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How scale kills campaigns

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We were told that we needed to reach everyone to create the change we need. Maybe that’s a problem.

[Photo by Daria Nepriakhina via Unsplash]

This piece started as an explainer on how nobody is reading your organization’s emails and if/how/why you might care about that. And what to do.

That still seems like a good topic. Nonprofit open rates average around 25% for newsletters. Most other message types are lower. And open rates are inflated/totally misguiding so far fewer folks are reading anything. Heck, for many groups, 10% or more of all email is going to spam.

The real issue here is that people are busy, buried in content, and have priorities. There’s no one solution. Sending fewer (or more) messages probably won’t fix this. Moving to Mastodon won’t fix it. A preference center won’t fix it. A multi-channel (or omnichannel?) strategy won’t fix it. And, good god, P2P texting won’t fix it.

We’ve gone so far with scale, reach, and attention that we’ve forgotten why we’re here: to help real people with real problems.

A list of the engaged, excited and passionate people with agency to create impact.

I propose that we see every person who engages in our organization or list as unique individuals with experiences, interests, and needs. We would get to know each of them.

This seems unlikely – and at scale downright impossible.

Why this won’t work.

We can come up with several reasons this is a bad idea. 😉

Organizations aren’t set up for this.

  • We have big legacy lists that churn through people and need volume to succeed.
  • Recruitment strategies that sometimes start with personal contact but have no ability to follow up. Canvasses, for example, start with one to one conversations at the door or in front of Trader Joe’s. Then we hand off that person to an email list with no relationship building strategy. It’s no wonder people think it’s all about money.
  • Staffing is not oriented towards people skills – customer service, engagement, organizing. We do give extra attention to large donors. Again, money earns attention.
  • We rely on paid staff for everything. We could never hire, train, manage, pay for the staff needed to engage with people at this level. It’s all hubs and centralization. People and cost are bottleneck to everything.

It hurts fundraising, budgeting and planning.

  • We have data on acquisition, fundraising and marketing costs. We more or less know how many people will respond, the average gift we can expect, and how many people we will lose or churn through each year.
  • This model is predictable and manageable.
  • Any change might cost more, lower response, result in fewer gifts, etc.

People don’t want or need it.

  • People are busy. They don’t have time to do more than click on an email or social post.
  • People join our list and give us money so that we will take care of the problem and keep them informed.
  • We already do things to work people up the ladder of engagement. We upgrade donors. We invite people to take bigger actions. We even have a volunteer program.

Or, actually, this is already how we do it.

  • We segment our list by interest, geography and donation amount. So we only send everything to most people most of the time. Not all the time.
  • We have regional offices that run local events.
  • We do surveys asking people what they think of our newsletter and what information would be helpful.

Look around (waves hands)…things are dire and we need everyone on board!!!

Problems like climate change, authoritarianism, inequality, racism, homelessness, and a health care that’s cracking up big, complex and systemic. We need millions of people to take action and press leaders for change. We need millions of people to change behaviors that uphold systems.

Reaching everybody means communicating at scale. We should grow our lists quickly. Send compelling messages expressing the importance of our solutions and urgency of taking action on them. We should encourage people to share messages and find ways to help them. We should go viral. We should spread our reach by working to change messages in art, TV, film and music. We should find and support influencers who can deliver this urgent information.

Given that, can we communicate one to one? Can we find out what people and their families need or want right now so they can eat better, get better jobs, pay their bills and access health care?

We need scale. But the way we run campaigns and organizations at scale is counter productive. We are great at creating content. But all that content is turning advocacy into entertainment instead of tangible progress.

People become wary of messages about change and progress. They hear it and see it every day and don’t see results. Change becomes faceless. Change is just another message – another fundraising email – from another organization.

Treat people as though they have agency. It could work.

The hypothetical problems listed above are driven by fear of change and a scarcity mindset. There’s little if any funding for experimenting with community building and communications, particularly when an organization’s only source of unrestricted funding is at stake.

But it’s imperative that we rethink community, engagement, membership and even fundraising. Especially when the need for action is urgent and the competition for attention is increasing exponentially.

Some thoughts on how we do this:

Only communicate directly with people who we’ve spoken to directly.

No, sending an email to someone doesn’t count as speaking to them directly.

We optimize for growth knowing that only a small – tiny, really – percentage of people will give money, send a petition, come to a public meeting or call their congressional rep or mayor’s office.

This means most people are being conditioned to ignore us. When something great or important does happen they aren’t likely to read the email and follow up.

Instead, place an emphasis on inviting people in through opportunities for direct action and conversation. Instead of sending actions to rented email lists, use trainings, webinars, and open conversations (online and in person) as recruiting events. Distribute online polls and surveys. Advertise training materials, reports and guides for download. Require contact info to download the material and follow up in person.

Create space for a conversation before adding to an email, text or phone list.

This could be one on one. Or in a group — a zoom call for new supporters about what we do, how to get involved, and expectations, hopes and norms. Begin relationships in community and you’ll grow from there. It’s a stronger position if you want co-creation and meaningful engagement.

“Our brains evolved to be social: We need frequent interaction and conversation to stay sane,” says Dr. Thalia Wheatley, a social neuroscientist at Dartmouth College. Organizations that create conversations are offering a service that’s of value and hard to find.

More connection and less content.

Many (most!) organizations (and politicians and government offices and companies) are creating content for internal reasons. Not as the result of a considered and evolving content strategy.

