Category Archives: Community Relations/Outreach

How to vet a trainer for soft skills at your nonprofit

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a primitive drawing, like a petroglyph, of a person at a chalk board, talking to students at their desks.

Recently, I had an intensely negative experience with a trainer. In fact, it was traumatizing. If you follow me on LinkedIn, you saw my posts about the two days of training:

Trainers doing workshops for improving staff relations: do NOT require that staff share personal stories. For some folks, “Tell me how the past shaped where you are now” is NOT something they care to share in front of all of their colleagues & their supervisor, & certainly not you, a complete stranger (this happened in the first 20 minutes of the training, BTW).

Trainers regarding sensitive topics, like being anti-racist, being more inclusive, etc.: if you are training employees all from the same company, be aware of the power dynamics in the room. People are NOT going to be open with their supervisor or executive director sitting there. And passing around a survey the week before isn’t going to get you the information you need – people don’t know you yet. They don’t trust you yet. They aren’t going to be open with you at that point.

and

Management consultants: at your next company training, no matter how much you think it’s a great idea, do NOT ask people to write down their triggers on sticky notes and to then put those notes on their bodies and to walk around and read and discuss each others’ triggers. And if you decide to do it anyway, do not be surprised nor offended when one of the employees says “No. I absolutely will not do that.”
Yes, I really was asked to do this at a training.
The definition of trauma: “a deeply distressing or disturbing experience.”
Maybe I should put it on a sticky note and wear it.

The comments from other trainers were universally condemning:

I would have asked that facilitator to leave; better that someone internal take over than keep such a person around.

😳😳😳

This is so horrific as a concept I dread to think know what sort of groups are doing this in practice.

As a facilitator myself. This is terrible. And I want to say this as respectfully as I know how. The trainers that did this needs some coaching for real.

This sounds like a bad episode of The Office.

You are spot on, plus it is not very trauma informed (from a woman that manages a center on aging, trauma and holocaust survivor care).

Jayne, you may be the first person with enough awareness and bravery to raise against the concept.

The problem is the cleanup that comes after things like this are shared out and popularized.

I don’t have the time or patience to let things like this go – my face comes with subtitles on Zoom and in person. And I usually won’t hold my tongue when things are so egregious.

And then came the private messages from colleagues:

How in hell did someone actually think this would be a great idea?

Maybe she should have had each person use popsicle sticks to craft their traumas after the team building.

That is so messed up!

I really appreciate everyone who commented. It was nice to get affirmation that, indeed, this was NOT how any training should go. These comments, and the conversations with colleagues afterwards, were the only way I was able to recover from it. And I am not using the word recover lightly.

There were red flags from the start: this consultant did a survey of employees beforehand, where employees could anonymously offer insights, but then in her sessions entirely ignored the very frank and specific feedback given. Our training was to involve three half days, and I asked to know the focus and what issues it was meant to address, but my questions about such were ignored, and all staff walked in having no idea what we would be discussing nor why. In addition to the aforementioned inappropriate questions and comments, she also promoted of long-debunked pseudo science, like regarding “learning styles” and the quality of Myers–Briggs for identifying “personality types.”

The question I’ve gotten over and over: HOW and why was this person chosen for this training?

It seems that the executive director of the nonprofit that hired her had gone to one of her workshops earlier and had really enjoyed it. I have no idea the length of that training and who the participants were, nor if it was exactly what our team experienced.

So let’s get to the lessons learned:

How DO you get a quality trainer to address “soft skills” at your agency, such as conflict resolution, staff team building, creating an inclusive environment, valuing diversity and promoting equity? How do you avoid a situation, where an outside consultant sews division and mistrust at the nonprofit she was supposed to help?

Here are my thoughts:

  1. Look at the person’s credentials. In the case of this consultant, she has only an associates degree from decades ago and three certificates, one in “intercultural communications” and one in “interrupting racism”, both of which seemed to be acquired in just a few days (or less?). That she has no formal studies nor professional work regarding psychology or human resources management, let alone at least a full undergrad (if not a Master’s Degree) should have been a MASSIVE red flag.
  2. Look at the person’s work experience AND volunteering experience. Is it diverse? Is there at least a few years of experience working in an environment similar to what your nonprofit is working in? In the case of this recent consulting experience, her work experience is entirely in corporate marketing with high-tech companies. She has no visible professional nor volunteering experience working with a diversity of people in terms of education and economics, and her entire work experience seems to be with people at middle or upper economic levels (in stark contrast to the makeup of our group).
  3. Ask the person how they will build trust with the group, some of whom do not work together and may not even know each other.
  4. Listen to the exercises proposed by the consultant. What does the consultant intend for them to accomplish? Do YOU feel they are appropriate?
  5. Ask how the person will address power dynamics, where people may be reluctant to be honest because their supervisor or someone they do not trust is in the room.
  6. Ask the person if they will survey staff before the training and ask to look at what those questions are (but not see the answers, since those should be anonymous), so you know that they will tease out issues you are hoping to get addressed with this training.
  7. Define what success would look like at the end of the training and ask the trainer how that will be measured.
  8. Ask for references from past training experiences, but make sure they are not all from fellow consultants or just executive directors.

