FROM THE ARCHIVES
This is the first installment of NPQ‘s longest running column, the Nonprofit Ethicist. What is your dilemma? Advice in this column includes the Ethicist’s take on an MSO’s board issues, and what to do with a bad case of founder syndrome.
Welcome to the fall 2005 issue of the Nonprofit Quarterly entitled “Amplifying Democracy: Nonprofits and Communications.” Inside, we have included articles on everything from branding and social marketing to how communications fits in social change and organizing strategies. We have looked at how communities can be helped to reframe issues and what it takes to
To move an issue from being a concern of the already convinced to being a concern of a broader community, we need to cultivate that broader community.
Following are some tips from those that have succeeded using different methods—visibility and enforcement; education; and humor—and one example of a failed campaign.
In its work with hundreds of community groups across the country, the SPIN Project has observed a common set of questions emerging for organizers embarking on and evaluating communications efforts.
This is about storytelling: how journalists tell stories to citizens; how nonprofits tell stories to journalists to convey to citizens; how we tell stories to each other to try to make sense of what is happening to our families, neighbors, and people we don’t know. And this is a plea for better storytelling from the people in clinics and classrooms, programs and public agencies, who have their hands on America’s future.
Building the capacity of local organizations and residents requires an understanding of how the media works. This includes knowing how to become a reliable source of information, how an issue is framed, and how to engage reporters in a deeper conversation.
This is a new era in which organizational transparency and accountability are ever more important, and there is a higher premium on the public’s need to know. What is the unique commitment your organization has made?
Put simply, nonprofits need democracy to bring about long-term solutions, often through policy changes; and democracy in turn depends on nonprofits to educate the public about the important and critical issues that face us.
Why allow powerful forces to define nonprofits, when even the smallest shop has the necessary tools at their disposal to match those forces with truthful and inspiring messages that tell its story? Here are a few tips on how you, too, can take control of your message.
Nonprofits (i.e., 501(c)(3) organizations for the purposes of this article) currently have extensive latitude to communicate with the public and elected representatives. This article warns against legislation that seeks to limit that ability.
Is a nonprofit sector doing all it can to address the disaster wrought by the recent hurricanes?