Get out there and talk to people. Run ideas by people. In person. Most of your blog posts aren’t creating awareness or getting attention.

Change funding structures and incentives.

Individual contact and fundraising is usually a the only form of unrestricted funding for organizations and campaigns. It’s hard to mess around and take risks with this work. And there is no incentive for leadership and fundraisers to try something else. This puts us in the position of using crisis and urgency in messaging. And not having time to listen to people.

There’s a role here for funders – foundations and large donors. There’s also a role for leaders. We need to shoot straight with people. Maybe be more transparent about how what actually creates change. We need to invest in communicating with people, not at them. There’s also a role here for nonprofit institutions – the kind that host conferences – and companies making money off nonprofit fundraising and data. Organizations do need models, systems and tools to support their work and consultants, technologists and vendors can nudge if not push towards change.

On Imagination

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The world’s biggest problems can often be traced back to a complete lack of imagination. We fail imagine a better future. We see broken systems as unchangeable.

We fight over the meaning of history (in books, politics, immigration, economies, gender and so much more) because we don’t have the capacity to imagine the systems for living together in abundance.

Organizations, businesses and governments should prioritize the practice–the skills and work–of imagination.

An orange starburst image.

Perhaps writing about imagination seems irrelevant. An act of decadence or privilege. We have so many real problems, after all. Why dabble in imagination, a space often seen as the realm of fiction?

I’d say that our lack of imagination – our growing unfamiliarity with the art and science of imagination – grinds us down, dampens our creativity and leads us to believe we should expect, even deserve, to be surrounded by discomfort and horror.

The world needs huge doses of imagination. 2022 offered little of use. This year, sitting as it does between two American election years, can deliver the hope and organizing power of imagination. Or it can continue our fights over history that only serve to dim the horizons of imagination.

2022 saw the start of a tragic and wasteful war in Ukraine. The war in Ukraine only serves to propel Russia, Ukraine and the world away from the potential of new ideas, intelligence and creativity. It is a war of small ideas – authority, money, disinformation. It is a war against hopeful futures and imagination.

The U.S. is fighting its own battles over the limits of imagination. The “Make America Great Again” slogan, white nationalism, and organized fights to ban books all use language that removes possibility and potential. These movements want us to ignore, even forget, that human difference has ever existed. It is a future without the possibility of multi-racial communities and queerness.

Organizations don’t typically consider themselves to be in the imagination business. We equate imagination and the “work” of imagination with telling stories of fantasy or science fiction. We should not leave imagination to books and movies.

Imagination fuels culture, creates possibility and lays out the framework for solutions to known (and unknown) problems. Imagination is essential to cultural and social progress.

Why prioritize imagination?

Imagination offers value to nonprofits, businesses and communities. The work and results can also be fun.

COLLECTIVE. Imagination isn’t just an individual or solitary space. It can, at its most powerful, be a collective act that fuels shared purpose and vision. Imagination is a process that can happen alongside others. It is generative and iterative. We can build on the ideas of others. Imagination is an act of abundance, not scarcity.

CREATIVE. Imaginative work isn’t bounded by the limits of expectation and practicality. Organizations are used to planning. But we most often iterate. We’re not used to reaching high and creating something new. This stasis and risk aversion leaves us flat-footed when circumstances (a pandemic? climate change? insurrection?) change quickly.

Most organizations – from neighborhood group to national government – could benefit from more creativity. And most leaders ask their teams, boards and supporters for creativity. Imagining the unknown builds the brain’s creative powers, Jane Porter reports in The Neuroscience of Imagination:

When you call to mind something you’ve never actually seen, it’s a lot easier to think creatively than if you try imagining something that’s familiar to you.

Want to dig deeper? Check out The Science of Imagination below (5 minutes):

ENGAGING AND EXPANDING Imagination creates stories and process to bring those stories into reality. These stories and their possibilities need not be restricted to your community or audience. In fact, the creative process relies on growing community. Imagination is about who could and should be there. And how to reach them, plug them in, give them footholds to climb on and how to extend arms to pull them into the conversations.

Imagination is essential to growing a community. With imagination, we can adapt and evolve. We can hone a collective and collaborative resilience. Climate change, economic shifts and technological progress are asking, and will demand, that organizations adapt, evolve and be resilient.

ACCESSIBILITY. One reason imagination expands community is its accessible nature. Done well, anyone can participate in and be valued by imaginative processes. One does not need to have gone to the right schools, lived in a particular place, have normed physical abilities, or possess a certain race, gender or values. Imagination is abundant. It wants all to engage at the level and in the form they can.

SKILL. Imagination is not exclusive, exotic, or only for academics, writers and designers. Imagination is a habit, skill, a muscle. It can be taught and practiced.

In Reversing imagination atrophy, Suzette Brooks Masters, reflects on how imagination can shrink when not used. The result is more limited policymaking, less ambition, smaller campaigns. Masters spent 2022 talking with people working in democracy to find the big ideas and opportunities.

I spent 2022 talking to dozens of these visionaries and realizing, painfully, just how small my dreams had gotten, how narrow my aperture of the possible had become. I needed an exercise regimen for my atrophied imagination muscles. Desperately.

If we can’t imagine functional democracy, peace, multiracial societies, climate stability, zero-carbon energy then, oh well, we’re never going to figure out how to get them.

BUILDS COMMUNITY. The work of imagination is open to all. Through content, events, workshops and more you invite people in, connect people and build relationships.

