit organizations, especially digitally. I used the facts, skills, and trends that I learned in class to educate my communication plan for the Institute. The communication plan involved creating a comprehensive communication plan, detailing our message, audience, tactics, timeline, and measurement benchmarks. This communication plan directed the months of work to completely change the name and image of the Institute.
Communication Plan
The Institute for Human Adjustment Name Change to The Mary A. Rackham Institute
Report: April 24, 2014
Report: April 24, 2014
The Institute for Human Adjustment is officially changing its name to The Mary A. Rackham Institute, effective July 1, 2014. This communication plan lays out an active approach in communicating the name change to our stakeholders.
Purpose: what is this plan for?
The purpose of this report is to outline our goals in communicating the Institute’s name change and the specific actions we will take to achieve those goals. This plan dictates what we would like to accomplish with our communication, how we will respond to possible threats in changing our name and specific tactics for communicating our new name.
Objectives: what results do we want to achieve?
Our aim is to inform the entire community, specifically: current clients, university departments, doctors, parents/families, and schools in Ann Arbor and surrounding communities. These groups are motivated and reached in very different ways, requiring the organization to use a variety of promotions in order to reach as much of the institute’s audience as possible.
It’s also important to remember that our audience includes our staff, trainees, and volunteers. With our three separate centers, a majority of communication and information is found through our website or social media pages. With this in mind, the communication will focus on staff as well as external clients.
Strategy: how do we want to communicate with our audiences?
The information that the institute will be communicating is different than what we usually promote (events and services). Rhetorical choices, such as tone of voice and visual appeal, will not be the same for communication about the organization’s name change as they are for event promotion. In the efforts to bring about awareness and understanding of our name change, in turn maintaining our current connection with the community, the tone of promotions will have to be more personal or conversational. Standardized posts or flyers with information and flat tones are effective in promoting events, however it is important for the organization to be transparent in this name change and be seen as personable, not robotic or commercial.
Specifically regarding rhetorical choices in content, the content should focus more highly on The Mary A. Rackham name and the services provided by the centers. Although it is necessary to include that The Mary A. Rackham institute was formerly the Institute for Human Adjustment for the audience members who do know our previous name, there is also a great amount of the public that have not heard of the Institute for Human Adjustment at the moment. If that unaware audience reads “The Institute for Human Adjustment is now the Mary A. Rackham Institute” they will likely lose interest and not even read on until the services are described. The change in the name should be the last sentence or worded as “The Mary A. Rackham Institute, formerly known as The Institute for Human Adjustment”.
With the manner of communication in mind, it’s important to consider how people are finding information about the institute. Our Feb 2012 user needs survey showed that over 30% of our engaged audience found the website via search engines. Additionally, it was found that the site is either very low on the search list or does not come up at all. Therefore, in order to ensure the word is out about The Mary A. Rackham Institute name change, we need to focus more energy on our Search Engine Optimization, which will help our current audience as well as bring in new people.
In regards to logistics and timing, once the name change becomes official on July 1, the Institute should actively promote the change and progressively eliminate documents, signs or information including the old name, Institute for Human Adjustment. Please see the timeline near the end of this document for more details. All of the preparation for this should be done before July 1, in order to put all tactics into effect come July.
Key Messages: what do we want to communicate to our audience?
When we change our name from The Institute for Human Adjustment to The Mary A. Rackham Institute, we will need to understand how that change has affected us and our relationship with our audiences. Below is listed the numbers of likes and followers for the Institute’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. These will be used as benchmarks to reference back to after we have changed the name. If the numbers have decreased, we will know there is a problem with our communication and people are unfriending or unfollowing our pages because they don’t understand the change in name.
This list dictates the four main channels that we will use in order to create content to communicate: printed materials, enewsletter, website posts and social media posts.
With the name change going into effect July 1, 2014, we plan to prepare a majority of the materials and content in the preceding months May and June. Starting July 1st we will roll out the promotions to the public and we will spend August and September, most likely months after as well, cleaning up old IHA materials. The importance lies in creating new Mary A. Rackham Institute material and we will get rid of the old material as we go.
May and June: preparation
Purpose: what is this plan for?
The purpose of this report is to outline our goals in communicating the Institute’s name change and the specific actions we will take to achieve those goals. This plan dictates what we would like to accomplish with our communication, how we will respond to possible threats in changing our name and specific tactics for communicating our new name.
Objectives: what results do we want to achieve?
- awareness and understanding of name change for our stakeholders, see IHA Stakeholders document for detailed list.
- minimal loss of connection with stakeholders
Our aim is to inform the entire community, specifically: current clients, university departments, doctors, parents/families, and schools in Ann Arbor and surrounding communities. These groups are motivated and reached in very different ways, requiring the organization to use a variety of promotions in order to reach as much of the institute’s audience as possible.