I have had some amazing soft-skill training experiences, including regarding creating an inclusive environment, valuing diversity and promoting equity, as well as addressing staff conflicts. Some have been quite challenging and moved people in the room to tears. But it’s been only two – this one and one in the 1990s – that have left some participants feeling tramautized.

I wish Susan Ellis’ trainings on staff and volunteer conflicts was recorded – it was always an amazing thing to behold. I could write a whole blog about it. I watched her do it twice, with two very different groups, and I couldn’t believe how deftly she navigated the moments when very real hostilities started to emerge. In both, everyone left with greater understanding and respect and a willingness to be more observant and listen.

There is a training in particular that I can say changed my life forever, by a consultant that was an adherent to Peter Drucker’s management principles. The executive director of the nonprofit where I was working approached me the following week to say that she had had so many misconceptions about me and she was embarrassed by assumptions she had made because of how I dressed (she is VERY corporate and part of a very known power couple of the time in Silicon Valley; I am none of those things), and how blown away she was by my ideas, etc. I cried. She cried. She was one of the best people I’ve ever worked for. I’ve never seen a company transformed so quickly and for the better the way that one was after that two-day training.

Another was a very quick, very fun training of may two or three hours at the University of Texas at Austin. When I started working there, all new staff were required to take this training, and I was lucky enough to take it with one of my best friends (who gave me away at my wedding years later). No one left feeling belittled or lesser than anyone. In fact, we laughed. A LOT. She created the welcoming, honest atmosphere she wanted us to cultivate in our own workplaces. We all left so much more curious about each other and our co-workers, so much more aware of how we can jump to assumptions about each other that aren’t correct, and how someone can smile at you and not seem to be hurt by something you’ve said and they are, in fact, absolutely torn up inside. And her emphasis on power dynamics was outstanding and framed all of the conversations in a way I’ll never forget and frequently references when working in some of our world’s poorest countries, particularly in post-conflict zones.

I’m on a journey. I am always open to learning. I am always open to reconsidering viewpoints and opinions. But I also value my time and my dignity and expect others to do so. No staff training is a mere line item on a list to be checked off. Don’t treat it as such. And remember that these trainings should not make staff feel belittled or marginalized.

The PR genius of Collie J, Grambling’s Man with the Golden Pen.

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I’ve been reading through my blogs published before 2010. They are available only at archive.org, because the site where I hosted my blog back in those days is long gone. Sometimes, I find a blog that I want to make findable again by republishing it here. And this is one of them. I usually blog just twice a month, but while I’m finding these old blogs worth republishing, I’ll be blogging more often.

December 6, 2008.

Work in marketing or PR? Here is a book you must read.

I have no interest in college football. American football bores me. I grew up watching sports: American football, basketball, baseball, and the Olympics. But American football always left me cold.

Michael Hurd, a very dear friend, published a book last year, “Collie J” Grambling’s Man with the Golden Pen, by Michael Hurd, about the former sports information director at college football powerhouse Grambling State University. I only recently read it.

I had never heard of Collie J. Nicholson, who was considered a legend in his time by every sports figure who knew him, black or white, and whose name inspires awe among those know about black college football. And while I had heard of Grambling, I cared about it about as much as I cared about American football. And I admit I read this book only because the author is a dear friend.

I loved this book. Anyone who works in public relations or marketing, or wants to, needs to read this book, particularly people who feel that their communications efforts are woefully under-funded. What Collie J. did with no Internet, no fax machines and barely a budget is a lesson for anyone now who wants to know how to sell a program or build a brand, particularly nationally or internationally. This was a man who didn’t spend his time whining and complaining about what he didn’t have or how many challenges he faced; he was undaunted in his task to sell Grambling to the USA and, indeed, the world. He was relentless in his efforts. He was an opportunist, in the best sense of the word, and he made things happen through persistence, vigilance, a huge amount of hard work, and constant networking in-person and on the phone and via whatever tools were available to him back in the day. He was an utterly dependable, honest person that everyone knew they could trust to do the best job possible. Collie J. worked in an environment at Grambling that encouraged him to be innovative and to take risks — he was allowed to experiment and dream big — VERY big. And because of his abilities and the support he received, his achievements as sports information director are nothing short of stunning. Jaw-dropping. As a professional in communications myself, I found myself jealous of the support Nicholson got from Grambling to do his job, and the environment in which he worked, where ideas were thrown out no matter how big, no matter how fantastic, and were sincerely considered and, more often than not, supported.