DEFINES COMMUNITY. There is a part of imagination work that identifies and describes what’s needed to turn possible futures into reality. This is a time for identifying who is in community, who isn’t, who could/should be there, and how to connect to others. In other words, we see our current and potential networks in new ways and can identify the connections between networks.

GIF via Into Action Lab.

The work of imagination

Here are few ideas for bringing imagination into organizational programming. Some go big. Some are simply ways to bring creativity and forward thinking into the community.

10, 20, 50

It’s not unusual for leaders to talk about what an organization should look like in three, five or even 10 years. But rarely does that conversation look further into the future (20, 50 or more years) and rarer still is the broader community engaged in a meaningful way. There may be polls or surveys or even “town hall” events but the boundaries of possibility are already set.

Imagine what the community (not just the entity or organization) can look like in 20 or 50 years. What does it do? Who does it help or serve? What is it able to accomplish? Who is part of the community, leading it, participating?

Now describe what happened to get to that imagined future. Who got involved? What other communities and organizations were part of the process? What skills, experiences, resources and knowledge was acquired and used? What do we not know now that we’ll need to discover? Who helps with that discovery?

These are the themes of conversations and programs that use imagination.

How to get started with imagination

There are a thousand and one ways to bring imagination-centered conversations, plans and programs into your organization. Here are a few ways I’ve seen:

  • Use the I-word in serious conversation from top to bottom. Like I said up top, imagination is a word associated with science fiction writers. It’s a word, and process, that is all about creativity and even fun. But it can be serious work, spark big and positive change, and generate new ideas. Bring imagination into the organization lexicon.
  • Don’t use the word imagination if you can’t handle it. Talk about vision, big ideas, future, creativity, or, if you must, innovation.
  • Launch an imagination program. I don’t expect many groups to go full Pixar and hire a VP of Imagination. But seek out ways to embed imagination into different teams, cost centers, and programs. Minimally, give imagination more than a one-off or ad-hoc shot of attention.
  • Work big ideas about the future into your community conversation. Get people used to the concept of imagining what could happen. This is the ground needed so they can do the work of planning how to get to that future (or work toward a better alternative).
  • Create imagination-centered content. This could look like a section of a newsletter devoted to imagination – a section called “50 Years from Today” with a Facebook-esque ‘on this day’ image and description. It could be a one-off newsletter series imagining a future community. Do a podcast talking to community leaders and other members about their ideas. Create videos, animations, reading lists. Set up online or offline discussion groups.
  • Run imagination events. Host webinars. Set up tracks in your conferences that focus on the future.
  • Teach imagination and futures skills. Content and events engage people in imagination. But there are approaches, curriculums and frameworks for developing and using these skills in work. These can be explored, learned and shared.

I suppose the reality is that our nonprofits, governments, businesses, communities, schools and even our social movements are under extreme pressure to show progress, results and return on investment. The money invested is too great are the threats faced are too big to mess around imagining things.

But we close ourselves off from hope if we shirk possibility, potential and imagination for the perceived security of the way things were or should be. If nothing else, organizations should be intentional about imagining a better future for their community. Those that can’t imagine that future, describe it and map a path to it are wasting everyone’s time.

A dove painted on a wall with a gun painted over the dove. The words "imagine peace" are written below the dove and gun.
Photo by Zaur Ibrahimov on Unsplash. Tbilisi, Georgia.

Grief and the future of community

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Should organizations, campaigns and movements that build community or run membership programs do more to acknowledge grief and engage in ways their members experience it?

Many community and nonprofit leaders may nod to the presence of grief and offer some support. We certainly see that in response to natural disasters.

But should acknowledging, confronting and supporting grief be a strong and visible pillar of community and membership programs regardless of organizational mission? I think so. I don’t know what this could or should look like but we all benefit from building community muscle and grief, when we are often at our most vulnerable, is a time to create and strengthen community.

We don’t do grief well…

…and that’s a big problem for our communities, governments and organizations.

Grief is largely unacknowledged within our communities and communications. It’s hard for many people to find, access or feel comfortable seeking grief support.

These seem like community spaces in which people often turn to for grief support: schools, churches and online community resources like Facebook groups and posts as well as GoFundMe campaigns.

That leaves a lot of open space, a lot of missing infrastructure, for community grief. Most of us, I think, live with weak grief communities and language.

Why does this matter? Is it possible that much of our cultural hostility and narrative of polarization is borne of collective grief and anxiety?

If we can’t recognize, share and talk about grief we lose empathy. People experiencing trauma are looking for support. Those lacking empathy and support are often susceptible to extreme actions and beliefs and the communities supporting those actions and beliefs.

Is untreated grief a contributor to broken communities and broken politics? If so, we should address grief at all levels of our community work.

Grief and the future of community

This post began in drafts a few months ago when I jotted down this line:

Is grief a future of community? Would that be good or bad?

The past two years have pushed a lot of collective grief on us: COVID, climate change disasters and a drumbeat of conspiracy theories and geopolitical chaos that leave many (most?) people with higher baseline anxiety if not waves of existential dread.

And, of course, we all experience the loss of friends, parents, children and pets. It’s no surprise that Michelle Zauner’s story of losing her mom to cancer when she was in her mid-20s, Crying in H Mart, has been a NY Times bestseller for seven months now.

We’ve always sought ways to understand and process individual grief. The pandemic and (waves hands) everything. out. there. has brought us heavy collective grief.

