Nonprofits Have it Right

Stakeholder communication and messaging

Effective stakeholder communication is all about saying the right things to the right people. In our everyday world, we do this well. Time and experience teach us the benefit of investing in the people who are strategic to us and as we select these people over time, we get the process down pretty well. Our daily communication works because we know what to say, and we know who to say it to. If we don’t, time and tide set us straight. Plus, we always have the luxury of trying again if we miss our stakeholder communication mark the first time.

Then a crisis occurs, and everything changes. In addition to the need for new messaging due to our new situation, we join a new organization, leaving ‘ Day to Day, Incorporated’ for ‘Incident Command (hopefully) Limited’. We’re thrust into a new operating sphere called the Joint Information Center, with new coworkers and new stakeholders. Our stakeholders and messaging are exponentially more critical to our survival, but we have neither additional time nor extra chances to get both right.

As we step into this new sphere, how can we make the right choices for messaging and stakeholders? It may be helpful to consider a different business model that will help you make the right decisions.

A look at how successful nonprofits manage stakeholder communication and management

If you want to see an organization that maintains a clear understanding of stakeholders and messaging, look at a well-run nonprofit. Thriving nonprofits manage to balance the evolving and competing demands of their stakeholders, and communicate common values, principles, priorities and messages to each one.  In so doing they are actually increasing the value of their gathered stakeholders to the organization as a whole, while simultaneously increasing the value of the organization to each stakeholder.

Consider five stakeholder groups every nonprofit must manage:

• The clients: Every nonprofit has clients of some type. Their needs usually define the organization’s mission. These are the people we’re trying help. They care about our services, availability and effectiveness. They think that their priorities are, or ought to be, the organization’s priorities.
• The donors: The people with resources. These people care about effectiveness and the return on their investment; they willingly give to causes and programs that matter to them. They have an affinity for the Clients, but they aren’t a client. They don’t need the nonprofit for services, but they see the nonprofit as the best way to help the client.
• The board: These people manage the organization. They care about the organization and its effectiveness. They care about costs, and they balance the need and effectiveness of service delivery against cost, budget and available resources. While they care about the Client, they are committed to the organization.
• The workers: These people actually deliver the services.They care about the clients, and they care about themselves. They expect both finances and feelings: they care, and their care is shaped or defined either by their pay, or by their desire to have a personal impact in people’s lives, often both. Workers are paid staff or volunteers. The pay is is different, but a good nonprofit holds the same standards of training, accountability and effectiveness for volunteers as they do for staff.
• The activists: These people are the heralds. They care about the cause, usually more than they care about the clients. They are often advocating for their own benefits instead of the clients’. Their focus can be on purity of mission instead of effectiveness of programs.

Run effectively, nonprofits balance each of these groups’ expectations in a way that meets each group’s needs while also adding a greater mutual benefit from this balance. They effectively balance the strengths and shortcomings of each group and create a dynamic, effective and thriving team.

Non-profit management isn’t easy, and the best practitioners succeed despite limited time, budget and agreement from often competing stakeholders. They simultaneously deliver needed services to clients who appreciate them, extract support from resource holders who buy into the vision, steer overseers to common and effective decisions, direct staff to deliver quality services and assuage the concerns of activists who always expect their personal nirvana.

And these needs do compete. It’s easy to become unbalanced and nonprofits always have a much lower margin for error:

• Fall short in meeting the needs of your clients and they will complain about your services.
• Turn off donors, who constrict your cash flow, leading to staffing reductions and even lower services.
• Neglect the Board and they can end up fighting fires instead of planning futures, while the value equation for donors disappears.
• Worry your workers by neglecting pay, security or support and they can turn against you, impacting your image with donors and activists or alienating clients with lackluster service.
• Fail the activists by not delivering services or an image they can support and they will turn against you, questioning your mission or methods, often loudly and publicly. They will watch you and measure you, always ready to pounce if they perceive wrong motives, actions or outcome. And they will define each.

Anybody want to manage a nonprofit? The good leaders dance a dance that keeps all their stakeholders satisfied, and they do it by blending the needs of each group with the mission of the organization.

What does this have to do with stakeholder communication in a response?

