A Year of Content on One Page

Every charity I have worked with has tried, at least once, to build a content calendar. Most of them have a beautifully structured spreadsheet that ran for six weeks and then stopped being updated. The problem is rarely the spreadsheet. It is the model the spreadsheet was built around.

A 52-week content calendar that lists every post on every channel is a project plan, not a calendar. It collapses the moment one person leaves, one campaign moves, or one trustee asks for "something for LinkedIn." What survives is simpler: four anchors, six campaigns, a buffer, and an evergreen layer.

The model in one paragraph

Pick four anchor moments in the year. Build a campaign around each one. Between the anchors, run two smaller campaigns - six in total. In the gaps, run an evergreen content rhythm - three or four posts a month, on durable topics. Hold back 20% of capacity as buffer. That is the year, on one page.

Step 1 - Pick your four anchors

Anchors are the four moments your charity has to show up, no matter what. They are usually a mix of:

• A sector-wide moment (a big day, a national week, a Giving Tuesday).
• An organisational moment (your AGM, your impact report, an annual event).
• A seasonal moment (winter appeal, summer programme, back-to-school).
• A trust moment (a transparency post, a financials explainer, a "what your gift bought" round-up).

Pick four. Mark them on a calendar. Most charities try for six and end up doing two. Four, done well, beats six, half-finished.

Step 2 - Wrap a 6-week campaign around each one

Each anchor gets a six-week shape: two weeks before, two weeks of the moment, two weeks after. That is a three-act structure that gives you something to plan against without inventing daily content from scratch.

A pattern that works

• Weeks 1–2 (pre): a backstory post, a teaser, a "save the date" email.
• Weeks 3–4 (during): the main piece, the ask, the case study, the live coverage.
• Weeks 5–6 (post): the thank-you, the impact callback, the lessons-learned.

That gives each anchor moment about 8–12 pieces of content - across web, email, social, and possibly print. Multiply by four anchors and you have ~40 pieces of content from the anchor structure alone.

Step 3 - Two smaller campaigns

In between the anchors, run two smaller campaigns. These can be more experimental: a podcast launch, a regional spotlight, a new programme announcement, a trustee-led series. Two, not four. Anything more is over-promising.

A small campaign is three weeks long, with 4–6 pieces of content. Add it up: four anchors at ~10 pieces each, two small campaigns at ~5 each = roughly 50 pieces of content baked into the calendar.

Step 4 - The evergreen rhythm

Between campaigns, your content does not need to be witty, topical, or new. It needs to be useful. A small evergreen library does the heavy lifting:

• Three "how it works" explainers (your services, who they're for, how to refer).
• Three "meet the team" pieces (frontline staff and volunteers, not the comms team).
• Three "what your money does" breakdowns at different gift sizes.
• Three FAQ posts on the questions you get asked the most.

Twelve evergreen pieces, written once, scheduled across the gaps. They run on a rotation. They do not need to be reinvented each year - refreshed, yes; rewritten, no.

Step 5 - The 20% buffer

Block out one week per quarter - four weeks across the year - as buffer. Mark it as "no scheduled content." That is what you spend on:

• Reactive content (a story breaks, a sector moment, a piece of news).
• Catch-up (a campaign ran long, a piece needs a redo).
• Rest (the team needs an editorial breath before the next anchor).

Without the buffer, the calendar is a treadmill. With it, the calendar is a tool.

What the page looks like

Print an A3. Twelve columns (months), four rows (anchors, small campaigns, evergreen, buffer). Block out the four anchors first, two campaigns next, then the buffer weeks. The remaining cells are evergreen. Pin it to a wall. Update it once a quarter, in pencil.

A calendar you can read across a meeting room is a calendar that gets used. A calendar that lives on a screen and needs filtering, sorting and a colour key dies the day its author goes on holiday.

Roles - who owns what

A 12-month calendar needs four roles, even on a small team:

• Owner: one person - usually head of comms - who keeps the calendar honest. Decides yes/no.
• Anchor leads: a different person leads each of the four anchors. Spreads the load.
• Evergreen rota: pairs of staff write evergreen pieces on a 6-month rotation.
• Reviewer: a senior leader who reviews each anchor brief before it is built. 30 minutes per anchor, four times a year.

That is four roles, not four full-time people. On a six-person team, all four can be filled.

Three traps

Trap 1: Treating every channel as equal

You do not need a post on every platform for every piece. Pick the one or two channels each piece is best suited for. A long thoughtful piece may not need an Instagram version. The cost of being everywhere is being mediocre.

Trap 2: Letting fundraising drive the whole calendar

A calendar dominated by appeals will burn supporters out. Aim for a 1:3 ratio - one ask piece for every three non-ask pieces. The non-ask pieces are not "filler"; they are what makes the ask work.

Trap 3: Replanning more than once a quarter

Quarterly review is enough. Replanning monthly is busywork dressed up as governance. Pick a date - first week of January, April, July, October - and stick to it.

A 30-day rollout

1. Week 1: Pick the four anchors. Get senior team agreement.
1. Week 2: Block out the campaign weeks and buffer weeks on the A3.
1. Week 3: List the 12 evergreen pieces. Assign owners.
1. Week 4: Brief the first anchor. Print the calendar. Pin it up.

Thirty days. One A3 sheet. A year you can actually run.

Further reading

The Case Study Formula That Doesn't Sound Like a Brochure | Community Storytelling Without Exploitation | Email Subject Lines That Earn the Open