Failure to Make Strategic Communications a Priority

In a 1992 study of over 200 grantees of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (Princeton, N.J.), the majority identified a "proactive" communications strategy as a predictor of success in all program areas. As a result, the foundation decided to devote a portion of its grantmaking budget to grantees' communication activities.

Most of the not-for-profit executives to whom Good News/Good Deeds spoke acknowledged the critical role effective communications plays in their organizations' overall success. However, few could say they approach their communications work strategically. Words used to describe their media relations strategy were "piecemeal" and "reactive." The following comments were made:

"When a reporter calls I drop everything to try to fill their needs and/or refer them to another agency," said one human services executive in a focus group, echoing the approach of several of the other group participants. "If a reporter calls me and if there is a story interest, it will take priority over most anything I am working on. I'll delegate (what I'm working on) to someone else and take care of the media issue first."

Not-for-profit executives attribute their lack of strategic action to a number of factors including: not knowing how to develop strategic communications plans; inability to decide on key messages; lack of staff training in outreach; limited or non-existent communications budgets; and, in some cases, lack of understanding on the part of board leadership of the importance of the task. "Some people — my board members — just don't understand the need for a focused message," said the executive director of a large environmental organization. "Convincing my board this work is valuable is an incredible challenge. They have an incredibly naive view that people should simply believe that what we are doing is good and right."

Grantmakers are in an interesting position when it comes to strategic communications. Though they have resources which could arguably support not-for-profits in such activities, and at least an occasional willingness to consider doing so, they rarely do. The grantmakers interviewed for this study cited an explosion of community needs which they believe are more important than communications. According to one grantmaker, an inability to measure tangible results from communications efforts fuels their reluctance. "Media campaigns tend to be very large, very expensive and run over a wide span of time. Sometimes the final data of whether or not they work is often soft so that when push comes to shove no one is going to invest their dollars in that."

One museum executive lamented grantmakers' short-sightedness: "We had a very successful art exhibit and asked for $10,000 to mount it. One funder would give us $5,000 for installation (of the exhibit) and cut $5,000 for marketing. So they support the exhibit, but they didn't help us to reach people with the message of the exhibit."

Despite most grantmakers' reluctance to support communications, in the mid-1980s two local grantmakers decided to get behind a small not-for-profit, Community Marketing and Media Center (CMMC). CMMC's purpose was to help advocacy-oriented not-for-profits influence public attitudes through multi-media campaigns. It also provided marketing and media consultation services to all community organizations except those in the arts, who could seek such support from the group Business Volunteers for the Arts.

Liz Smith, CMMC's only executive director, recalls that the organization helped some 300 not-for-profits during its four-year lifespan. Among its many activities, CMMC offered one-to-one consulting with not-for-profits to assess their market position and challenges. It published a low-cost guide on how not-for-profits could access local media people, provided media research and placement services, and linked not-for-profits to a resource bank of 100 marketing professionals who were willing to donate consulting services.

CMMC also developed guidelines to teach not-for-profits how to work effectively with marketing professionals and workshops on how to develop memberships, programs and the organizations themselves. Additionally, CMMC created the "Halo Awards" program aimed at recognizing excellence in public service advertising created by local advertising agencies.

Half of CMMC's annual budget came from the nominal fees charged of not-for-profits. The other half came from contributions — some from grantmakers — and fundraising events. The organization was never able to secure funding from corporate foundations. And, whenever it appealed to broader audiences for support, CMMC found itself "competing" against the very organizations it was designed to help. These factors led to CMMC's demise.

"We were working with a lot of very liberal organizations and this made mainstream funders squeamish," Smith said. "The forest-industry funders, for example, wouldn't touch us because we were helping the Sierra Club. We were just too advocacy-oriented for most funders."

Smith is philosophical about what happened and still optimistic such an idea could be successful. "CMMC was just ahead of its time," she said. "People back then didn't recognize the value of marketing and were not ready to pay for it. Were we to have operated within a foundation or organization that could have covered our overhead, I think we would have made it."

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