1. Strategic Communications Training Budgeting & Costing for Strategic Communications X State MDA

2. Welcome Note
Opening Remarks
Programme Information

3. Participant Introductions
Name
MDA you represent
Job Title
What you hope to gain from the training? –Participant priorities

4. Roadmap for Day Training Objectives
Budgeting/Costing for Strategic Communications
Breakout Exercise: Budgeting & Costing
Q & A
Wrap Up & Next Steps
Evaluations

5. Training Objectives Improve:
MDA appreciation and understanding of the need for communications budgeting and costing of media relations activities.
Ministry capacity to develop and design effective communications budgets to support policy-making or reforms.

6. Budgeting/Costing for Strategic Communications

7. Budgeting/costing Process
Funding
A critical success factor
Must be in place as early as possible, or is a constraint– internal comms needs often overlooked; crucial for success of policy
Approaches
Comms budget is fixed, Strategy written to the budget
Strategy is developed.... Funding is sourced
EXAMPLE?
Sources of funding & how arranged
Developing a Costed Workplan
Keen attention must be given to communication and outreach
Do not underestimate the time needed to research cost factors and make strategic decisions
Typically, there is more communications work to do on policy issues than there is money to do it. That makes it critically important to be strategic in our planning and decision-making regarding MDA communications– so that we choose the activites that will have the greatest impact or chance of success.
Some sources of funding include:
MDA budget
it is good when possible to prepare budgets to fit into your MDA’s annual overall submission to Ministry of Finance
other MDAs with interest/stake in the policy issue
Federal Ministry with interest/stake in policy issue
Teaming with private sector or other relevant stakeholders as relevant to fund certain events– in-kind contributions
Costing: this includes many, many details, for example:
printing brochures– different sizes, paper quality, formats, etc
PSAs jingles- production cost, airtime, voice actors, etc.
workshops– venue rental, equipment, travel/accommodation/food costs for participants, production of materials, etc
It takes a great deal of time to track down all these costs. Yet if not done, the budget will not be accurate.
It is best to keep a running list of costs and update frequently to save having to ’re-create the wheel’. That way, each budget can be prepared more easily

8. Key Costing Considerations
Stakeholder research: benchmarking + monitoring
Costs for implementation
Media
“pay-to-play”, Brown envelope
seminars for journalists
field visits
production costs
Layout, Design, Printing, Radio, TV production
If stakeholder research is to be done, it can be a major expense and needs to be built in at the beginning– as well as at intervals of longer comms campaigns to evaluate progress and neeeds for adjusting messages, approaches, etc.

9. Key Costing Considerations cont’d
Advertising
Radio PSAs
jingles
earpieces/banner ads
Roadshows, technical workshops, retreats
Rental of hall
Print materials
Transport
Lodging, food
Rental of audio-visual
Website
Development
Maintenance
hosting fees

10. Budgeting/costing: Making Smart Choices
Never enough $$ to do all that could be done
Smart choices maximise results
Prioritise stakeholders
Who must be reached vs. who is merely useful to reach
How best to reach them:
Information vs. dialogue, 1-way vs. 2-way comms
How much to spend on each approach, target group
Target audience and objectives determine the tools and how much money to spend on them
Budgetary constraints- to avoid impediments or limitation during the implementation stage, it is advisable to work with in a less ambitious budget;
Creating vast programmes and ’big-ticket’ budgets may scare off officials and make it easier for them to reject the proposed comms activities.
We cover advantages and disadvantages of different approaches in Module on ”Selecting the Right Tools”

11. Hard choices: what to think about
The amount of money decides what can be done
Hard choices = prioritsing stakeholders, best tools for impact
Internal + external stakeholders
Media vs. non-media communication tools
Radio program versus community meeting
Jingles or PSAs
Geographical balance
Combining non-media with media
Community meeting + radio broadcast
Which non-media approach is best
distribute flyers or hold a community meeting
Billboards or T-shirts?
There are no ’rules’ or right or wrong answers– you have to do the analysis and then make your best judgement.
For example, calendars with photos of the Ministry are a commonly used comms approach. Does that mean it is effective for communicating our message? Print materials tend to be expensive– and if you print yet another calendar, it may never find space on the wall or never be read if it does due to so much ’competition’.

12. Summary
Essential-- analyse the targeted audience, messages and the kind of media tools to use when creating a budget
Sourcing adequate funding for internal and external comms is paramount to successful advocacy, implementation of MDA policy
An independent review is key to knowing the level of impact the communication and public outreach has made = costs to plan for.

13. Break-Out Group Exercise
Budgeting
Break-Out Group Exercise

14. Q & A, Wrap-up & Next Steps

15. Evaluations & Thank you