Category Archives: Uncategorized
Media Training for Sharper Green Advocacy
Demand for broadcast media training from environmental groups has increased of late as organisations find they need to sharpen up their media performances. Mainstream media has been devoting more coverage to climate change and other serious green issues. However, positive environmental stories rarely make dramatic news. Many environmental groups find that, although scientifically-based solutions are available, their advocacy requires better media presentation if they are to break out of specialist
Top tips to tempt target readers into your blog
Do you want to know how to make readers more agog to read what’s in your blog? If you want to reach beyond a niche audience, it’s important to make your specialist knowledge accessible to audiences without the time or in-depth expertise to digest complex details. But a lot of bloggers find it challenging to make their blogs appealing to readers who know little or nothing about the subject. Experts
Arresting decline needs more arresting stories
INGOs need to assert far more confidently the founding values of their organisations. They should not let themselves be driven by internal marketing and fundraising pressures in these economically challenging times. That was the message which sang out to me from a recent Oxford academic webinar on the topic of ‘Aid Agencies: Past, Present & Future’. This is not the time to retreat into tired old communication tropes of
Is your crisis communications plan fit for purpose?
Do you worry about how you would manage a reputational crisis? Every organisation experiences a crisis from time to time. Most organisations hope that their nightmare scenarios can be dealt with internally, without drawing a blaze of publicity. But in the era of social media, it’s become more and more risky to rely on the hope of your next crisis staying safely under the radar. The 21stcentury landscape of 24/7
Social media for research dissemination
Being able to disseminate your research beyond a small circle of scholars is now a condition of most research grants. And even if you aren’t in an academic institute and your research project doesn’t depend on grant funding, it is probably being produced in order to influence opinion, policy or decision-making. So it’s important that research findings are disseminated to the audiences they’re intended to influence. A lot of researchers
What chance change on humanitarian fundraising messages?
It’s easy to be jaded about jamborees like the World Humanitarian Summit but in all the verbiage of ‘Grand Bargains’, aid financing and the like which came out of Istanbul this month, I was struck by one hopeful little nugget. In a ‘Charter for Change: Localisation of Humanitarian Aid’ initiated by CAFOD and Christian Aid, a whole slew of international ngos at the summit were committing themselves inter alia “to promote the
My deep dive audience research on fundraising images
Audience research is vital for organisations that want to know how people respond to their messaging. I wanted to do some audience research to find out how people really respond to images of suffering children. Do they feel any empathy for the child in the picture? Do they identify with their suffering or feel any responsibility for helping in the fight to overcome poverty? So I organised some focus groups
Top ten reasons why communications strategies don’t get implemented
The not-for-profit movement needs to be more accountable if it is going to continue enjoying the income that results from the support of the public, governments, and other partners. This means that just having a communication strategy isn’t enough. The quality of organisational communications has never been more important, so it’s vital to have a strategy that’s designed to meet the specific needs of your organisation and a workable plan