Effective response communication also has to dance a dance that keeps all stakeholders satisfied by blending the needs of each group with the mission of the organization. Nonprofits manage their stakeholders, communicators manage stakeholder communications. Both endeavors face the same dynamics.

Your organization is the Incident Command. The response is your mission. Your stakeholders are:

• The Clients: These are the people who have been impacted by the incident.
• The Donors: These are the funders of the response, usually the Responsible Party or their insurer, though sometimes a government entity.
• The Board: Incident Command itself, participants working together to provide the maximum efficiency and effectiveness.
• The Workers: These are the people and organizations actually doing the work. This group includes both paid and volunteer people and organizations.
• The Activists: These are people or organizations with causes. Media are activists. Bloggers are activists (and bloggers are media, another subject). Advocacy and special interest groups are activists.

Now for the ‘easy’ part; apply the tactics and strategies of an effective non-profit to the Joint Information Center and you can succeed at moving this conflicting herd of cats to the finish line of success.

Dance the dance like a non-profit!

1. Define the mission: Every successful nonprofit has an ascendant mission that colors the perception of every stakeholder. From Client to Activist, every stakeholder can define the agency mission in common terms. Mission becomes common cause when effectively defined and shared.Turn Unified Command objectives or priorities into a mission statement. Use words of commitment and vision. Instead of saying; “Ensure the safety of responders and the community” say; “The safety and security of every person is important to us. Everything we do is centered on this principle.”
2. Define ‘success‘ for each stakeholder group, and tie each definition to the Mission. For clients, success may be a return to normal life, restoration of something damaged, encouragement to trust and believe. For donors success may be effective use of funds, even more than minimal use of funds.Each stakeholder group will define success differently, but link them together by identifying each with the mission statement: “We will minimize the impact of this incident because we want the community and the environment healed and restored.”Objectives of the response are recast as definitions of success. This allows each stakeholder group to begin to share a common and measurable definition of success. The vision is supported by reality.
3. Dedicate your resources, first to the most greatly shared objectives. Disparate stakeholder groups will likely share some definitions of success, and shared information has greater impact. If activists are clamoring for bird rescue and clients value wildlife, sharing successful rehabilitation will have a positive impact on both groups’ belief in the mission. Products identified in a publication plan should be weighted by their impact: Deal with the most important ones first.
4. Share success across all stakeholder groups. Remind all stakeholders that progress in any area is progress in all areas. Celebrate accomplishments. An insurance company might not care about a rescued bird, but they will be happy that community members are gaining confidence in the response because they see a bird rescued.
5. Ask for more. Encourage every stakeholder to do something to further the mission. Successful nonprofits are always recruiting: bodies, testimonials, funding, volunteers. Encourage each stakeholder group to greater involvement. As community members see their own beach cleaned, ask them to share any other needs they see among their neighbors. As activist groups provide volunteers, ask them to spread the word for more. As media members receive communication content, encourage them to ask more and write more. Engage with negative stakeholders to help them see the overall mission more clearly.
6. Don’t ignore any stakeholder group. It may be more fun to work with volunteers than it is to engage with activists, but success requires both. Don’t consider media inquiries as a chore or to be discouraged. Welcome them and make it clear they are welcome. Thank them for their interest and engage with them. Keep response personnel aware of latest updates and support them with counsel and content.Engage with all stakeholders. Invite each one to the communications table and give them content that not only feeds them but satisfies them. Show bird advocates that you are funding rehabilitation centers and encouraging them to volunteer because part of your mission is to protect, heal and restore wildlife affected wildlife to their natural state. Tying mission to performance is a powerful element in satisfaction.

It seems like a lot of work, but consider this simple concept: If each stakeholder group understands the broad mission of Incident Command and can relate to it because they see their concerns or needs addressed, there will be a building consensus and partnership in the response that will yield the most precious result: recognition and appreciation for work well done in difficult circumstances.

The old communication adage is really true: Do the right thing and make sure people know about it. Engage them at their point of interest, with language meaninful to them, and they just might dance the dance with you.

