43 They maintain consistency to establish a strong Chapter brand. They incorporate feedback from Chapter Members and allies as much as Chapter Officers and partners. Finally, they assist Chapter Leaders in serving the Chapter by providing the tools to maintain open and effective communication. A Chapter communication strategy is often aligned with both the college or university and National Headquarters. This ensures the weight of both are behind the Chapter. It includes a budget that allows for the use of various types of communication methods depending on the message to be delivered and any unique issues associated with it, a method for generating feedback and using it to shape follow-up messages, and a customized delivery approach unique to each Chapter with communication materials that are easy to understand and that meet constituencies where they are. The Chapter President and other Chapter Officers have the ultimate responsibility for setting the tone and establishing organizational culture, while Chapter Members have a responsibility to voice concerns and issues, provide feedback, and listen effectively. External Media External communications, including public and community relations, may also be a part of a Chapter's communication strategy. Measuring results While measuring and quantifying results of communication plans are beneficial, this goal is difficult to accomplish. Given the elusive nature of communication data, determining a cost-benefit ratio, for example, may be challenging. Despite the difficulty of doing so, Chapters should brainstorm tactics for collecting information to evaluate communication efforts. The Vice President of Communications and Marketing could collect anecdotal evidence that Chapter Members responded well to distributed information regarding a new campus resource. They may also collect attendance numbers for Chapter meetings to understand how various communications brought in membership. Audience Identifying a message’s audience is a key task in ensuring effective communication. What is the ideal audience for a particular communication? The audience may include everyone who influences or is influenced by the information being shared. For the most effective communication, audience size must also be appropriate given the information being shared and whether interaction will be permitted. If a Chapter anticipates that Chapter Members will have several questions regarding a new campus resource, for example, audience size should be limited so that questions can be adequately addressed. Communicating "up." While much of a Chapter’s communication strategy is focused on imparting Chapter information to Chapter Members, another central component is ensuring the Chapter has a voice on campus and with university administration. Geographically dispersed audience. Many Chapters are members of satellite campuses or are integrated with other Chapters from the same university system. It is important to recognize these challenges and create opportunities for collaborative messaging while still understanding that certain communications should be tailored to one campus’ Chapter. Diversity and global issues. Chapter Members are often very intersectional in their identities, embodying many dimensions of diversity: age, disability, ethnicity/national origin, gender and race, for example. Although all are, understand, or support student veterans, these intersectional identities may bring different perceptions and expectations when giving or receiving information, and these differences should be considered when developing messages to a broad audience.
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