Community Relations & Communications

Basics:

Advanced:

• How Mission-Based Organizations REALLY Use Online Technologies
  Every nonprofit, NGO, or other mission-based organization has two primary resources: people and their ideas. Here's real-life examples of what agencies are using the Internet for, and links to other resources offering even more advice and examples. Includes information about online solicitations and fund raising. This is a hype-free zone.
  
  
• The Difference in Email, Social Media & Online Communities: A Graphic Explanation.
  It can be difficult for people to understand the difference in email, in social media and in online communities, especially since email can be used to create an online community, or social media can be used to create an online community (Facebook Groups, for instance). And they all are people sending messages to people - so what, really, is the difference? This is my attempt to graphically show the difference, but I'll still have to use words to more fully explain what I mean. All three of these avenues for online communication can intersect. But one online avenue of online communication may be a better avenue for a communication goal than another - this resource examines that as well.  
  
  
• Twitter for Nonprofits, Government Agencies, Other "Mission-Based" Organizations.
  Are you ready to use Twitter in a way that meets ALL of your organization's communications goals? It takes a lot much more than posting links to press releases and announcement of new events. If you want to leverage Twitter to entice new donors, recruit new volunteers, help current volunteers feel like they are valued by your organization, reach new clients, change people's feelings or behavior about the cause that your mission centers around and helps a variety of people understand the value your organization brings, this resource is for you. This is way beyond the previous resource, Daily, Mandatory, Minimal Tasks for Nonprofits on Facebook & Twitter.
  
  
• Blog topics for mission-based organizations
  The word "blog" is short for "web log", and means keeping a journal or diary online. Blogging is NOT a new concept -- people have been doing it long before it had a snazzy media label. The appeal of blogging for an online audience is that it's more personal and less formal than other information on a web site. Readers who want to connect with an organization on a more personal level, or who are more intensely interested in an organization than the perhaps general public as a whole, love blogs. Blogs can come from your Executive Director, other staff members, volunteers, and even those you serve. Content options are many, and this list reviews some of your options.
  
  
• The Nonprofit & NGO Guide to Using Reddit
  As of July 2019, Reddit ranked as the No. 5 most visited website in the USA and No. 13 in the world. Reddit is a community of communities, and its communities are called subreddits. A subreddit can have a focus on a geographic area, a book, a celebrity, a particular time in history, a specific hobby - anything. Statistics suggest that 74% of Reddit users are male. Users tend to be significantly younger than other online communities like Facebook with less than 1% of users being 65 or over. If you want to reach a younger demographic regarding your volunteering opportunities, your awareness messages, your data that shows your value to the community and more, you need to build posts to Reddit into your marketing strategy, no matter what your nonprofit's size or focus. This resource tells you how to do it.
  
  
• Your initiative should exploit UN days
  International days, weeks, years and decades, as designated by the United Nations General Assembly, offer excellent outreach opportunities for nonprofit organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), civil society organizations, charities, government initiatives and other agencies focused on improving and enriching communities and individuals, as well as protecting the environment.
  
  
• Preventing Folklore, Rumors (or Rumours), Urban Myths & Organized Misinformation Campaigns From Interfering with Development & Aid/Relief Efforts & Government Initiatives
  Folklore, rumors and urban myths / legends often interfere with development aid activities and government initiatives, including public health programs - even bringing such to a grinding halt. They create ongoing misunderstandings and mistrust, prevent people from seeking help, encourage people to engage in unhealthy and even dangerous practices, and have even lead to mobs of people attacking someone or others because of something they heard from a friend of a friend of a friend. With social media like Twitter and Facebook, as well as simple text messaging among cell phones, spreading misinformation is easier than ever. Since 2004, I have been gathering and sharing both examples of this phenomena, and recommendations on preventing folklore, rumors and urban myths from interfering with development and aid/relief efforts and government initiatives. I've updated this information with new information per the organized misinformation campaigns targeting Ukraine and the elections in the USA. Now, with fake news sites set up specifically to mislead people, as well as crowdsourced efforts by professional online provocateurs and automated troll bots pumping out thousands of comments, countering misinformation efforts has to be a priority for aid and development organizations, as well as government agencies.
  
  
• Resources regarding online harassment, defamation & libel
  If you are a manager of social media, if you use online tools at all as a part of your work, this is a must read. And if your organization employs or engages a social media manager, as a paid worker or as a volunteer, this is also a must read (and a prompt for you to check on on that person's work - they may be being harassed and be reluctant to tell you).
  
