I spent about ten years building a communications airplane while flying it. 

The nonprofits I worked with were getting all the right things in place – brand guides, strategic editorial calendars, connections with the press, differentiation between communications and fundraising. I was getting promoted, and I even got to hire some direct reports to take fundraising off my plate.

And I was somehow completely lost.

I was asked to be strategic, to set a vision for the future of our organizations, but I had no model of communications leadership to follow. I was tired, confused, and feeling very directionless.

Some soul searching, coaching conversations with Nonprofit Marketing Guide’s Kivi Leroux Miller through the Communications Mentoring program, long chats with my husband over late night cups of tea, and a few well-placed conversations at conferences fully illuminated the problem: I had never once reported to or trained with a communications leader myself. 

Nonprofit communicators are often isolated people.

It’s a situation that I now encounter over and over again in the NPMG community and in my Level Up To Lead mentorship cohort – nonprofit communicators who only have ever had a fundraiser or executive director as their boss. They are often the first serious communications hire the organization has ever had. They got hired because they were good with Canva, a camera, or MailChimp, and because they overfunction and figure it out as they go. Suddenly, they’re raised up to a manager-level position without any leadership trail guide on the path in front of them. 

My experience isn’t an anomaly; it’s a symptom of a larger maturation moment in the nonprofit sector. Audiences expect you to meet them where they are, and there is more noise than ever in the marketplace of “things to care about.” Shop-of-one nonprofit communicators have been fighting to make their missions known, and succeeding against the odds in ways that get them promotion and tenure.

And now that they’re arriving as communications managers and directors and even VPs, they’re looking around and all asking the same question: Wait, how the heck do I actually learn to run this thing? 

For me, that looked like a career pivot. I left my high-level role at a local nonprofit and took a less-senior role at a nationwide advocacy organization that was a team of 20 communicators. I observed, for the first time, how teams of MarComm and outreach professionals at the top of their game were working together to create needed, measurable change. I learned first-hand from people who used the same professional toolkit that I did, wildly accelerating my skill growth in a short window of time. 

Getting to work first-hand with nonprofit communications leaders is transformative.

I believe that everybody should have the opportunity I had – but I also know that “career pivot” is a big leap that not everybody wants to take – which is why I find it so edifying to be a leadership cohort mentor with NPMG. 75% of my current cohort participants do not report to a “communications boss”; something like a VP of MarComm, a director of communications, an executive director from an internal relations background, or even a board member with communications oversight. When trying to model their career path forward, there is nobody to look towards, even as they sometimes also have junior staff members looking to them. Nonprofits must be strategic with their limited resources. When you are already the most senior communicator at an organization and you need to grow, mentorship and coaching can become the most efficient way to bridge the leadership gap.

If you’re a shop-of-one communicator (or you manage somebody who is) here’s a few things you can do to support your professional development:

1. Hire a mentor or a coach. You need that “leadership trail guide”, someone who has successfully navigated the path you are currently on. A mentor or coach provides the objective perspective you lack when you’re stuck in the day-to-day execution. They can help you pivot from being the person who “does” communications to being the leader who directs it, offering guidance on how to manage up, set vision, and build the systems you’ve never had the opportunity to model yourself.
2. Join a peer community. There is immense power in knowing you aren’t the only one wrestling with these unique challenges. Peer communities offer a safe harbor to share resources, vent, and normalize the “imposter syndrome” that often comes with being the first-ever communications hire. When you share your hurdles with others in your shoes, you often find that you aren’t just solving tactical problems; you’re building a professional support network that acts as a vital safety net.
3. Invest in conferences or events specific to your skillset. It is easy to stagnate when you are the only expert in the room. Immersing yourself in conferences allows you to step away from your organization’s daily grind and observe what “good” looks like from industry leaders. It’s not just about the formal sessions; it’s about the informal hallway conversations where you can ask, “How are you handling this?” and realize you have a bigger toolkit and more options than you previously imagined.
4. Volunteer in organizations with strong communications teams. This is perhaps the most underrated growth hack available – that requires no professional development budget at all. Offer your time or skills to a larger, more established organization where you can observe a high-functioning, multi-person communications team in action. By being a “fly on the wall,” you can reverse-engineer their workflows, team structures, and decision-making processes. It acts as an unofficial apprenticeship for the experienced, allowing you to learn leadership by observation without the immediate, heavy weight of organizational responsibility.

You don’t have to go it alone. 

There are all sorts of ways that you can find connection, partnership, and mentoring within the Nonprofit Marketing Guide community – and you’ll get real people, with real experience, who can speak to your situation as an emerging nonprofit communications leader. 

We have a free online community where you can immediately start talking to and learning from other nonprofit communicators. 

Looking for something more active? We offer ongoing live webinars and training sessions, which you can register for on a case by case basis. Or, you can sign up for the All Access Pass and attend every webinar, as well as see archived webinars for up to six months.

If you’re ready to take things to the next level after that, we have 12-week long mentoring cohorts (like the one I mentioned above) that occur throughout the year. Up next is “Prove It: Impact Reporting” starting in January, with the inimitable senior advisor Faigy Gilder.

We’re here for you. When we level up the field of nonprofit communicators who are passionate about their missions, our world just becomes better as a result. It’s a honor to support your career journey.