In a recent paper, Acknowledging bereavement, strengthening communities: Introducing an online compassionate community initiative for the recognition of pandemic grief, Dr. Deborah Ummel and colleagues look at how access to shared grief support strengthens community:

Compassion and care can establish solidarity needed to center community advocacy: Individuals naturally have the impetus to express solidarity and come together to compassionately support each other and can do so in a way that also tackles wider social injustices, an issue that professionalized, privatized help cannot solve.

Dr. Deborah Ummel

Also consider Dr. Viviana Zelizer’s piece, When We Were Socially Distant, Money Brought Us Closer. Dr. Zelizer looks at the rise in giving during the pandemic. There were more donations to charity. Much more direct giving to people, including mutual aid efforts. At a time of grief and uncertainty, more people used money to build connection to others.

A possible lesson: we invest in community and we invest in others to find footholds and connection in slippery, uncertain times. Grief, personal and the communal grief of the pandemic, can be the most slippery of times in life. As community and membership people we should offer footholds people can hold onto when they’re falling.

I’m not sure what the solution is but it would be good to see community and membership leaders, thinkers and funders investing in grief and how we do it.

Reading material

A few more articles on the intersections of community, membership, solidarity and grief.

Membership architectures to create power

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A conversation with Ben Pollard of London-based Local Welcome about community, resilience and power.

Nonprofits and community groups (and what many around the world call civil society) often hold different views about the purpose and goals of community building. 

Organizations may tackle big problems, provide resources and support others. Think of food banks, shelters and disaster assistance. When successful these communities are changing lives, keeping people healthy and providing homes. 

We need a certain amount of civic courage to do “politics without violence.” Unfortunately, the architecture of our digital communities – Facebook, etc. – is about maximizing polarization instead of civic courage.

Ben Pollard

Another model builds power alongside members. Community offers opportunities for co-creation, collaboration and resilience. Membership, including the monetary support that often comes with it, gives the community power by providing resources, bodies, labor and skill.

Both approaches bring value. The first centers power in the organization. The other expects community members to hold power, create solutions and support one another. 

The pandemic has thrust both models into relief. Weak safety nets have left people dependent on unsafe jobs or just unemployed. 

I recently spoke with Ben Pollard, the founder of Local Welcome, a London-based group that helps communities organize meals that bring together long-time local residents and recent migrants. 

Last year, Local Welcome posted a series of “what we learned” articles. For example, 5 things we’ve learned about leadership and 5 things we’ve learned about being a good partner. These draw out themes that you – or any community-based organization – may apply in your work. 

I planned our latest conversation as an opportunity to hear more about the lessons that helped Local Together respond to the pandemic with what I call a “pivot with community.” In essence, the focus on community leadership and partnership instead of logistics and “meals served” let the team better recognize and solve for community needs. And use its strengths. 

What we ended up talking about, though, was a little bit of community architecture,  membership theory and power practice. 

Three ideas about community surfaced for me this conversation. 

  1. The “why” of community and membership often defaults to self-interest. Especially in our dominant digital community infrastructures.
  2. Group membership is a powerful source of resilience. 
  3. There’s been a decline in membership as a source of power.

This conversation is for you if you’re membership person, community builder, and/or interested in the power dynamics between members, organizations and funders. 

Ben began the conversation reflecting on his approach to community building, leadership and power. We started by surfacing the struggles and lessons of Local Welcome during the pandemic. 

Last year Local Welcome endured a pandemic that made community meals difficult at best and launched Local Together and ADHD Together. 2020 speaks to community resilience. Say a little bit about how you view come to view community and its purpose.

I grew up in diverse church communities. My parents were basically missionaries in North Africa running a church supporting Black African communities who were not safe in 1980s Algeria. This included hiding people in basements, helping them escape and other adventures.

It wasn’t safe and we came back to England. We were in Liverpool after the riots. It was a part of the world hollowed out by neoliberalism and Thatcher. 

I experienced being in a very poor but close-knit community. Eventually I went to boarding school and really grew up in schools from then on. 

I missed the real world and closeness of those communities. A lot of my 20s were spent involved in church communities proactively changing the world. I was campaigning and organizing. It was rewarding but exhausting. These church communities were very intentional in thinking about membership and leadership.

Life, I observed, is fundamentally better during hard times when there is a close-knit community that builds resilience and social capital.

But I burned out. I wanted to remain part of these communities but no longer subscribed to their worldview. I also found I was struggling with undiagnosed ADHD. It was affecting every part of my life, work and relationships. 

I was reframing my understanding of the world at a time when I was missing being in a close community. 

Also worth adding that this was also a time when I was observing my brother’s work in government digital service. He had gone into tech and was working as a Director at the Government Digital Service where he led the GOV.UK team that built a single website for all of UK government. Meanwhile, I was part of a campaign trying to negotiate with the immigration minister. My sense then was that he was having a bigger impact working on the digital side. I learned a lot by watching what he was doing. 

Now I’m assessing all this in the context of the past few years, especially 2020. People are isolated. Our community structures aren’t caring for people. We haven’t really seen community organizing admit or recognize that there’s a crisis of civil society and membership in particular. 

These days, most organizations approach community with a digital-first layer. Or only with a digital layer (especially in the pandemic). That opens up community, doesn’t it? Does that digital layer help?

Design and tech are just part of a bigger problem for civil society. Digital has been framed as a savior. We’re all “citizens in the Internet age,” after all. 

But we need civil society to go on a more important journey. People storming the Capitol makes me think of people who feel left behind. And sometimes people are left behind. There are a lot of very isolated people out there. 