If you have a marketing, public relations, communications, advertising or journalism major in your life, or someone working in any of those fields, buy them this book. If they aren’t an American football fan, they can skip the game accounts and scores — I did. But Collie J.’s strategies, planning, press releases, dreams — don’t miss those, because in terms of advice, they are golden.

Your Nonprofit CAN Resist. Here’s how.

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A cartoonish hand is palm facing the viewer, as if to say stop.

The following comment is on a subreddit now, posted anonymously (and I have a screen capture in case it gets deleted):

Welp, it finally happened. The national office of the small non-profit I work for has asked the whole organization to remove any DEI related language from our website and social media. Not because their stance on supporting DEI has changed, but because they are afraid that the current administration will cut our federal funding.

This goes beyond removing any “diversity and inclusion” statements. They are asking us to remove all individual instances & variations of the words diversity, equity, and inclusion.

I’m pushing back. I won’t win, but I’ll push back anyways.

My advice to this web site manager, and to everyone else: say no. I wrote in directly to word his “no” this way, in writing:

I will not remove language on the web site with regard to diversity, equity or inclusion. I will not remove information from the web site regarding any aspects of human rights or civil rights. If management wants this removed, you will have to do this yourself. If you want to reprimand me, I request that the reprimand be in writing, and please detail the exact language I was refusing to remove. I cannot in good conscience commit the actions you are asking me to.

The likelihood of being fired for this is REALLY remote at a nonprofit, because they are terrified of bad publicity.

I also suggested leaking that the nonprofit HQ was asking affiliates to do this to a credible media outlet, and to keep doing so until someone picks up the story and asks the HQ for comment.

None of this is to punish the nonprofit. But if a nonprofit can be pressured “from the top”, why not from elsewhere, and to actually do the RIGHT thing? Some in senior management will no doubt be grateful that their staff is showing true character and saying no, and that the press has the story and the public can understand what is happening and pressure the nonprofit NOT to do this.

So, to be clear:

If you, a staff person, are asked by a senior staff member or your organization’s HQ to remove information on your web site or social media that affirms any commitment to diversity, equity or inclusion, or that supports racial equality or social justice, you should first ask for the request to be in writing. Say that you cannot follow-up on any such request unless it is in writing. And then, when the request comes in writing, leak it to the press and also refuse to delete the information. Tell management they can do it themselves, but you won’t.

Other ways you can stand up for core values of civility, human rights and dignity:

  • If you are asked by a funder to remove information on your web site or social media that affirms any commitment to diversity, equity or inclusion, or that supports racial equality or social justice, ask for the request to be in writing. Say that you cannot follow-up on any such request unless it is in writing. And then, when the request comes in writing, leak it to the press and also refuse to delete the information.
  • If not removing the language would jeopardize an amount of funding that, if lost, would harm your clients, then remove the language and put a press release on your web site stating that you are removing the funding at the request of whomever is making the request (NAME THEM), have a scan of their communication asking or telling you to do this linked from the web page, and tell people if they would like to see the pre-censored version of the web pages you had to alter, to go to archive.org and look such up. Be sure to share on social media that this is happening.
  • Do not comply with any request by phone from the federal government that involves turning over client or staff personal information to a federal office; tell the requester that the request must be in writing. Consult legal counsel regarding whether or not you legally have to do it.
  • Post on social media about your organization’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, or about activities your organization undertakes regarding such, or regarding related to racial equality or social justice, at least every quarter.
  • Attend public events by nonprofit in your area that are focused on serving minority communities, such as immigrants, refugees, local LBGTQ people, etc. Share a photo of yourself on social media with a member of that nonprofit, celebrating that you are together at the event.
  • Like, and if it’s appropriate, share, on your own social media account, posts of organizations in your area that support refugees and immigrants, LBGTQ people, and anyone else targeted by the current executive branch of government.
  • Go on social media using your organization’s profile and “like” the posts by your area’s elected officials and government offices that acknowledge diversity, equity and inclusion, racial equity, social justice issues, ALL religious holidays, etc.
  • Post acknowledgements at the start of Black History Month (February), Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (May), Pride Month (June), National Hispanic Heritage Month is annually observed (September 15 to October 15), and National American Indian Heritage Month (November).
  • Post acknowledgements of a diversity of religiously-affiliated and “patriot”-affiliated celebratory days:
    • MLK Day
    • Chinese New Year
    • Easter (and perhaps Eastern Orthodox Easter as well, depending on your community)
    • First and Last days of Ramadan (varies each year – in 2025, it may start on Friday, Feb. 28, or Saturday, March 1, 2025)
    • Armed Forces Day (People currently serving in the United States military – celebrate on the third Saturday in May).
    • Memorial Day (last Monday in May)
    • July 4th
    • Labor Day (first Monday in September)
    • Veterans Day November 11
    • Rosh Hashanah
    • Yom Kuppur
    • Christmas.
  • Tell your volunteers they have the right to refuse the Presidential Service Award. Encourage anyone who will do so to write the office in charge and your executive director to say they will be refusing it for at least the next four years.
  • If you have to refer to these regions, then make sure you call them what they are: the Gulf of Mexico and Denali. And spell it Kyiv.
  • Have a plan for what to do if the police or federal law enforcement, such as ICE, shows up at your organization. Make sure all staff know that the first thing to do is to call the Executive Director and to say, “I am not authorized to give you permission to search these premises.” Even if they have a warrant and the Executive has to relent, create time for clients and others to leave the area.

