Nov 16, 2009
New news, nonprofits, and social media
I’ve been meaning to share this for a while. At the end of the summer, one of the more intriguing responses to our annual survey of nonprofit communicators was to the question, “How has the economic crisis affected the way your organization communicates?”
It was a bit of a good news/bad news response:
- The bad news: About half of you (79 out of 147 responses) told us changes in the news business have affected your communications work—for example, a reporter who used to cover your organization was recently laid off. Almost a third of you (44 out of 141 responses) said your group had laid off, furloughed, or cut salaries for communications staff.
- The good news: Three in four (108 out of 147) have been covered by an online news source and more than three in four (114 of 148) of you added social media tools to your communications mix.
Prepping for a workshop in Bloomington, Ill. in a few weeks combined with a comment by one of the participants at another recent workshop got me thinking about it again:
I had one writer, who used to cover the refugee beat, tell me I was one of his best sources but he just didn’t have time to cover my stories because he was covering 3 other beats as well. And now he’s on sports and NO ONE is covering that beat!
OK, we’ll call that the worst-case scenario for print news, right?
On the other hand, there are lots of best-case scenarios for being on the Web — somebody else at a workshop recently mentioned that a program officer who first learned of her organization on Facebook, got in contact with her group and ultimately made a grant–because they were available online. Sort of the advertising theory of online–the exception that proves the rule that “if you build it they won’t come.” Well, maybe they will come once in a while, I guess.
Bet if we asked the same question today — or maybe rephrased it just to ask, “name one thing you are doing now to communicate — for fundraising, advocacy, or program work — that you did not know existed this time last year” we might get a fair number of answers–always assuming you had time to write them!
I recognize that most of us feel we have never been busier (and that’s a topic for another blog post, when, ahem, I get around to it) but let me know if you have a chance–what’s one thing you’re doing now in your communications work that you did not know much about, or that you literally did not suspect existed, this time last year?
Hello, everyone. I’m new here at the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club since mid-September. My chief job is fundraising, but I consider PR as a major part of that effort and spend a plenty of time working on communications. The ED and board support this new emphasis on communications.
Since September we have:
* Commissioned a new logo and website to debut soon.
* Created a Facebook page and cross-linked our website with it.
* Asked our partner organizations to post a link to our site; we will do the same for them.
* Registered at various sites that list NPOs for donors to consider.
* Purchased “Getting in Print…” and are working on a media plan that includes regular press releases, soliciting individual reporters for stories, and taking advantage of free PSA’s and other types of online listings, blogs, etc.
* Turned our boring holiday card into a vibrant letter with pictures and beautiful design elements. It states the case for giving and demonstrates that we are moving forward with new programming in the face of this economy.
* Started thinking about better ways to communicate via e-mail with various stakeholder groups—even creating mailings for as few as 60 people.
We need to look as though we deserve the contributions that come in. Good design and communication reflect careful planning and management. Decreasing communications in times like this is counterproductive unless the organization was wasting money in the first place with communications that don’t focus on the mission and case for giving.