It’s also important to remember that our audience includes our staff, trainees, and volunteers. With our three separate centers, a majority of communication and information is found through our website or social media pages. With this in mind, the communication will focus on staff as well as external clients.
Strategy: how do we want to communicate with our audiences?
The information that the institute will be communicating is different than what we usually promote (events and services). Rhetorical choices, such as tone of voice and visual appeal, will not be the same for communication about the organization’s name change as they are for event promotion. In the efforts to bring about awareness and understanding of our name change, in turn maintaining our current connection with the community, the tone of promotions will have to be more personal or conversational. Standardized posts or flyers with information and flat tones are effective in promoting events, however it is important for the organization to be transparent in this name change and be seen as personable, not robotic or commercial.
Specifically regarding rhetorical choices in content, the content should focus more highly on The Mary A. Rackham name and the services provided by the centers. Although it is necessary to include that The Mary A. Rackham institute was formerly the Institute for Human Adjustment for the audience members who do know our previous name, there is also a great amount of the public that have not heard of the Institute for Human Adjustment at the moment. If that unaware audience reads “The Institute for Human Adjustment is now the Mary A. Rackham Institute” they will likely lose interest and not even read on until the services are described. The change in the name should be the last sentence or worded as “The Mary A. Rackham Institute, formerly known as The Institute for Human Adjustment”.
With the manner of communication in mind, it’s important to consider how people are finding information about the institute. Our Feb 2012 user needs survey showed that over 30% of our engaged audience found the website via search engines. Additionally, it was found that the site is either very low on the search list or does not come up at all. Therefore, in order to ensure the word is out about The Mary A. Rackham Institute name change, we need to focus more energy on our Search Engine Optimization, which will help our current audience as well as bring in new people.
In regards to logistics and timing, once the name change becomes official on July 1, the Institute should actively promote the change and progressively eliminate documents, signs or information including the old name, Institute for Human Adjustment. Please see the timeline near the end of this document for more details. All of the preparation for this should be done before July 1, in order to put all tactics into effect come July.
Key Messages: what do we want to communicate to our audience?
- The Institute for Human Adjustment is now becoming The Mary A. Rackham Institute.
- The history of Mary A. Rackham and why we are changing the name
- Mary A. Rackham had an abiding interest in the alleviation of human suffering and collaborated with President Ruthven and Dean Yoakum on the idea of the institute.
- The Institute began in 1935 when Mary A. Rackham funded $1,000,000 to create an institute that would provide social and rehabilitative services to individuals from the University and surrounding communities and would perform research in the field of human adjustment.
- The specified purpose for the Institute, coinciding with Horace Rackham’s School of Graduate Studies 1935 Agreement, was “rehabilitation of those individuals who by reason of old age, unemployment, illness or other causes have become unable to function properly as useful and self-supporting members of society.”
- $500,000 more was added later to the Mary A. Rackham Fund, for the Institute, by the Rackham Trustees
- The name change is to honor Mary A. Rackham’s dedication and work she put into creating the institute and sustaining it.
- The University Center for the Child and the Family, The University Center for the Development of Language and Literacy as well as the Psychological Clinic will remain a part of the Institute.
- Our mission is
- to serve the University of Michigan and the surrounding region with evaluation and intervention programs of the highest quality to assist individuals, couples and families with mental health/behavioral health concerns and with difficulties related to language, literacy, and communication.
- to provide excellent educational opportunities and training programs for graduate and postgraduate students in these areas, including training in the delivery of clinical services and in the integration of science and practice.
- to provide community education and outreach services in these areas.
- Our Core Values are
- Compassionate and Science-Informed Clinical Services
- Excellence in Clinical Training
- Quality of Life
- Respect for Diverse Values and Goals
- The services, policies, etc. are not changing.
- Tagline:
- for excellence in clinical service and professional training
When we change our name from The Institute for Human Adjustment to The Mary A. Rackham Institute, we will need to understand how that change has affected us and our relationship with our audiences. Below is listed the numbers of likes and followers for the Institute’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. These will be used as benchmarks to reference back to after we have changed the name. If the numbers have decreased, we will know there is a problem with our communication and people are unfriending or unfollowing our pages because they don’t understand the change in name.
- IHA Facebook: 299 likes
- IHA Twitter: 49 followers
- UMAP Facebook: 242 likes
- UMAP Twitter: 36 followers
- UCLL Twitter: 7 followers
- Active Email Subscribers on Constant Contact: 2058
- Google Analytics:
- 76.06% new visits
- UCLL is the most visited page
- 55.19% bounce rate
This list dictates the four main channels that we will use in order to create content to communicate: printed materials, enewsletter, website posts and social media posts.