Addition on February 13, from a colleague on LinkedIn:

  • Practical protection for nonprofits – Check your recent email subscribers to see if there was recently added DEIAreports[@]opm[.]gov as a subscription, meant to monitor DEIA activity.
  • Consider temporarily filtering out anyone with .gov email, as the current executive order requires government workers to report any DEIA efforts or face adverse actions.

A final thought on the seriousness of what is happening:

Ever wonder what you would have done at the darkest times of history – when Nazis were about to take over all of Europe and were murdering millions of people, most of them Jewish? When black people were enslaved and tortured regularly and systematically in the USA? During the US Civil Rights movement? When the mass murders of ethnic groups was happening in Rwanda or Srebrenica? – Well, you are doing it now.

BTW, I’m jeopardizing my own career, such that it is, by suggesting all this. Yet, here I am.

Have more ideas? Share them in the comments.

Nonprofits & NGOs: your social media should focus on volunteering as much as possible.

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What the headline says.

Why?

Images, in the style of petroglyphs, of people doing various activities, like writing or construction.

If people aren’t coming into your organization regularly and seeing what your nonprofit does, first hand, and the difference it makes, the things it accomplishes, and why it is essential, they are not going to donate and they are not going to support any local, regional or national government funding your operations.

There are an extraordinary amount of outlandish beliefs about the work of nonprofits, how they operate and how they are funded. No amount of social media messaging and press releases is going to change that without a great deal of trust building, and volunteer engagement is an outstanding way to build trust in your nonprofit.

And who knows… maybe you might even build some bridges around a common cause between people who otherwise don’t care about each other very much.

Also see:

Volunteering & social cohesion in a post Brexit world

My Blogs re: social cohesion, building understanding

Note: because of a backlog of blog posts to publish, I’m going to be posting three times a month instead of just twice for a while.

Your nonprofit WILL be targeted with misinformation; prepare now.

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a primitive figure, like a petroglyph, shots through a megaphone

Watching misinformation and disinformation related to the fires in Los Angeles spread exactly like wildfire has been a reminder of just how bad things are regarding public relations and truth. Instead of an army of newspapers, local radio stations and TV stations and other credible media ready to debunk it, the media landscape is as decimated as the actual landscape of the area, and lies about government funding and action, spread by the owner of the site formerly known as Twitter and other people with a political agenda. And no amount of fact-based debunking seems to matter.

As someone that’s studyied misinformation and disinformation campaigns against governments and cause-based organizations since the 1990s, it’s been as horrifying to watch as people losing their homes. And as I’ve watched, I am reminded that nonprofits, no matter how small, no matter how beloved, need to be thinking about their strategy NOW for if and when they are targeted by misinformation. It doesn’t matter what your nonprofit’s mission or size: it can be a target for misinformation, on a local or even national level. And given the incoming Presidential administration, the power of misinformation should never be under-estimated.

I’ve used the example of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) before: it was a collection of community-based nonprofits and programs all over the USA that advocated for low- and moderate-income families and worked to address neighborhood safety, voter registration, health care, affordable housing and other social issues for low-income people. At its peak, ACORN had more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in over 100 cities across the USA. But ACORN was targeted by conservative political activists who secretly recorded and released highly-edited videos of interactions with low-level ACORN personnel in several offices, portraying the staff as encouraging criminal behavior. Despite multiple investigations on the federal, state, and county level that found that the released tapes were selectively edited to portray ACORN as negatively as possible and that nothing in the videos warranted criminal charges, the organization was doomed: politicians pounced and the public relations fallout resulted in almost immediate loss of funding from government agencies and from private donors.

