The opposite of poverty porn: erasing clients from storytelling

Earlier this year, I wrote a blog about poverty porn and other kinds of exploitative marketing by many nonprofits, where graphic photos and videos of people in desperate situations or images of people with disabilities are used to make the viewer so upset or emotional as to garner donations, or to make someone delivering services on behalf of that nonprofit look exceptionally compassionate and heroic.

But on the other side of that marketing no-no are nonprofits that make their outreach stories more about what their staff is doing and about their leadership than about those that are served or the cause at hand. You want to tell compelling stories about your organization’s without trivializing people’s lives, absolutely, but you also don’t want to mostly or entirely erase those you are serving from the narrative.

Examples I’ve encountered in the just the last three months of nonprofit marketing that erases clients – or pushes them out of the focus:

  • An arts group that says it promotes the art and artistry of indigenous people, but has no photos or testimonials of these artists on its web site (just clip art of indigenous people the organization has never met), nor does it have any indigenous people on its board or in positions of leadership.
  • A homeless coalition that uses social media to feature photos and commentary about its founders, but offers no testimonials, commentary or images from those the coalition is supposed to serve.
  • Any number of nonprofits and NGOs that have far more stories and photos about the founder of the organization and what he or she is doing and thinking than they have about those being served – including photos where the founder is NOT pictured, or stories where the founder is NOT quoted.

Unlike marketing for businesses, which is pretty much about selling more and more of a product and making as much money as possible, communications for nonprofits, charities and other mission-based organizations requires addressing a variety of needs:

  • getting people to attend events or to participate in activities,
  • attracting new donors and volunteers,
  • giving current donors and volunteers a feeling of satisfaction about what they have donated,
  • allaying fears about the clients served or the cause that’s being promoted,
  • promoting behavior change (encouraging people not to litter, to recycle, to use condoms, to not use certain words, etc.),
  • addressing misunderstandings and crises,
  • and on and on.

In fact, at nonprofit organizations, the people working to attract donations may have a message that is in conflict with the people who are delivering the program – the fundraisers want to evoke an emotional reaction that attracts donors while program managers may feel that the messaging reduces those served to stereotypes. It can be a delicate balance.

So, let’s go back to those aforementioned cases and talk about what it should look like instead:

  • The staff of the organization that promotes indigenous artisans should have ongoing conversations with those artisans about how they want to be supported, how they want to participate in decision-making, how they want to be pictured and how they want their work presented online and in print.
  • The staff at an organization that helps people experiencing homeless, or people with disabilities, or people who have experienced a trauma, should have ongoing conversations with those clients about how they might want to be pictured and talked about online and in print. They should be talking with clients about the goals of the messages in brochures, on the web site, on social media, in slide show presentations: what is it the nonprofit wants to show, and how might images help?
  • Be careful about Executive Director over-exposure in messaging. If the nonprofit leader is the face of the organization and the primary reason people donate, make sure that this messaging is balanced with strong messaging about the impact the organization is having on the community or cause it serves, messaging so strong that the organization could survive the Executive Director’s departure or negative publicity regarding that person (unless, of course, your board is comfortable with the idea of the organization folding with the departure of the Executive Director and, indeed, there are boards that are absolutely fine with this setup – as am I regarding certain charities).

Of course, it’s not easy to feature all clients in marketing and public relations materials: there are charities that support foster kids, for instance, that use child and teen models rather than actual foster children in photos and videos, in order to protect the identities of clients. Something that is “exploitative” or a stereotype can be in the eye of the beholder. The best strategy: consult with your clients. Talking to them about what you want to portray, how images will be used, etc., can lead to more buy-in from those you are trying to serve for your efforts, can build more trust for program delivery, can help prevent misunderstandings down the road, and can even lead to great ideas for marketing and public relations you may never have thought of.

There are some good resources regarding ethics and photography in humanitarian work that have advice that can be applied for nonprofits working with vulnerable populations (people who are homeless, people experiencing addiction, people who have experienced domestic violence, foster children, people with disabilities, etc.) in their own countries, including:

I would love to hear from others about how they maintain this balance in their representation of vulnerable populations in public relations and marketing materials.

Also see:

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