- physical marketing
- bus signs : diag picture as background, Mary A. Rackham Institute, logo and URL
- postcards for mailing
- flyer distribution
- direct mail: large mailing list to doctors, referrals, lawyers and clients
- campus mail: university department mailing list, with a contact in each department
- press release
- University News Service: Laura Lessnau, Director: (734) 764-7260
- University Public Affairs: Jared Wadley, Senior Public Relations Representative
- specializes in psychology, sociology, and social work among a few other subjects
- specializes in psychology, sociology, and social work among a few other subjects
- email newsletters
- current clients and colleagues subscribed to our email newsletters
- website content
- news and events
- blog posts
- social media: mostly clients and colleagues who like/follow our pages
- Google +
- paid advertisements
- Washtenaw County Mental Health Networker
- Metro Parent
- target email to campus
- other blogs
- Rackham Graduate School Blog
- research other blog sites
- email newsletter
- to email subscription list
- explaining: “We have changed from The Institute for Human Adjustment to The Mary A. Rackham Institute”
- include history of Mary A. Rackham’s donation
- our policies and services are still the same
- As our Feb 2012 survey showed, links in enewsletters bring traffic to the site, therefore:
- link to the new website in the enewsletters
- link to social media accounts
- posts on social media (facebook and twitter)
- 2-3 times per week for the first few weeks using variety of information laid out in Key Terms
- personable, conversational tone
- multiple posts about upcoming name change
- explain history of Mary A. Rackham (why we are changing it)
- example: “Today, we are changing the name of The Institute for Human Adjustment to the Mary. A Rakcham Institute to honor Mary’s dedication and donation to create and sustain the institute.”
- posts on website
- informational, brief
- explain upcoming change that will occur
- example: news event up on the front page, “Welcome to our new address! Although we are still the same people, we are now The Mary A. Rackham Institute and have a new URL as well, here’s why (link)”
- flyers and posters
- explaining that the name change is coming
- showing our old logo next to our new logo as well as big letters in order to show the change visually
- include image of Mary A. Rackham
- shorter blurb about why we are changing to her name: “Mary A. Rackham funded the creation of the institute as well as sustained it for years after. She was dedicated to working with human adjustment and providing for the community. Therefore we are changing our name in order to honor her and her work.”
- posted around office for clients or potential client
- mailing to:
- parents and families of the community
- doctors and other practitioners
- university departments
- schools of the community
- explaining that the name change is coming
- email newsletter
- Change branding:
- new logos:
- UCCF
- UCLL
- Psychological Clinic
- Institute in general
- website URL: currently iha.umich.edu
- make old URL (iha.umich.edu) redirects to new
- suggestion: rackhaminstitute.umich.edu, mari.umich,edu
- Facebook, Twitter, other social media and online account names
- Sign outside of both buildings
- Flyers, posters and other materials in the office that clients see
- create new layout for email newsletters and flyers
- new logos:
- Content changes:
- update content on websites for all departments with name reference
- update all policy documents
With the name change going into effect July 1, 2014, we plan to prepare a majority of the materials and content in the preceding months May and June. Starting July 1st we will roll out the promotions to the public and we will spend August and September, most likely months after as well, cleaning up old IHA materials. The importance lies in creating new Mary A. Rackham Institute material and we will get rid of the old material as we go.
May and June: preparation
- get new logos made
- Create a letter to stakeholders from Cheryl
- work on new URL
- possibly purchase (?) rackhaminstitute.umich.edu
- get new envelopes, cards and stationery made
- get new flyer design made
- Get outdoor signs made
- Design paid advertisements, set up and buy
- Work with University News to create press release
- Design name change flyers, posters and postcards
- get printed
- Decide on social media account names
- Create social media profile pictures and cover photos
- Make web posts, social posts, enewsletters, blog posts and target campus emails’
- Find all places on website where IHA is referenced and change
- possibly save in drafts on drupal and publish when name change goes into effect
- Title of website change in header to Mary A. Rackham Institute
- include tagline here: for excellence in mental health, language, and literacy services
- put new URL into effect
- have old URL forward to new URL
- post on website homepage explaining the site and the name change
- put changes of IHA reference throughout website into effect
- change social media names and pictures
- post on social media accounts explaining and promoting
- link to website
- put up new outdoor signs on both buildings
- send out press release via University News
- hang posters in office, handout flyers
- mail flyers/postcards to mailing list of stakeholders
- send enewsletter detailing change to e-subscribers
- post on blogs
- have paid ads begin circulating July 1
- clean out of all old IHA materials
- number of Google searches for Mary A. Rackham Institute
- comparison of benchmarks
- number of followers, friends, enewsletter subscriptions and website views
- number of followers, friends, enewsletter subscriptions and website views