The last few years have brought unprecedented challenges to every aspect of our lives, upending everything from how kids go to school, to how our democracy works, to how to buy basic household staples. How do you craft a communications plan after two years of lurching from crisis to crisis?
While it’s true we may need to sometimes respond with urgency to big breaking news in our issue sector, we can also proactively build a calendar around the evergreen and anniversary events that shape our issues and frame key narratives.
So in that spirit, we offer you an updated version of our beloved Editorial Calendar: The Evergreen. Rather than tying this one to the specific dates of this calendar year, we have included the events that happen every year in the same months, so that you can keep using this version in perpetuity.
We think this is an improvement as you now have a version of the calendar you will never have to wait for! We also love to point out when other folks in our sector are doing important and relevant work. In this case, Kivi Leroux Miller of NonprofitMarketingGuide.com offers tons of great editorial calendar resources, including a book of templates.
If you are looking for ways to find anniversaries and hooks, we can recommend a few out of many great resources:
- Overlay your Google Calendar with this social justice calendar from The Opportunity Agenda.
- Find hidden calendar gems with the comprehensive Google doc that is The Progressive Calendar.
- Library of Congress’ Today in History.
- History Channel’s This Day in History.
- For anniversaries specific to civil liberties, check out Today in Civil Liberties History.
And naturally, Google is always there for you. To find hooks that are more relevant to your work, do searches like “[current year] anniversary refugee,” which I used to find that next year will mark the 70th anniversary of an international law governing refugees. Or “[current year] anniversary climate justice” will turn up the anniversary of the Paris Climate Agreement. And “[current year] anniversary LGBTQ” led me to this handy Wikipedia page: List of LBGT Awareness Days.
Every year we wrestle with questions on what content to include in our template calendar, as our clients work on so many different issues. Rather than choosing for you, we think it’s more strategic to give you an evergreen template, some starter ideas, and some resources to make this your own from year to year.
So this is our Editorial Calendar. It is evergreen, and like the trees, it will keep delivering for you month after month, year after year – as long as you give it the proper amount of love and attention.
LightBox Collaborative Senior Partner Amanda Cooper has been so grateful for her local, legendary California redwoods in these times of increased outdoor recreation.