Monthly Archives: October 2025

Social networks continue to lose their influence & that hurts nonprofits. What to do?

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With so many newspapers and local radio stations long disappeared, with so many TV stations serving only an urban population an hour’s drive away, I’ve long come to rely hugely on a variety of online tools to promote whatever nonprofit I’m working for. That shouldn’t be a problem, according to so many media stories that tell us that everyone is online in one way or another, and that all young people are whatever the Social Media Platform Flavor of the Month is, right? I should have no problem getting my information out about events, volunteering, helping the community and more, because we’re all so networked.

But, in fact, it’s never been harder for me undertake public relations and marketing to reach a diversity of people, especially local people in the region where I live.

Once I start working with someone in their mid 40s or younger, or on the oh-so-rare occasion I talk with a teenager, I will, inevitably, ask, “Are you on any social media with your friends, like Instagram? Which platforms?” And most of the time, the answer is that they are not on whatever platform that’s the hot new thing; they might look at videos on TikTok, but their interactions with friends are on messaging apps, like WhatsApp or Signal. Or they do old-fashioned text messaging. I don’t even bother asking if they are on Facebook – they aren’t. Many listen to Spotify, but they pay for a subscription specifically so that they never hear any advertisements.

I’ll also ask “How do you get news?” And the answer is usually that they don’t. They listen to podcasts and gets LOTS of opinions. Lots and lots of opinions. But they don’t listen nor read actual news.

They don’t know if the high school has a soccer team or not, even if they went there as a student, let alone if that team won a state championship. They don’t know what production the local community theater is mounting because they didn’t even know there was a community theater. They don’t know that there’s a Habitat for Humanity affiliate in the area and they could volunteer there. They don’t know if the nearest firehouse is staffed by career people or volunteers or a mix of both. They don’t know who the mayor is. They don’t know about the giant data center being built in that field over there.

And how would they know any of this local information without a local newspaper, a local radio station, even a local podcast, or if they aren’t following a variety of local organizations on social media?

Back in the late 1980s, I worked at a theater that had tremendous success with advertising shows by paying to put a notice in the pay stub envelopes of some of the largest employers – but with most people doing direct deposit, that’s no longer an option. Putting a notice in a newsletter that they city sends with a utility bill is still a good option in some places to reach some people, but most young people sign up for paperless billing.

I live in a community that has no local TV and no local radio. It has two struggling semi-print newspapers which people under 50 here have never heard of. How do I reach these folks about events, volunteering opportunities, and legislative issues they need to know about and care about?

Direct mail, via traditional post? That’s an expense far out of reach for most small nonprofits.

I’ve noticed a LOT of businesses are back to using great big banners and other signage outside their properties to let people know about events and special deals. The town where I live has two places in town where it strings a banner over the street to announce various events, that everyone entering may notice. If your nonprofit can afford it, consider doing the same. Be sure to keep the messaging simple: people are going to see it as they glance up or over while driving, and have just a few seconds for the message to get through.

I wrote about this trend two years ago in this blog, Social media is losing its influence for nonprofits – what to do? In that blog, I suggested that cities revisit the community bulletin board model of the 1990s, which flourished in places like Cupertino. I believe those models could still work if they had essential information on them – not just when the next city council meeting is, but also where to find a role-playing game meetup, or a basketball pickup game.

I also think every city needs to think about creating a podcast. If starting a community radio is out of reach, then why not a daily or weekly or bi-weekly 30 minute podcast? Use it to:

  • List upcoming nonprofit and community events that week.
  • List events at the local high school that week (games, performances, fairs).
  • List events at the local senior center.
  • Remind people of important deadlines (for registering to vote, for submitting a ballot).
  • Remind people of local government meetings.
  • List obituaries.

Does your local high school have a speech team or drama club, or does your nearest college or university have a drama club or political studies? Recruit from those students to record the information. Sell a sponsorship for each broadcast to a local business. The most popular podcast platforms are Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube, and any online search will provide you with a plethora of guides on how to get your podcast on those channels.

If you are leveraging young people to produce the podcast, you’ve already got a built-in group of marketers who will share the podcast with friends on whatever app they are using these days. You need to also market the podcast in your usual ways: social media posts, web site announcement, flyer in your lobby, press release to media outlets, etc.

And don’t be surprised if podcast success leads to serious discussions about starting a local community radio station…

Also see:

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The Undeniable Value of the Human Touch

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HAL from 2001 a space odyssey

I love that AI can see or find patterns. The advancements that can mean for everything from space exploration to medical treatment to analysis of ancient art are glorious to think about. I also love that AI can apply grammar and spelling rules to things I’ve written.

This is from the 2025 Human Development Report from the United Nations Development Programme:

AI-powered identification of bird species can enable users to better identify them in the future. The increased ability to identify species can, in turn, improve AI’s performance by directly contributing geolocated observations and uploading labelled sounds and images.

I love all of this.

However…

Have you ever seen a movie that you were assured by a trusted film critic was horrible and, in fact, it turned out you loved it? Or the opposite: he said it was wonderful and you loathed it?

Have you ever been told by a few people that someone you haven’t met yet through work or in your neighborhood was boring and not really worth hanging out with, but you did finally meet them and you thought they were hilarious and fun to be with?

Have you ever read a summary of a long report or a book, but then you read the report and you came to a very different conclusion than the summary?

Those scenarios are why I don’t trust AI for decision-making or for all things related to customer service and most client interactions. Those scenarios are why I want to keep interacting with clients and the community myself.

Whether I’m the director of a project or directing communications for a project, one of the first things I like to do is take some time to answer questions that come in via phone or email. It never turns out quite like it’s been portrayed to me, especially by an over-worked, under-trained administrative assistant or an executive director who has a million other priorities. Nothing teaches me more quickly what’s been working and what has not. Sure, I might come up with canned responses to frequently asked questions, but if that response doesn’t answer the person’s inquiry, I want to know about it.

And then there is the idea of care and support: for clients, for volunteers, for the community. Care is about awareness, concern and looking after something. Providing clear, easy-to-access and easy-to understand information for an audience is a part of caring about that audience, but it’s not all of it, because quality, sincere care – the kind that keeps clients coming back, that keeps volunteers engaged and keeps donors supporting the organization – is emotional and relational. When I listen to certain staff members talk on the phone with the clients of one of the nonprofits where I work, I know that AI is no substitute for those interactions – and that if we stuck those folks on an automated phone system or chatbot, we’d not only let them down, we would lose them.

I also would never trust AI to author most social media posts, nor answer most messages that come in via social media or an online group: I would never cede the incredible knowledge that comes from interacting with people, with actual humans, to AI.

I can’t imagine taking away one of the best ways ever to gather knowledge and build skills: interacting with people MYSELF.

I wrote about this back in 2017, in fact: No app can substitute for actually talking with people. The Tech Bros must really loathe talking to actual humans.

Also see:

My highlights from the 2025 Human Development Report from UNDP (the theme is artificial intelligence).

Nonprofits, don’t cede creativity or curiosity or customer relations to AI, & keep your use of AI ethical

Artificial Intelligence – friend or foe for nonprofits?

schedule social media posts? use with caution

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help.