Many people have lost jobs and a sense of place in the world. They aren’t members of anything any longer. I’m thinking of the book Alienated America. [Timothy P. Carney, 2019] The genie is out of the bottle. We need to remember how to do the things that were responses to first industrial revolution: settlement houses, work of the Quakers…but do those again with technology. Great examples in history that we’ve forgotten and need translation for today.

Tech isn’t the problem but it has been captured by political elites and financial institutions. 

Have community organizations to become less welcoming to progressive worldviews that may support these “service to others” programs? I’m thinking of churches mostly here, I guess, but also unions and other community groups. 

I don’t think this is a problem of evangelical churches. Settlement houses and other work at the beginning of the labor movement came about through associations, labor and churches. 

There’s a feedback loop: You’re not a member of anything so you have fewer opportunities to observe others or practice civic rituals. You lose familiarity with what Bernard Crick called “politics as the negotiation of difference without violence.”

We need a certain amount of civic courage to do “politics without violence.” Unfortunately, the architecture of our digital communities – Facebook, etc. – is about maximizing polarization instead of civic courage. 

We spoke a few months ago about steps to build and sustain community. You said:  

Rituals are ways of gathering people to tell their stories. 

I highlighted and circled that — and keep coming back to it. Stories, and sharing them, are a kind of bridging ritual. What have you learned about community ritual in transitioning your work from in person to virtual? What’s consistent? What changed? 

It’s been joyful and surprising to discover how much of the learning about rituals has been translatable to the design of our online ADHD groups. These online gatherings can feel like an old-fashioned house meeting. I’ve also been surprised at how powerful a well-designed ritual can be online. 

People are hungry for the safety of structure. They’re exhausted by the constant flow of time during the pandemic. We don’t have milestones.

We’ve been thinking and talking about ritual for a few years at Local Welcome. We’re designing how people interact because we want to create conditions for well-being, belonging and civic literacy. Bringing people together is just an important step towards the bigger goal: the capacity to do politics. That is the power to do good.

Rituals have been a powerful way of approaching that vision. At its best, ritual reinforces a shared story. When we’re hungry for security we don’t know what story to believe so finding a story that’s shared and makes sense of the world is powerful. 

Organizations and systems also have rituals. How we interact with government is all about ritual. And there are shared stories about it. Similar with organizations. Think about how rituals and their stories reflect who has power. 

I’ve also been thinking about the rituals of growing up, becoming an adult and seeing the big complex world. Rituals can help us grow up. Or they can give us shared permission to not grow up. And it can be dangerous when childish communities learn to do ritual. 

Membership, Ritual and Power

Talking to Ben in the wake of the January 6th insurrection, I’m left wondering about QAnon, the American far-right (including militias and now much of GOP,) and the power of digital community architecture to create childish and exclusionary rituals that create a veneer of community and socialization.

These are all examples of rituals that make us feel like we’re part of community: joining a Facebook group or Parler, adding a Q symbol to a Twitter bio, copy/pasting an extreme post. They’re thoughtless, even childish, rituals. But potentially powerful: there was an insurrection on January 6th. 

Three ideas about community surfaced for me this conversation. People working in and with civil society, nonprofits, community building and even civic tech may recognize some of these issues. 

First, the “why” of community and membership often defaults to organizational self-interest. The digital layer of community isn’t helping. We often point to professionalization, high salaries and the “non-profit industrial complex” as reasons why organizations use membership to serve themselves instead of the broader community. But modern community architecture, especially online and when mediated by social networks, isn’t optimized for community. 

Second, group membership is a powerful source of resilience. Modern community models use technology to build lists of people and scale community size but they optimize for individualism instead of interdependency. Instead of resilience and support we get self-help. 

Finally, there’s been a decline in membership as a source of power. A growing reliance on foundations and philanthropy disincentivizes membership. Churches and unions needed members to build community and serve others. But they also used membership payments to build infrastructure, provide resources to members and develop leaders. A digital world blurs community and membership. Anyone and everyone can belong. Anyone can leave. Maybe you pay. Maybe you don’t. Organizations learn not to rely on members and people aren’t invested in being a member. 

Links for your spare time. What is time, really?

The best newsletter about newsletters ever. Wow…have you seen the Trump’s fascist propaganda film from January 6?! Fish to humans: BE QUIET. 15 years after its founding, Twitter looks for revenue. Twitter is also opening its archives to researchers. Here’s how to have better conversations with the voice in your head. Maybe there’s an inverse relationship between use of blackletter fonts and the general health of society. The success of “watch me clean” videos also says something not so good about the collective. The pandemic has crushed casual friendships (I feel this, do you?).

Bright Ideas: O Facebook What Art Thou?

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Here’s the latest edition of Bright Ideas where we take a look at changing Facebook relevance may mean to content, storytelling and marketing. Also, why is BuzzFeed doing tote bags? And new jobs for great people. Subscribe here:

Bright Ideas is a biweekly(ish) newsletter sharing ideas and updates on content strategy and storytelling for advocacy and social good.

O Facebook, What Art Thou? I’m not going to make the case that Facebook is going away. At least not anytime soon. But the obstacles it faces, largely challenges of its own making, should be of enormous concern to any nonprofit campaigner, fundraiser or leader. (And present exciting opportunities for positive change, I hope.)

