How to Run a Big Campaign with a Small Team
You don’t need a 10-person comms team to make a significant impact. You just need structure, clarity and repeatable systems.
You’re working lean. Maybe you’re the communications manager, the marketing lead, and the development director all rolled into one. You’re juggling fundraisers, program updates, volunteer recruitment, social media posts, and weekly newsletters, and now you’re being asked to launch a major campaign. Year-end fundraising, a public-health initiative, a community awareness push; whatever it is, the stakes are high, the time feels short, and you’re definitely on edge.
You’re praying for a time machine and a miracle, and have a cup of coffee continually on hand, but are forgetting one hard truth: you don’t need a large team to pull off something significant. You need to be more thoughtful about your approach.
In this post, you’ll get the four “S’s” for small-team campaign success: Strategy, Simplify, Systematize, Share. Use it to craft and execute a campaign that brings big-brand bang, even if your budget and team are anything but.
The Myth of the Big-Team Advantage
The most recent Nonprofit Marketing Guide “Nonprofit Communications Trends” report shared that 38% of communicators surveyed say they are the only person responsible for communications at their organization. Another 31% say their team is only two to three people. At the same time, research from Forthright Advising finds that on average, nonprofits have one full-time communications staffer for every eight employees overall.
Translation: if your team has fewer than four people, you’re in the majority. When I was working within a communications team for a health system, we were regularly told by consulting groups that we were understaffed for an organization of our size. “Cool,” we all thought.
So I know it’s easy to look at other industries, see massive marketing departments, and think “if I only had that many people…” But guess what, wishing likely won’t change your immediate reality and you have stuff to do, campaigns to run, and communities to impact, so let’s do it.
The Four “S’s” of Small-Team Campaigns
Here’s your blueprint. Treat this as a checklist, a conversation with your team, or a worksheet when you pull up your next campaign planning doc.
Start with Strategy, Not Stuff
Before you open Canva, write emails, or schedule social posts, you need to have an objective that you can build a strategy around. This goal may be pre-determined, or it may require you to have some meetings with your leadership team or executive director, but ultimately, what you’re after is a measurable goal. How are you going to define success? What do you need?
For example, maybe you need more recurring donors. Maybe you need to enroll a certain number of patients into a program. Maybe you need to hit a dollar amount to cover a gap to run operations. Pick your ONE thing and then align everything else to that and build your strategy.
Simplify Channels
Now, knowing that you have a specific goal, you can simplify the channels you use. You don’t need to be everywhere. You need to be everywhere that matters. Identify the 2–3 channels where your audience already is, and dominate those. And remember, the channel will be different depending on your goal and audience.
For example, email, Facebook, and an in-person event may be the best way to reach people for a rural nonprofit. Whereas, provider handouts, local press, a short video, and intentional individual outreach may be best for a community health center trying to reach patients for a specific program.
Systematize Everything
Systems are the superpower of lean teams. When you build checklists, templates, and a message bank, you can reuse them over and over again to be successful. This saves you time and headaches.
For your checklists and project management: Build a campaign template that aligns with your workflows, assigning task, owner, deadline, and status. Want the Google Sheet we use with our campaign clients? Get it here.
For your templates: Figure out a repurposing workflow that works for you. We like to start with the overarching campaign message, then the campaign page, then break those two up into emails, social media copy, and press pitches.
For your messages: Leading up to your campaign, build a message bank with pre-approved quotes, stats, and CTAs for engagement. Between campaigns, add any new relevant facts, talking points, and quotes so you continually have new content to draw on.
Share the Load
Since you can’t hire five more people, set yourself up to share the work. Leverage internal champions, such as program leads, volunteers, board members, community health workers, or patient advocates, to share the campaign.
Develop clear shareable assets and ensure that they understand their role. Do you want them to pass out flyers? Make phone calls? Share social media posts? Without clear instructions, people may struggle to support what you’re doing, even if they want to. Make them your amplification team.
Small teams that shift their approach from “We have to do it all” to “We each have a part” can create a lot of momentum.
The Payoff of Clarity
When you strategize, simplify, systematize, and share your campaign, you don’t just save time—you reduce stress, you get everyone excited and energized, and most importantly, you hit your goals. You’re less reactive. Less exhausted. And more strategic.
One of our clients put it this way: “Working with Sprig was a gift. All that we gained will propel us into new ways of marketing ourselves and fundraising.”
Megan Brandel, Director, Executive and Artistic Open Arms Dance Company
And that’s what we want for you: campaigns you remember with satisfaction and hope.
Want to Save More Time? Get Tools to Make It Possible
You don’t need an agency-sized team to run a large-scale campaign. You need the right tools and the right plan. Download our free Campaigns Made Easy Workbook to get a campaign-planning checklist, channel-selection advice, a message-bank starter, and repurposing matrix. Use it to build your next campaign with clarity, confidence—and less stress.
Want to get down to business without DIYing your next campaign? We’ll gladly get in the trenches with you. Campaigns we support average about a 1,200% ROI on their investment. Schedule a discovery call and let us help you crush your next goal.
