Creating Newsletters

Newsletters are a great means of promotion for any community group. Producing a newsletter can be an effective way of keeping your members and local community informed of your community group’s objectives and events.

A newsletter can help your group to:

• inform people about what you do and how to contact you

• publicise events

• report on fundraising and donations

• showcase the work of other local groups

• inform people about issues that will concern or interest them

• review legislative/policy updates

• instruct people

• introduce members

Planning your newsletter

To encourage people to actually read your newsletter, and maximise its effectiveness, you should consider:

• designating someone to be in charge of the newsletter

• defining the goals of your newsletter

• designing the newsletter

• agreeing how it will be produced and distributed

• Who will be your readers? Is there an identifiable age group or is it for the local community as a whole? Knowing who your newsletter is for will help you in the design and writing of articles.

Consider:

• your readers’ interests

• the style of language and terminology your readers will be familiar with

• why they signed up for the newsletter

Co-ordinating your newsletter

Producing a newsletter requires many different skills and resource - designing ‘the look’, writing or gathering the articles, collating content, printing and distribution of the finished article.

It is advisable to designate someone as ‘editor’ to co-ordinate the production and oversee the content of the newsletter. This is a key role to the success of the newsletter. Your designated volunteer will need to be someone who is good at organising, and can devote the time to do the task justice.

Your ‘editor’ may want to spread the load by identifying other people to contribute articles. Try to involve as wide a range of people as possible. This will give you a variety of content and keep the newsletter lively.

You will also need to consider how you will distribute your finished newsletter. Help in the production and distribution will be invaluable so try to involve as many of your group members as you can.