Public libraries are another good example of how misinformation campaigns can work: more books were challenged in public libraries and school libraries in 2024 than ever before, according to the American Library Association. The vast majority of that increase came from groups or individuals working on behalf of national efforts trying to censor dozens or hundreds of titles at a time, part of a push across the country by those supporting the incoming Presidential administration to ban certain books based on the unfounded claims that they are inappropriate for children, as well as to defund and close public libraries altogether.

Goodwill is a frequent target of misinformation regarding senior staff salaries – and from what I see on a local level, makes no effort to counter that misinformation, resulting in people choosing not to donate items to their thrift shops nor shop at such. Which is so sad, as Goodwill does amazing work regarding training people to enter or re-enter the workforce (which most people don’t know is their mission).

There are nonprofit theaters, including community theaters, that have mounted a production that has resulted in community protests and a loss of donors, and seemed utterly unprepared for the groundswell of controversy, a groundswell that’s often started by just one person spreading misinformation about the play, and the people protesting often haven’t actually read nor seen the play. But they are loud, organized and committed, and the theater is often left utterly unprepared for the negative attention.

I have an entire blog about how to train staff so that your organization doesn’t become a victim of GOTCHA media?, so I won’t repeat those tips here. But you need to have a plan for what to do when there is even a hint of misinformation starting about your organization.

Misinformation about nonprofits usually targets their budget, what they pay staff, how they have or haven’t helped someone, how they make their programming decisions, how they carry out their work and their plans for the future. Therefore:

  • Make sure your web site is up-to-date regarding all of the above.
  • Your social media needs to regularly updated the public about all of the above.
  • ALL staff, including volunteers, need to be regularly briefed (at least twice a year; once a quarter is better) on all of the above.
  • All staff, including volunteers, need to know what to do if they see or hear misinformation related to your organization.

Your entire staff, including volunteers, need to be on the lookout for misinformation: a post on an online community, a comment at a church meeting, a reference at a civic group, a comment from a new volunteer, even a comment at a family gathering. If they see it or hear it in a public setting, or from an elected official or community leader or influencer, they need to NOT respond themselves – they need to know who at your organization they need to tell (it’s probably the executive director, the communications manager or their immediate supervisor). If it wasn’t a public comment, there’s no need to say exactly who said it, but do say what was said.

When was the last time you told your entire staff what to do in case they see or hear misinformation? If you don’t have an answer, create a strategy NOW and meeting dates and times. If it was in the last six months or more, it’s overdue to do it again.

When you hear misinformation, the next step may not be to have a meeting next week to discuss what’s happening; it may be to start drafting responses IMMEDIATELY, to be shared online within hours, even minutes. Who is going to be involved in that? Just the Executive Director and communications person? The board president too? Do you have all the contact information you need for these people so this can happen quickly?

If you had a message that needed to spread quickly online, do you have that system ready to go: do you have a board member who will be in charge of calling all board members to tell them to share an urgent social media message? do you have a manager of volunteers or volunteer leaders who will be in charge of contacting certain volunteers to encourage them to share that urgent social media message? Do you have more than one person who knows how to update your web site, in case your communications manager is on vacation?

And here’s the reality: if you are just thinking about this for the first time, right now, as you read this blog, or if you haven’t done anything to prepare yet, then you are already behind schedule. Most of the recommendations above cannot be done quickly without many weeks, even months, of preparation and refreshers. This is an URGENT need your nonprofit needs to address now, no matter its focus.

One more thing: you need a photo of your executive director, and any other staff, with as many elected officials as possible: the mayor, at least one city council member, at least one county representative, your area’s state representative, your area’s state senator, your areas US Representative and, if possible, your US Senators. It makes it more difficult for an elected official to criticize an organization when there is a photo of that person smiling with your staff, particularly at one of your events. See more at Nonprofits: look at local election results & prepare to reach out.

Also see

How to handle online criticism.

Could your organization be deceived by GOTCHA media?

Growing misconceptions about the role of nonprofits in the USA.

Mission-Based Groups Need Use the Web to Show Accountability

Governments cracking down on nonprofits & NGOs.

Be kind after you read the first draft.

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After a few decades of professional work, I’m getting less circumspect about my experiences. There are things I was afraid to say, or to admit to, 20 years ago, but now feel need to be shared, to help others pursuing a similar career path and to remind some folks in power of some things they should be reminded of. I’m in a good position to share them, per my decades of work and diversity of experiences. This blog is one of many coming from that feeling that it’s time to say it – whatever it is.