First, let’s look at how anti-user Facebook’s core product, the ad manager (ha, I mean the news feed), has become. Despite Facebook’s self-proclaimed return to being a place for friends in 2018, it’s pretty much a visual (and targeted) classified ads platform. Example: at 4 pm last Wednesday I pulled up my Facebook feed and scrolled through the first 25 posts. Twelve were from pages I’ve followed at one time or another. Five were ads. Eight were from people I know. Five of those were straight up reshares of page content with no context.

So much for friends.

Second, the world that analyzes these things is full of stories about declining Facebook use among people under 25 and Europeans, among others. This parallels data about falling interest in the US. Meanwhile, Facebook does seem to have followed through on its promise to deprioritize news by sending less traffic to media sites – a hit to online publishers that’s unlikely, in the short term, to do anything about public trust in media.

Where does that leave us? In the short term, probably in the same place we’ve been for a couple years now. Facebook is huge and any organization willing to put real resources behind the creation and advertising of engaging content that can help bring people (and their data) to Facebook is going to be okay.

But can nonprofits as well as media orgs (including nonprofit journalism) continue to rely on social media to drive growth and visits to their websites? And can nonprofits (and even the consultants surrounding them) continue relying on a platform that seems okay absolving itself of political, social and human collateral damage?

Hey, I’m on Facebook. It’s complicated. But somehow I think we need to aim for more human-scale relationship building that don’t outsource targeting of lookalike audiences to an unregulated corporation.

That means, I think, more tools people can use to create news and fewer platforms for sharing news. More members and fewer audiences. More teaching people to tell stories and less talking about storytelling.

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Can tote bags save journalism?

Just say no to Trumpian Drift. How advocates, journalists, leaders tell stories of migrants and refugees says a lot about how society views citizenship and basic human rights. Masha Gessen urges journalists to choose their words and stories with more care because the scale of problems facing us requires smarter – and more scaled – reporting. She points this out in the quote below and it’s important for advocates to be aware of this, hold media to account, and to also be very conscious of how every story is framed in their own communications:

“Like most coverage, but perhaps more than most coverage, the writing about immigration has been suffering from what I think of as Trumpian drift. Journalists casually use terms like crossing the border illegally when referring to asylum seekers—when in fact there is no law that says they must use the ports of entry. Journalists increasingly buy into the framing of immigration policy as a strategy for preventing people from entering the United States. And then there is the conspicuous use of the words caravan and migrant to refer to people fleeing for safety.
– Masha Gessen

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Adding value by adding values. This is a headline I can get behind because I see nonprofits, unintentionally in most cases, making pitches for financial support and action that reflect the righteousness of their work as though it’s assumed every member or reader had a hand in creating their theory of change. Ben Terrett writes about how successful product design does a great job solving user problems but often shows no regard for public values (using the apropos and timely example of scooters littering most major cities).

Nonprofits and civil society are – or should be – modeling inclusive behavior that helps all consider the impact our work has on the whole community: the powerless, not just members, wealthy donors or the loudest voices. Thanks to Paul de Gregorio for sharing this one.

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The constant pressure of tracking everything is burning out journalists. And I know that many activists and campaigners feel the same way as reporters John Crowley spoke to for this piece at Nieman Lab. A few things: (1) Stop reporting on Trump’s tweets. They exist only to overwhelm media bandwidth and make everything about him. (2) We hear a lot about tech solutions to info overload, turning off notifications, and self-care. All good (phone notifications are truly evil). But, as Crowley points out, much of this is driven by management and leaders who support systems that place professional and personal value on constant work.

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Does climate fiction lead to climate action? Only if readers are also accessing cultural messages that effective action is possible. Researcher Matthew Schneider-Mayerson surveyed US readers of 19 works “cli-fi” to understand how climate storytelling may help shape advocacy and opinions on climate change.

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So…who actually does what in high-performing digital comms team? Every organization is churning out content. Very few are well-staffed for it. The good folks at Contentius put together this smart field guide to content roles.

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Get your BuzzFeed tote bag now. It’s free when you make your $100 membership payment. Pretty cynical tone to this piece by Christine Schmidt for NiemanLab but it seems meaningful that a private media company with a household name is scrambling to try every membership experiment it can. Curious how membership as a BuzzWord hooks on here but I’m rooting for the great writers there.

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This great little piece from Transparency International shares five ways to help people engage in campaigns. It’s insights that go beyond anti-corruption activism to support most any issue and the communications around it. All orgs could benefit from a user-centered focus on accessibility, safety, relevance, credibility and responsiveness.

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Anyone going to (or involved in) the #Reframe Conference on Mental Health and the Media? Looks interesting!

Do good work

A few great roles at the intersection of digital, content, creative and campaigning. Have one to share? Click reply and let me know. Have an idea of your next perfect role but not finding it? Send me a note.

  • Chicago-based Hearken helps newsrooms listen to and engage the public on the way to building public trust and stronger stories. They’re hiring US-based engagement consultants to work with their 150 (and growing) clients. Engagement consultants should have newsroom experience but, as the description says, “please don’t be discouraged if your title doesn’t include engagement-related words.”
  • Free Press has several campaigning/organizing roles open: Campaign Manager, Online Community Manager and Digital Manager. Free Press is leading the fight for net neutrality in the US by, in part, engaging tens of thousands of volunteer activists. The team is based in western Massachusetts, Washington, DC, and remote locations around the US.
  • New Citizenship Project is doing smart work helping orgs and campaigns engage people in more meaningful and powerful ways. The London-based group is bringing on a Strategist. Check it out if you’re over that way.
  • United for Iran is hiring a Civic Technology Program Director based in Berkeley. Great group and should be a wonderful opportunity to do innovative work. Note: must be fluent in Farsi.
  • I don’t know much about Communitas America but this Program Manager role that will run coworking and a social venture accelerator looks super interesting. Based in the Bronx.
  • Greenpeace is filling two Media and Digital Analyst roles to guide the global organization’s tracking and learning from social media, news, and all the other bits that fly around the internets. Flexible location.
  • The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is hiring a DC-based Digital Director.
  • Campaign Legal Center in Washington, DC, is hiring a Multimedia Strategist.
  • The BlueGreen Alliance is hiring a Denver-based Colorado State Coordinator to grow and run the Alliance’s work there.