  
• Social media use by humanitarian agencies: a literature review.
  This is a list of research and policy guidelines regarding use of social media by a variety of humanitarian agencies and disaster-response agencies. This is by no means a comprehensive list. Using the references in these papers will lead to even more resources. Also included are resources regarding the ethics of taking in humanitarian and development situations, and the appropriateness of using such photos, with an eye to protecting people's rights and dignity. It's hoped that this can help nonprofits, NGOs, humanitarian agencies and others to develop appropriate, ethical social media use policies and procedures.
  
  
• Could your organization be deceived by GOTCHA media?
  You may think no one would launch a negative campaign against your beloved organization that protects wildlife or works to educate children from low-income communities or helps women fleeing abusive relationships or encourages people to spay and neuter their pets or helps people grow their own food or brings the joy of live theater to your town. You may think: Our organization is completely non-threatening to anyone. We’re a-political. We’re politically benign. No one would want to see our organization go away. We benefit everyone! The truth is that every cause can become politicized, and every organization can become a political target. Here are tips to try to prevent it and how to respond to it if it happens.
  
  
• How we communication online: creating intimacy (not in a creepy way)
  (1) online communications can be just as intense or personal as offline, face-to-face communications, and that’s both a blessing and curse, (2) you need to think about your online activities in different personas, just as you do offline, and (3) you DO have a lot of control your online interactions, how people perceive you online, and how you react to online perceptions.
  
  
• For Nonprofits Considering Their Own Podcasts: If It's Worth Doing and Content Considerations if you do
  I present my first podcast about... podcasts (transcript included). Specifically, I talk about how podcasts can be used by nonprofits, and just how easy it is to do.
  
  
• Building Staff Capacities to Communicate and to Present
  Marketing and public relations is never just one person's responsibility at an organization, regardless of everyone's job titles; everyone at an organization will interact with other staff, partner organizations, potential supporters and the general public at some point. Therefore, everyone needs to be able to talk or to write clearly about his or her own work and that of the organization overall. This new resource describes various activities I undertook to improve the communication capacities of Afghan government staff. This resource links to various slide presentations and materials used for this endeavor in Afghanistan that can be adapted by others in different countries and situations. Included is a workshop on helping women in strict religious cultures to cultivate their presentation and public speaking skills, a workshop and tip sheet to help staff write better reports, and a slide presentation to help staff take photos in the field that will serve a variety of communications and reporting purposes.
  
  
• Propaganda for good
  Propaganda is communications not just to create awareness, but to persuade, to change minds, and to create advocates. It’s communications for persuasion. These are communications activities undertaken by governments, media, corporations, nonprofits, public health advocates, politicians, religious leaders/associations, terrorist groups, and on and on, and they aren’t automatically bad activities: such messaging has inspired people to wear seat belts even before there were laws requiring such, to not drink and then drive, to engage in activities for sex that prevent HIV, to read to their children, to spay and neuter their pets, to a lessening of intolerance among different groups, and on and on. And anyone who works in communications should be familiar with it.
  
  
• Handling a social media faux pax
  A case study in how a nonprofit handled an inappropriate tweet sent out on its account.
  
  
• Online Leadership / Influencing Online:
  For staff at mission-based organizations (nonprofits, NGOs, government agencies, etc.) & those that otherwise try to represent such causes
  Leadership online, in this context, is not how to lead a team on a project but, rather, how a person can build and demonstrate leadership and expertise online, and become an influencer regarding a particular topic related to nonprofits, NGOs, charities, community issues, etc. How do you cultivate a profile online that builds your credibility and reputation in a particular field or regarding a particular subject matter? How do people from the third sector influence online? What are the qualities an online leader exhibits?
   
  
• Tips for staying in contact with remote staff in developing countries / conflict zones
  Many factors stand in the way of trying to stay in contact with field staff at projects in rural or conflicted areas in developing countries. I review all of the various challenges faced by people in a main office in getting data from field staff working in humanitarian / development / aid initiatives, and how to address those challenges.
  
  
• Recommendations for UN & UNDP in Ukraine to use Twitter, Facebook, Blogs and Other Social Media to Promote Reconciliation, Social Inclusion, & Peace-Building in Ukraine
  (PDF). This is a draft document I submitted to UNDP Ukraine just before I left Kyiv in October 2014, having completed my term there as a "Surge" Communications Advisor. This draft document offers considerations and recommendations for social media messaging that promotes reconciliation, social inclusion, and peace-building in Ukraine. It provides ideas for messaging related to promoting tolerance, respect and reconciliation in the country, and messaging to counter bigotry, prejudice, inequality, misperceptions and misconceptions about a particular group of people or different people among Ukrainians as a whole.
  
  
• Lessons for online outreach when you are trying to reach nonprofits, NGOs & charities
  Marketing to mission-based groups when you have no budget!
  