Many years ago, I trained as a journalist. I even worked as a professional journalist for a few years. But before graduating from university, I realized I didn’t want to be a journalist. Before I left university, I started working in public relations for a nonprofit, and then I was in charge of publicity for the entire season of my university’s children theater series. We broke attendance records. I loved it. So I’ve done communications work ever since for nonprofits and cause-based programs, except for a few breaks to manage programs and projects for nonprofits or the United Nations.

I love applying what I learned as a journalist to the work I do with nonprofits – I think it’s why I’m successful at getting media coverage. And I love writing with the purpose of promoting, even explaining, a program or project. For nonprofits, I find such writing easier than a lot of other people, because I believe so much in the fundamental importance of the third sector and the public sector to everyone’s quality of life. That innate motivation makes it easy for me to be motivated to write for most any nonprofit or government mission. I feel great inspiration in why most nonprofits and government programs exists, whether it’s a winterization program or a new musical or a new approach to community meeting facilitation, and I think it shows in what communications products – press release, web pages, social media posts, speeches, video scripts and more – that I make for them.

But writing for causes I immediately find worthy is not without some big challenges. And the biggest for me is the reaction from co-workers or funders reading a draft of something for the first time. The expressed shock of some of them, even suppressed outrage, that things are incorrect or aren’t perfectly clear can be exhausting.

Of course, the first draft is imperfect. Of course, you will need to edit what I’ve written. I knew that going in. Didn’t you?

Very often, the person that asks me to write a press release or slide show presentation or video script has nothing written at all, not even an outline. I have to draw my material for the first draft from talking to them, from researching online, and if I’m lucky, from printed or online material I’ve been able to track down, like a grant proposal. I do my best with what I can find, and when I provide that first draft, I’m not thinking, “Here it is, all perfect and ready to share!” I’m usually thinking, “Here it is, ready for your edits, because I know how much easier it is to edit than to write from scratch!” I expect edits!

One of my least favorite phrases is this: “I don’t know where you got this from”, referring to some graphic or quote I’ve included in my draft. Please note that I’m not AI (artificial intelligence) and I don’t make things up; whatever it is, I found that graphic or quote somewhere, from a different communications project I wasn’t involved with, from a headquarters, from another nonprofit – somewhere credible and reliable. Or, perhaps you explained something, in terms I cannot use, and so I had to interpret them – and it turns out your explanation wasn’t as good as you thought it was.

One of the best ways to know how good of an explainer you are is to explain something to a person, and then ask that person to explain it back to you. And that’s what you are doing when you ask me to write something you need to communicate with others.

In addition, so much of effective communication isn’t just saying something in one particular way, and expecting the reader or listener to understand. Rather, it’s about saying things in multiple ways, and the reader, or listener, gets the meaning from those different ways you have said it and that they have heard it – more than once.

When you get that first draft, don’t panic that it’s not perfect. Instead, think about how much easier it’s going to be to edit this than to try to write it entirely from scratch.

It’s fine to say, “I don’t like this” about a sentence or graphic, but be able to say more about why. Are the words too big? Do you feel like it could be interpreted to be saying something you don’t want said and, if so, what is that something?

It’s fine to say, “I haven’t heard this way of saying it before. Did this come from somewhere else?” I always have the source material for just such an occasion, like when a client thought I had made an inappropriate leap in logic in how I described one of the programs she managed, and I was able to provide the web pages of her affiliate’s headquarters, as well as other affiliates, that used the same descriptions.

Is the way you have been describing something really better than the alternative now being offered? You may be far closer to the subject matter than the person that wrote this press release draft, and that person may be thinking about the audience, people who don’t know as much as you do about the subject, or who may even be hostile about it.

Did the writer have to follow a particular template provided by a funder? Can the writer make the changes you want and still follow the template the funder wants followed?

Did the writer actually do what you wanted and you are now realizing it’s not what you wanted? That’s okay! It seemed like a great idea to adapt that poem or song lyric a certain way, but now that you see what that would look like, it’s okay to say, “I’ve changed my mind.”

Remember that the writer just did the heavy lifting and you now get the far easier role of editing and altering. Thank them for that heavy lifting!

Also see:

What theatre taught me about management & internal communications.

Abilities you need to work in humanitarian development successfully

How to support your online community manager in times of trolling.

Support Your Local Online Discussion Manager!

The delicate, peculiar task of promoting a charity’s gala.

Be careful using Canva – nonprofit graphics are starting to all look the same!

Getting great photos for your nonprofit’s marketing needs takes planning.

When some nonprofit employees & volunteers don’t really understand what the nonprofit is trying to address & why.

