Stop advertising to your members.
Start advancing the mission with them.

The Crescendo Communications Plan

Close the gap between what your organization has built and what your community actually uses.

You’ve developed essential resources, crafted strategic advocacy plans, and organized high-value events. But your community isn’t showing up.

You’re posting and sharing, and nobody seems to care.

Your organization exists to serve a specific community. But between the essential work of fundraising, program delivery, and/or political advocacy, engaging that community has moved further and further down your to-do list.

Your events are half-empty. Advocacy campaigns fall flat. Resources go unused. Members miss opportunities. Renewals are soft – and you’re scrambling to demonstrate impact to funders.

Your mission feels like it’s slowly fading, because it’s missing the community you exist to serve.

Something’s off, but it won’t be solved by “more content.” Instead, you need a communications strategy that engages your members to become active advocates for your work.

Our Crescendo Communications Plan combines community engagement with digital marketing to build communications strategies that close the gap between what you’ve built and what your community knows, trusts, and uses.

GET STARTED

After implementing our approach, the Minnesota Laborers’ Union (LIUNA) saw increased use of member benefits, hosted more members at advocacy events than ever before, and reached nearly 500% more supporters online with member-centered content.

Since we began working with Quintet Creative, we've seen a remarkable transformation in our member education and outreach efforts. They’ve helped us expand our reach, elevate authentic laborers' voices and stories, and dramatically increase our ability to engage with members. Quintet Creative navigates the complexities of union messaging with a sophistication I haven't encountered with other consultants, consistently delivering strategies that resonate with our members while advancing our broader organizational goals.

– liz xiong, Communications Director & Political Coordinator, LIUNA Minnesota

Who This Is For

Membership Organizations
Your members joined because they believed in something. But belief fades when people don't feel seen, heard, or connected to the work being done on their behalf. The Crescendo Communications Plan builds a roadmap for disengaged members to become active advocates, because they use and share the resources you provide.

Nonprofits, Advocacy Groups, and Community Programs
You're doing important work for a community that might have every reason to be skeptical of organizations that claim to have their best interests at heart. If the people you exist to serve aren't engaging with your programs, applying for your resources, or spreading the word to their peers, the Crescendo Communications Plan helps you earn their trust and meet them where they are.

Mission-Driven Teams That Are Stretched Thin
Your communications director might also be your political coordinator, your fundraiser, or your program director. Member engagement is the thing that keeps getting dropped — not because it doesn't matter, but because there's always something more urgent. The Crescendo Communications Plan builds engagement systems that small teams can sustain, grounded in the work you already do.

Get Started

How It Works

An outside strategist can see your organization the way your members see it—which is exactly what your internal staff can’t do, because they’re too close to it.

Outreach

You’re an expert in your mission, but what most organizations think members care about and what members actually care about are often completely different things.

We gather information by interviewing members and stakeholders and analyzing data from your communication channels and program engagement. Then, we synthesize this information to develop a clear and actionable report that helps you understand what your members need from you.

Our methodical, sociology-based approach helps us understand your organization the way your members see it – which is exactly what internal teams can’t do, because they’re too close to the work and stretched way too thin.

Engagement

With a clear picture of what your members care about, we build a communications strategy to drive engagement and move your mission forward. No two strategies are alike, because they’re based on insights we discovered during the outreach plan.

Most plans include:

Core themes that frame your work through a lens that members care about, so your communications are more effective.
Strategies for building a consistent presence on the platforms your members use most, so your content gets seen.
Practical approaches that make complex or technical information easier for members to act on, so you become a trusted resource.
How to measure whether any of it is working.

The goal isn't a strategy that looks good in a deck. It's one your team can actually run.

Get Started

40% increase in benefit use
500% higher digital reach with a 7% engagemenT rate

A labor union experienced a 40% increase in members using their mental health resources and the highest attendance ever for their member advocacy day at the State Captial. They reached nearly 500% more users on social media and maintained a 7% engagement rate – which actually meant something because content reflected what members cared about.

94% increase in program application rates

A non-profit organization serving underestimated entrepreneurs increased program application rates by 94% – and published economic impact reports that gave funders concrete evidence of the work the organization was doing.

30% increase in monthly recurring revenue

An online membership program for educators more than doubled its membership (and increased monthly recurring revenue by 30%, year over year) by turning research-heavy content into messages that educators engaged with, used, and shared with their colleagues.

Our approach combines community organizing with digital marketing to generate effective, meaningful engagement.

my organizing background

Our strategies are grounded in my years of experience in political organizing – or empowering skeptical, busy, and distracted people to show up for something bigger than themselves. As a team, we know what it takes to build reciprocal relationships in a world where trust is increasingly harder to earn.

Listening Before Creating

Most communications strategies start with content. But until the work to understand what’s important to your members is done, nothing lands. We start with stakeholder interviews to build campaigns that connect what your community cares about to what your organization does, so the people who exist to serve are actually involved. Better content without understanding your community is still content your people scroll past.

Advancing the Work, Not Just Advertising It

Our strategies ensure that everything you publish has a job: what do we want this person to feel, know, or do? Your communications stop being a list of announcements and start doing the work of making members feel like your organization is theirs. As engaged members use resources, attend events, and recruit peers, your community becomes self-sustaining and moves your mission forward.

Get Started

What To Expect

Phase 1: Outreach

Understand the deep, specific, and human needs of your members, so your communications efforts lead to deeper engagement and a shared identity – not just organizational awareness.
1-Hour Intensive
We start with a collaborative call with your leadership to better understand why you exist, the problem you’re solving, and what your community engagement has looked like so far.
Member or Stakeholder Interviews
We meet one-on-one with 4-6 key community members to understand why they became part of your work – and what’s keeping them from engaging deeper. We listen more than we talk and ask specific and adaptive follow-up questions.
Content Audit and Data Analysis
We audit your current communications assets and crunch the data on how members engage with your channels and programming. This helps us understand where the trust and engagement gaps might lie, and where you have opportunities to fix them.
THE COMMUNITY CANVASS
We meet again to unpack what your members told us and what your data revealed. This is more than just reviewing spreadsheets and transcripts. During the call, we’ll work together to turn recurring patterns and insights into custom member engagement milestones that will guide our work together. This all comes together in a polished deck that your team can constantly refer back to.
By the end, you’ll finally have an honest, outside view of your community – how they see your organization, what’s keeping them disengaged, and exactly what it will take to change that.
Phase 2: Engagement
We take what we’ve learned from the Outreach Phase to design a bespoke communications strategy grounded in what your members care about.
This strategy is a breakdown of the specific communications activities you’ll focus on – i.e. what to talk about it and how and where to talk about it – to turn members into advocates.
We focus on strategies tailored to your organization’s capabilities and your members' needs – including web and video content, social media, email, PR, paid ads, and in-person or online events.
You’ll receive a custom roadmap of:
- The repeatable topics and goals you’ll use to tell stories that your members recognize.
- How to optimize the platforms that your members frequent so that you build a consistent presence on the right channels.
- Strategies to turn technical or in-depth organizational information into content that your members can immediately use and apply.
- Consistent engagement strategies for the highest-value resources, programs, and opportunities you offer.
- Processes that involve your members in your communications process.
- The key engagement metrics you’ll use to evaluate success.
Our strategies are designed to be immediately actionable, so your team can start implementing member engagement strategies right away.

If you’re interested in collaborating on a retainer basis to bring our plans to life, we’ll share custom quotes to support you in executing the plan.