The recipe for the perfect communication for NGOs
If you don't feel like reading to the end, I leave the conclusion here:
There is no recipe for perfect communication. There is no such thing as perfect communication. There is only communication that is right for your organization's needs.
By Sînziana Wolff
I was listening in the car to an advertisement at a conference about communication and that promised that you would be able to build the perfect communication if you signed up and attended. And I started thinking about how the communication from ARC has transformed and the recipes that we've tried.
I have been working for 4 years on ARC communication, especially on what social media means. I love it and feel at ease with something a little creative, a little technical in my life. I did business as usual communication, I was good, I did my homework, I did my job, I got things going, especially since I didn't have any formal training for it. I just loved to write.
I've attended a bunch of conferences and courses on storytelling, social media, marketing, and more recently all sorts of more technical courses on ads and digital optimizations. Taken individually, none of them changed my life, but that it just added a layer of additional understanding of how I can make communication work.
I'll tell you what we think is going well with ARC communication, but before that I'm going to talk about what doesn't work. We feel like it's hard for people to associate us with all of our programs and that it's difficult to put everything we do in one sentence, that maybe we don't have the ability to tell all the stories we want, that we'd like more people in live shows, that we'd like more contacts in the database. that we want to have a wider audience.
I had to train myself to tell myself that I was OK with all of the above.
What goes well, instead, would be a combination of things, which I would divide into two types: fixed and volatile.
What's fixed is business as usual:
- To release communication into the world, as it were. Communication is zero if it doesn't reach anyone. Attention, I don't mean let's let it go just to be there, let's just post to post. I am talking about communication made with head, with purpose, with courage.
- Know what your purpose is. Just as you have a mission of the organization, communication also has a mission, not just to fill the emission space with white noise.
- Have the courage to tell your truth. I'm often afraid of seeming too bold, too warlike, too much. It's a fear that I have in my private life as well. But it matters to tell yourself your truth, which can be beautiful, ugly, painful, in a way that is yours, that does not denigrate others, that helps you carry out your mission. People will gather around your truth if you say it in an understandable way and with a precise purpose.
- To be constant and conscientious (who would have thought I was going to say that myself). And communication is a discipline: it takes your time, your dedication. You need to study it a little bit, see what works, what doesn't, who reads, who doesn't.
- To know who you're talking to, and to find out that you need time. Only you know who the people who support you are and only you will know how to talk to them. They are donors, supporters, beneficiaries, colleagues, you know what they like to do, where they work, what interests they have, why they came to you. The right communication will be fixed in front of you, if you take the time to see it.
- To communicate with joy. People feel that very quickly.
- Stop stressing that you're not reaching everyone. You're never going to get to everybody, and you don't want to reach everyone, because not everyone is your audience. Your supporters are your audience, and the people who have similar beliefs and values to your organization are your potential audience. With them you will resonate and they will be able to support you. Wanting everyone by your side will only bring you many frustrations and can derail you from the right audience.
Then come the volatile things:
- You happen to communicate at the wrong time or in the wrong context.
- Topics that seemed to you of interest seem to be of no interest to your audience. It happens, it's a lesson learned especially at the beginning.
- The dose of luck – which I am firmly convinced exists in everything from a point on. Something simply met all the conditions to be successful and from there the snowball was made, without you making much effort. Virally. It's just important not to think that anything can go viral, because it most likely won't. So it's good to go back to what you can control.
At first it's hard, I know. But it helps a lot to talk to those in your organization, without bypassing someone, because you don't know what stories are coming up. Talk to someone outside the organization, who can help you put your thoughts in order and guide you when it seems like you're not seeing the results or that you've reached a dead end.
There is no fixed recipe, but rather a few steps that you need to do "on command", that is, you fold on the communication needs of your organization. You won't get the perfect communication after a course or a conference, that's clear. But you will approach it if you treat communication as an important part of your work, which helps you carry out your mission. Communication is not only reactive, nor is it a report on something that has already happened. Communication generates responses, donors, opinions, support.
PHOTO: ARCH Archive
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