Nonprofits: look at local election results & prepare to reach out

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image of a panel discussion or a presentation in front of people at a long desk

An election has happened in the USA and, by now, even tight local elections should have been resolved and winners named. And that means, nonprofits, that you have some relationship building and sustaining to do:

Update your lists of elected officials – city councils, county officials, your state legislative representatives and your US congressional representatives. They don’t take office until January, however, so don’t change the lists prematurely if you have information to send out before the end of the year.

Newly-elected officials should get at least a card of introduction from your nonprofit. An invitation to meet face-to-face would be even better. They need to know who you are and why you matter.

For officials who did not choose to run for re-election, or lost the election, especially if they ever attended any of your events or somehow showed support for your nonprofit. Thank them for their support and consider offering an invitation to continue to be involved with your nonprofit in some way – at least signing up to continue to receive your newsletter. 

Relationship building with elected officials has never been more critical for nonprofits’ to survive. You ignore doing all of the above at great risk to your nonprofits’ future.

Folks need post-election reassurances from your nonprofit – here’s what to say

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four people standing in a circle, holding hands.

Nonprofits in the USA: there are people among your clients, your donors, your volunteers and employees who are deeply worried right now, per the November 2024 election. You don’t have to get political, but you do need to demonstrate to those you work with and for that your organization has a commitment to respect and inclusion in its work. And your employees in particular need to know you have their back in case they need to start job hunting.

Start by reaffirming your organization’s mission, vision and code of conduct, all of which should be in writing, to employees and volunteers. All of your volunteers should be signing new liability waivers and photo releases at the start of each new year – so why not have an official re-orientation when volunteers arrive to renew their paperwork that reminds them of your organization’s mission, vision and code of conduct? If your organization has a written commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), that should be noted as well. Most of your staff will greatly appreciate the reminder and the demonstrated affirmation.

Post reminders to your organization’s social media about your organization’s mission, vision, code of conduct and commitment to DEI. Don’t just do one post for all of this: create a series of posts. A post once a week, or every other week, would make the point clear to your various audiences.

Make sure you have signage in break rooms and work sites that clients, paid staff and volunteers will see that reminds them of your organization’s mission, vision, code of conduct and commitment to DEI. If you are a part of a national network, your national HQ may have posters already made for this.

One caveat: you may lose a volunteer or some supporters because they disagree with your organization’s values – and never realized it fully until you reminded them of such. They may leave quietly or they may express their displeasure in “finding out” that your organization is so “woke.” The reality is that, if they have this reaction, you haven’t done a good job of making sure that everyone has buy-in to your organization and how it works. Do you really want people interacting with clients and potential clients who are not fully bought into your organization’s mission and culture?

Many of us work for nonprofits where our positions are funded in part, if not entirely, by federal funding that is being targeted for elimination starting July 2025. So, nonprofit executive directors: pay attention to staff morale, respect staff that have started job hunting. Be an enthusiastic and supportive reference for employees applying for other jobs.

Also see:

Nonprofits: be honest with yourself, your staff & the public about how the November 2024 elections may affect you

Governor Bevin & Donald Trump Are Wrong on Community Service Requirements (January 2018)

Trump wants to eliminate national service (February 2018)

Trump’s War on Volunteerism (July 2018)

Trump is trying to eliminate national service – again (March 2019)

time for USA nonprofits to be demanding (January 2018)

A plea to USA nonprofits for the next four years (& beyond) (January 2017)

Be careful using Canva – nonprofit graphics are starting to all look the same!

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three cartoon people are jumping

I had never used Canva before August 2022. I’m not much of a graphic designer and would never be hired for such, but since I work mostly for nonprofits, I also usually don’t have a budget for a professional graphic designer, so I have to make due on my own. But my primary employer these days has an account with Canva and I’ve been able to use it.

Canva is really amazing and I use it often. BUT, I am also noticing something: a lot of graphics on social media produced by nonprofits and independent bloggers is starting to look the same. The drawn human images on Canva look very similar in style. And I live in a small community and I’ve seen one particular Canva design used by three different nonprofits for their galas – same image and colors.