Stakeholder communication and messaging

Effective stakeholder communication is all about saying the right things to the right people. In our everyday world, we do this well. Time and experience teach us the benefit of investing in the people who are strategic to us and as we select these people over time, we get the process down pretty well. Our daily communication works because we know what to say, and we know who to say it to. If we don’t, time and tide set us straight. Plus, we always have the luxury of trying again if we miss our stakeholder communication mark the first time.

Then a crisis occurs, and everything changes. In addition to the need for new messaging due to our new situation, we join a new organization, leaving ‘ Day to Day, Incorporated’ for ‘Incident Command (hopefully) Limited’. We’re thrust into a new operating sphere called the Joint Information Center, with new coworkers and new stakeholders. Our stakeholders and messaging are exponentially more critical to our survival, but we have neither additional time nor extra chances to get both right.

As we step into this new sphere, how can we make the right choices for messaging and stakeholders? It may be helpful to consider a different business model that will help you make the right decisions.

A look at how successful nonprofits manage stakeholder communication and management

If you want to see an organization that maintains a clear understanding of stakeholders and messaging, look at a well-run nonprofit. Thriving nonprofits manage to balance the evolving and competing demands of their stakeholders, and communicate common values, principles, priorities and messages to each one.  In so doing they are actually increasing the value of their gathered stakeholders to the organization as a whole, while simultaneously increasing the value of the organization to each stakeholder.

Consider five stakeholder groups every nonprofit must manage:

• The clients: Every nonprofit has clients of some type. Their needs usually define the organization’s mission. These are the people we’re trying help. They care about our services, availability and effectiveness. They think that their priorities are, or ought to be, the organization’s priorities.
• The donors: The people with resources. These people care about effectiveness and the return on their investment; they willingly give to causes and programs that matter to them. They have an affinity for the Clients, but they aren’t a client. They don’t need the nonprofit for services, but they see the nonprofit as the best way to help the client.
• The board: These people manage the organization. They care about the organization and its effectiveness. They care about costs, and they balance the need and effectiveness of service delivery against cost, budget and available resources. While they care about the Client, they are committed to the organization.
• The workers: These people actually deliver the services.They care about the clients, and they care about themselves. They expect both finances and feelings: they care, and their care is shaped or defined either by their pay, or by their desire to have a personal impact in people’s lives, often both. Workers are paid staff or volunteers. The pay is is different, but a good nonprofit holds the same standards of training, accountability and effectiveness for volunteers as they do for staff.
• The activists: These people are the heralds. They care about the cause, usually more than they care about the clients. They are often advocating for their own benefits instead of the clients’. Their focus can be on purity of mission instead of effectiveness of programs.

Run effectively, nonprofits balance each of these groups’ expectations in a way that meets each group’s needs while also adding a greater mutual benefit from this balance. They effectively balance the strengths and shortcomings of each group and create a dynamic, effective and thriving team.

Non-profit management isn’t easy, and the best practitioners succeed despite limited time, budget and agreement from often competing stakeholders. They simultaneously deliver needed services to clients who appreciate them, extract support from resource holders who buy into the vision, steer overseers to common and effective decisions, direct staff to deliver quality services and assuage the concerns of activists who always expect their personal nirvana.

And these needs do compete. It’s easy to become unbalanced and nonprofits always have a much lower margin for error:

• Fall short in meeting the needs of your clients and they will complain about your services.
• Turn off donors, who constrict your cash flow, leading to staffing reductions and even lower services.
• Neglect the Board and they can end up fighting fires instead of planning futures, while the value equation for donors disappears.
• Worry your workers by neglecting pay, security or support and they can turn against you, impacting your image with donors and activists or alienating clients with lackluster service.
• Fail the activists by not delivering services or an image they can support and they will turn against you, questioning your mission or methods, often loudly and publicly. They will watch you and measure you, always ready to pounce if they perceive wrong motives, actions or outcome. And they will define each.

Anybody want to manage a nonprofit? The good leaders dance a dance that keeps all their stakeholders satisfied, and they do it by blending the needs of each group with the mission of the organization.

What does this have to do with stakeholder communication in a response?

Effective response communication also has to dance a dance that keeps all stakeholders satisfied by blending the needs of each group with the mission of the organization. Nonprofits manage their stakeholders, communicators manage stakeholder communications. Both endeavors face the same dynamics.