  
• Launching & Maintaining a Successful Online Community for a Neighborhood, Town, City or County
  There are lots of resources for how to start and maintain an online community, but they are focused on online communities for customers of a company, or people all working in a particular career field (knowledge communities), or people all engaged in a similar activity, or people all suffering from the same condition (support communities). But the resources for helping people launch and maintain a successful online community for people living or working in neighborhood, town, city or county, a community that's meant to help neighbors get to know each other and to build offline community are hard to find. This resource is meant to help with those that are moderating online communities to build a sense of community offline focus on people living or working in particular neighborhoods or towns, parents of students at a particular school or all of the residents of a building or compound. These online communities are meant to promote civility, respect and thoughtfulness among members offline, and this resource is meant to help moderators and facilitators reach those goals.
   
  
• Frank description of what it’s like to work in communications in the UN
  Also includes a list of why any staff, no matter how expert, can stumble regarding communications and consulting, per the pressures from donors and senior management.
  
  
• Advice for Taking Photos in the Developing World
  While working in Kabul, Afghanistan, I developed a MS Powerpoint for staff on taking photos in the field. The communications office at this particular initiative relies heavily on all staff, particular Afghan staff, no matter what their job titles, to take photos whenever possible at events and workshops and during project site visits. This is because many staff are prohibited from traveling to certain parts of Afghanistan; international staff are sometimes prohibited from leaving Kabul altogether. This presentation/training touches on both the kinds of photos needed and how to take photos in a culturally-sensitive manner. This presentation is focused on a specific program and a specific country (Afghanistan), but maybe by changing the photos and a bit of text, it could work for you?
  
  
• Questions to Ask for a Major Report from the Developing World
  Most people who write reports about their projects in the developing world rely heavily on field staff to provide information. Often, however, field staff aren't expert report writers, and struggle to provide meaningful, timely information in a coherent written form. Many report writers get around this by interviewing field staff about their work, so that needed information is provided through answers to questions. This method can also build the capacity of field staff to provide written information themselves. This is a list of questions I used to interview staff at an initiative in Afghanistan that was focused on rural projects. I based these questions on previous monthly and quarterly reports, suggestions from donors, the initiatives stated objectives, and my own need for information that could lead to stories in which the press might be interested.
  
  
• Why Every Staff Person Should Regularly Read
  At Least One Online Discussion Group
  Each and every employee of your mission-based organization should be a part of at least one online discussion group, and subscribe to at least one email newsletter, relating to their job. Why? It offers a simple, easy way to get employees connected to important news and resources they need in their jobs, It's professional development right from their desktops!
  
  
• Is Your Staff "Walking the Talk" Re: Your Organization's Online Activities?
  Mission-based organizations use the Internet in all sorts of ways to interact with the public, or with staff and volunteers abroad: for instance, online discussion groups, an intranet where staff and volunteers can share profiles about themselves and updates about their work with each other, or an online service that is promoted as central to the organization's mission and identity. But is your staff showing leadership in using these online tools? If your organization is to use technology successfully, all staff must embrace it. Here are tips on how to encourage that.
  
  
• Does Your Organization's Practices Reflect Its Own Mission?
  Being successful in today's business and media climate means an organization must reflect in practice the values it promotes publicly. This latest article offers examples of organizations who aren't "walking their talk" regarding their mission, and the consequences such organization's face in not doing so.
  
  
• Solicitation Overload!!
  If your online publication or portal solicits stories, photos or other information from people outside of your paid staff, or, if you are going to hold an online event and need people from outside your organization as presenters, consider people's shrinking availability, their own on-the-job priorities, and the increasing number of competitive offers they receive before you "invite their contributions" - also known as "please provide us with free content!" Consider what incentives you can offer to make it worth a person's time to contribute to your online publication, portal or workshop. Here are some ideas.
  
  
• Online culture and online community
  It's becoming the norm for mission-based organizations (NGOs, NPOs and others) to use Internet tools to work with volunteers (including board members), staff, donors and others. This section of my site has been greatly updated, providing even more ideas and resources on how to work with others online, in language that's easy to understand for those considering or just getting started in using online technologies with volunteers, donors and other supporters.
  
  
• My tech: the networked technology tools I use
  (and have used over the years)
  Since I started this web site back in 1996, I have shared what technology tools I use - and how I use it. I do that because I have found web sites by various folks so very helpful when I'm learning some new technology or wondering if I should invest in a new tool, and because the Internet started off as a place where people freely offered helpful advice and tools - and it's my way of keeping that spirit alive. I'm no techie, but I do like being a good citizen.