Here are some tips for making your products produced via Canva unique:

  • Never use a template without a LOT of alteration. Add or change the graphics, change colors, change fonts, etc. Otherwise you risk having an image that looks almost exactly like someone else’s.
  • Never use photos from Canva. Use your own photos. Make sure your volunteers and staff have all signed photo releases, and use photos of them. Same for clients: make sure you have photo releases and, of course, that using their photos publicly is allowed.
  • Alter any ready-made images in your own designs. Flip some horizontally. Change the clothes colors for what the people in the drawings are wearing, for instance. Change skin tones. Change hair colors. If you can’t do this in Canva, use whatever graphic design software that came free on your computer to do it.
  • Follow nonprofits in your area on social media and read their posts regularly. This can help you avoid using similar designs.
  • Canva images tend to not be as diverse as you might need. It can be hard to find a family image with diverse members, for instance, or a family that might better represent a Latino family, a black family, a family where the mother is wearing a hijab or chunni, a family where the men are wearing a dastaar, etc. Or to find a classroom drawing with a diversity among students. I sometimes search for images representing a cultural group specifically so I can make sure my imagery of a family scene, a crowd scene, a classroom, etc. better reflects the community served by the local nonprofit I work for.
  • Standards in graphic design still apply when using Canva: you need to have excellent color contrast for text versus the text background, you need to have an overarching word, phrase or image, one that is bigger than everything else so that it draws in the viewer, you need to think about how you want someone’s eye to move across the graphic, the image should be easily and immediately understood, you need to make sure the graphic has all of the information needed or will be accompanied by the text of all that is needed, etc.

I’m not at all saying don’t use Canva. But don’t get complacent and confuse ease of use with good practice.

Web Sites Still Matter

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For the last decade – maybe the last 15 years – the web site home pages of nonprofits, corporations, even news outlets, were rarely the focus of most people’s regular attention; these organizations’ outlets relied on social media to distribute their information. Users read the information they wanted because they subscribed or followed or “liked” the entities or messaging they wanted to stay up-to-date about, and got more recommendations through algorithmically personalized recommendations. As The New Yorker put it:

News articles circulated as individual URLs, floating in the ether of social-media feeds, divorced from their original publishers. With rare exceptions, home pages were reduced to the role of brand billboards; you might check them out in passing, but they weren’t where the action lay.

But Twitter, now X, has imploded and is bleeding users. Facebook is overrun with ads and push marketing, burying the pages and accounts a user wants to see under a mountain of paid messaging. Social media infrastructure is crumbling, having become both ineffective for publishers and alienating for users. Social networks are overwhelmed by misinformation and content generated by artificial intelligence. 

Again, back to The New Yorker article:

Surrounded by dreck, the digital citizen is discovering that the best way to find what she used to get from social platforms is to type a URL into a browser bar and visit an individual site. Many of those sites, meanwhile, have worked hard to make themselves feel a bit more like social media, with constant updates, grabby visual stimuli, and a sense of social interaction. 

Things aren’t all good for the World Wide Web, as this article from The Atlantic notes:

Large language models, or LLMs, are trained on massive troves of material—nearly the entire internet in some cases. They digest these data into an immeasurably complex network of probabilities, which enables them to synthesize seemingly new and intelligently created material; to write code, summarize documents, and answer direct questions in ways that can appear human…. Just as there is an entire industry of scammy SEO-optimized websites trying to entice search engines to recommend them so you click on them, there will be a similar industry of AI-written, LLMO-optimized sites. And as audiences dwindle, those sites will drive good writing out of the market.

Another article in The Atlantic says that domain names (but not web sites) are no longer essential.

I believe that web sites still matter. I believe domain names still matter, because so many people, and so many organizations, and so many cities and regions, have these same name, so search engine results aren’t always all you need.

Back in 2012, I wrote a blog called Why Your Organization Probably Doesn’t Need A Facebook Page. I added in 2017 that I still believe 90% of what was proposed in that blog, and reading it now, I still believe that. That doesn’t mean you should NOT have a Facebook page, but you should think very seriously what you want it to do. For the Habitat for Humanity ReStore I support, Facebook outreach has been fundamental to sales; take it away, and I think sales would drop at least 25%, maybe more. But I also work for a nonprofit that is much larger, that is focused on technology and nonprofits, and if their Facebook page disappeared tomorrow, no one would notice.

Your organization, your program, your city – it needs a permanent home on the web, a place that all your other online activities point back to, the place that’s there when the latest social media trendy platform fades. When I join an organization, it’s so easy to become well-versed in what that organization does if they have a web site: I not only read that, I go back on archive.org and read past versions of their web sites. I find out if the ReStore is traditionally closed on a particular holiday. I find photos from past events featuring a former board member who I have learned has died and I need to create a tribute. I double -heck the dates of an event I will attend. A web site is also for your employees and volunteers, not just potential new supporters.

I have an entire section on my web site about nonprofit web sites: what should be on a nonprofit’s web site and how that web site should be designed and managed. I started it back in the 1990s and have updated it regularly. There was a time in the early part of this century when I thought maybe it was time to take the section down, that web sites weren’t needed anymore. I’m so glad I didn’t – the material is needed as much now as it has ever been.

Also see:

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