Your organization is the Incident Command. The response is your mission. Your stakeholders are:

• The Clients: These are the people who have been impacted by the incident.
• The Donors: These are the funders of the response, usually the Responsible Party or their insurer, though sometimes a government entity.
• The Board: Incident Command itself, participants working together to provide the maximum efficiency and effectiveness.
• The Workers: These are the people and organizations actually doing the work. This group includes both paid and volunteer people and organizations.
• The Activists: These are people or organizations with causes. Media are activists. Bloggers are activists (and bloggers are media, another subject). Advocacy and special interest groups are activists.

Now for the ‘easy’ part; apply the tactics and strategies of an effective non-profit to the Joint Information Center and you can succeed at moving this conflicting herd of cats to the finish line of success.

Dance the dance like a non-profit!

1. Define the mission: Every successful nonprofit has an ascendant mission that colors the perception of every stakeholder. From Client to Activist, every stakeholder can define the agency mission in common terms. Mission becomes common cause when effectively defined and shared.Turn Unified Command objectives or priorities into a mission statement. Use words of commitment and vision. Instead of saying; “Ensure the safety of responders and the community” say; “The safety and security of every person is important to us. Everything we do is centered on this principle.”
2. Define ‘success‘ for each stakeholder group, and tie each definition to the Mission. For clients, success may be a return to normal life, restoration of something damaged, encouragement to trust and believe. For donors success may be effective use of funds, even more than minimal use of funds.Each stakeholder group will define success differently, but link them together by identifying each with the mission statement: “We will minimize the impact of this incident because we want the community and the environment healed and restored.”Objectives of the response are recast as definitions of success. This allows each stakeholder group to begin to share a common and measurable definition of success. The vision is supported by reality.
3. Dedicate your resources, first to the most greatly shared objectives. Disparate stakeholder groups will likely share some definitions of success, and shared information has greater impact. If activists are clamoring for bird rescue and clients value wildlife, sharing successful rehabilitation will have a positive impact on both groups’ belief in the mission. Products identified in a publication plan should be weighted by their impact: Deal with the most important ones first.
4. Share success across all stakeholder groups. Remind all stakeholders that progress in any area is progress in all areas. Celebrate accomplishments. An insurance company might not care about a rescued bird, but they will be happy that community members are gaining confidence in the response because they see a bird rescued.
5. Ask for more. Encourage every stakeholder to do something to further the mission. Successful nonprofits are always recruiting: bodies, testimonials, funding, volunteers. Encourage each stakeholder group to greater involvement. As community members see their own beach cleaned, ask them to share any other needs they see among their neighbors. As activist groups provide volunteers, ask them to spread the word for more. As media members receive communication content, encourage them to ask more and write more. Engage with negative stakeholders to help them see the overall mission more clearly.
6. Don’t ignore any stakeholder group. It may be more fun to work with volunteers than it is to engage with activists, but success requires both. Don’t consider media inquiries as a chore or to be discouraged. Welcome them and make it clear they are welcome. Thank them for their interest and engage with them. Keep response personnel aware of latest updates and support them with counsel and content.Engage with all stakeholders. Invite each one to the communications table and give them content that not only feeds them but satisfies them. Show bird advocates that you are funding rehabilitation centers and encouraging them to volunteer because part of your mission is to protect, heal and restore wildlife affected wildlife to their natural state. Tying mission to performance is a powerful element in satisfaction.

It seems like a lot of work, but consider this simple concept: If each stakeholder group understands the broad mission of Incident Command and can relate to it because they see their concerns or needs addressed, there will be a building consensus and partnership in the response that will yield the most precious result: recognition and appreciation for work well done in difficult circumstances.

The old communication adage is really true: Do the right thing and make sure people know about it. Engage them at their point of interest, with language meaningful to them, and they just might dance the dance with you.

Want to know more about nonprofits’ communication challenges and solutions?  Here are two podcast to hear! Episodes 24 and 25 on the Leading in a Crisis Podcast!

Questions? Did you see ideas in this post that you’ve never heard of before? Contact me!

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