Here’s a google spreadsheet full of job lists, email groups and online job boards where you’ll find roles like these posted. It’s editable (for now) so feel free to comment or add a resource.

What’s on your “you should read this” list?

Here’s a short version of mine. Read either of these? Have anything to add? Hit reply and share what you’re digging into (or at least hoping to with any theoretical extra time).

Addendum

Question? Idea to share? Let’s talk. Reply or email [email protected]

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Defining transparency

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Transparency in campaigning isn’t just about sharing campaign plans, making videos and being authentic on social media. That’s all important and can build relationships and increase name awareness. But there’s one level of transparency that’s about talking a lot – and openly. And there’s another level of transparency that involves opening yourself up to risk and inviting others to share that risk with you.

I’ve recently been working on a story about transparency in campaigning and what, if anything, is new or can be learned from the 2018 U.S. elections. I’ve looked at the Beto O’Rourke campaign which produced 1,300+ (or so) Facebook Live videos and shared its field plan (and results) online. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has used social media, especially Instagram, with authenticity to foster stronger, trusted relationships with supporters

There’s also been a good deal written previously about “open campaigns” – groups putting their campaign plans out there for all to see – and distributed campaigning or big organizing that gives people the power and tools to act on behalf of the campaign.

For candidates like O’Rourke and Ocasio-Cortez, sharing their day to day life builds name recognition. For activists, sharing plans and giving supporters tools to act independently is about trust and scaling impact.

But, shifting gears a bit, transparency creates personal and strategic risks. And it’s precisely the risk of opening up yourself, your organization, your plans, to others that makes transparency powerful.

Last week I read Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen. The book is Jose Antonio Vargas’s memoir that begins with him being sent from the Philippines to the U.S. at 12 years old to live with his grandparents. From that point forward his childhood was about as “normal” as any California teenage could experience.

That changed when Vargas turned 16 and went to get a driver’s license. He was turned away because he didn’t have the right identification. He went home and found out from his grandfather that he was undocumented. His family sent him to the U.S. without going through the “proper” immigration channels. After living in the U.S. for four, ten or 20 years the only legal option is to abandon the life he’s built, return to a Philippines that he no longer knows and wait for 10 or more years to possibly immigrate to the country he grew up in.

Vargas, of course, didn’t leave the U.S. He became a high school and college journalist and later worked in D.C. for the Washington Post and Huffington Post. He has directed documentaries, co-founded Define American, and been a guest of Rep. Nancy Pelosi at the 2017 State of the Union address.

In 2011, Vargas wrote My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant. He came out as undocumented, practically inviting the government to deport him. Looking back, he writes in Dear America:

I am not hiding from my government. My government is hiding from me. At least that’s how it’s felt in the past seven years, living a public life while practicing what I call “radical transparency,” which has taken on various forms.

Transparency, it seems, protects Vargas. His visibility has turned him into a spokesperson. Deporting Vargas would cause more problems than it would solve for people and agencies opposed to immigration.

But transparency – or at least Vargas’s approach to it – has done something else in this case. Basically, it seems there are a couple levels of transparency. One involves openness and exposure. It means talking about your plans, releasing documents and inviting outsiders and other people make their voice heard – even weigh in.

This is the transparency of open government and open campaigning. It’s valuable. It means people can engage because they’re no longer in the dark. But it can remain exclusive. The agency, organization, staff still makes decisions and is ultimately responsible for what happens.

Another level of transparency invites people in to help make the decisions. People don’t just know what’s going on, they have a hand in deciding whether actions are good or bad and how to respond. In the end, this transparency makes everyone involved responsible – and puts them at risk.

This is the transparency of movement building. Vargas talks of helping to organize 30+ undocumented young people to travel across country for a Time magazine cover photo. Vargas could easily make his case about the immigration system and undocumented people without dozens of them joining him and putting themselves at risk. But by putting themselves on the line these people are showing that other people are also willing to be radically transparent for this cause. They’re modeling transparency and leadership for others.

Vargas goes on to speak at length about transparency and how, as a journalist, it is easier for him to be transparent on the outside than in his personal life. Living as an undocumented person who works, pays taxes, and obeys laws also means not having the right to vote, drive, cross the border. It also means living with knowing you could be removed from the country and lose your job, relationships, family and friends overnight.

Transparency is complicated and has personal/private as well as public/political layers.

You’re going to grapple with transparency if you’re a political candidate, running a political campaign or working on an advocacy effort. Social media, the web and open data have all changed the public’s perception of how much and what kind of transparency is required.

Consistently opening up yourself  (or your campaign), your ideas and beliefs, and your plans for putting those beliefs into action in the physical world invites others to do the same alongside you. It’s important to think about whether you really want that – and to commit to the level of transparency that you need.

Accelerating membership innovation

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Let’s strengthen organizations, raise more money and scale up impact by speeding up how we learn about and position membership programs.

A membership innovation community of practice will identify and speed understanding of what’s working, best practices and innovation across a broad range of communications, engagement, fundraising, and organizing activities in nonprofits, journalism, political campaigns and social-good business.

Don’t want all the background? Jump to project goals and process.

Comments? Feedback? Suggestions? Send an email or contact us.

We believe membership – people joining, investing in, learning from, and acting in partnership with others – is (or could be) a strong framework for scaling deep and sustainable activism and healthier organizations. This brief provides a path towards testing that idea.

Membership is critical to sustaining relevance, revenue and sustainability.

Membership has a long, global history. Groups like the Sierra Club, Audubon Society, National Geographic, Consumers Union and League of Women Voters are membership based.

Labor unions are membership-driven as are cooperatives (local grocery co-ops, for example, and outdoor stores like REI in the United States and MEC in Canada).

Community groups (Rotary Club, garden clubs) and trade associations are also membership based. And millions of people become members associations like the American Association of Retired Persons People every year.

People become members by investing money and time. In many cases, people receive career guidance, networking, volunteer opportunities, discounted products, invitations to events and more.

What is membership? For the purposes of this brief, we view membership as having three parts:

  1. People investing in an organization.
  2. An organization investing in people.
  3. A framework that binds together the interests of people and an organization.

Why do people become members of an organization? The simplest reason: because they’re asked. Usually by people they know. Most members enter an organization with at least one active relationship.

Members receive access to services and benefits for the time, money and personal capital they offer groups. Members are often given opportunities to meet, interact and learn from one another. People also learn and improve skills, take on volunteer roles and eventually become leaders. In many advocacy organizations, membership offers people an opportunity to directly engage with others and the organization in actions around a shared mission or vision for the world.

Let’s assume there is some value (or at least a bit of accuracy) in the above definition of membership, it’s historical presence and why people put their hard-earned money and time into an organization as a member.

It’s worth noting that the public service journalism sector is looking to membership as a path towards revenue growth and sustainability as well as knowledge and service. The Membership Puzzle Project is one example of that sector’s search for stronger member-driven skills and projects.

The Problem

Today, nonprofits (both advocacy and community service groups), associations and journalism/media organizations (nonprofit and for-profit) use a variety of membership models to secure direct and indirect support.

Membership programs are usually built around and optimized for fundraising. People are asked for a minimal amount of time, a $30 donation, a Facebook follow, an email address. They receive a thank you (hopefully). They are passed into the hands of staff running fundraising and advocacy programs.

Membership programs are typically separate from organizing and communications. Software/CRMs may track donations and email opens. But software only does what the people using it ask. Organizations do little to build member relationships (or, in other words, do little to invest in the needs of members). People are either bombarded by messaging in their inboxes and social media feeds. Or receive little at all.

Everyone is concerned about impact. Many people want to work with others to have a direct impact. People in are looking for opportunities to invest not just their money but their time, skills and experience. They’re looking for anchors – places to hook their attention, build relationships, learn more and do good.

Meanwhile, organizations are dealing with solving transactional problems like high membership growth costs and/or churn. Most members would be surprised to learn that the most important calculation of their relationship is acquisition cost and lifetime value. The constant need to replace members creates an endless search for new people, new lists, new audiences – attention taken away from deepening and sustaining membership.

People are looking for consistency and impact are hearing about crises and immediate needs. It gets attention. But we lose attention, tune out, and move on to another crisis.

Worse, people are losing faith in nonprofit organizations. It’s a problem for the causes and communities in which we work who are not consistently served by a committed group of supporters.

Thousands of nonprofit organizations have decades of data about membership programs. Yet, too often, membership teams are sidelined to focus on marginal list growth strategies. Conversations about innovation, sustainability, scale and value TO members get set aside.

We need to rethink what membership can be. We should share lessons, test outside the box, build partnerships across sectors (and inside organizations).

Creating Modern Membership Models

Now is the time to look at new membership models. Membership teams and their partners across the organization, nonprofit and NGO leaders, and even members themselves need new and empowering membership models that can engage and even excite people.

To get there, the sector needs testing and learning, networking and training, and many more opportunities to unleash creativity.

We believe that networks of people working in and around membership programs (everyone from membership teams to organizing, volunteering, fundraising and other roles) will create stronger organizations – and more powerful outcomes – with opportunities and resources to more rapidly learn, test and master membership programming across their organizations, campaigns and teams.

Why Now?

This is a time of declining trust in institutions. And it’s not just government. NGOs, nonprofits and even small organizations face questions from constituents and potential supporters about finances, diversity, leadership, sexual harassment and more. Media and news organizations rely on reader (and source) trust to stay in business.

Membership programs invite and build trust by increasing transparency and direct investment in an organization’s mission, values and operation.

More people than ever are engaging in advocacy and political campaigns as volunteers, activists and leaders. Nonprofit organizations can better learn from organizing campaigns – even those under their own roof – to build stronger membership programs.

Sustainable funding remains critical to the long-term health of nonprofit organizations. Nonprofits are raising money and figuring out monthly donor programs but aren’t innovating membership in ways that deepens affiliation to sustain themselves for long time and grow leaders.

Meanwhile, journalism organizations and others are looking towards advocacy and struggling to find/implement membership models and practices.

There is a place for renewed, revitalized and re-imagined membership in nonprofit advocacy and organizations. Some of this work is already happening in public service journalism through the efforts of The Membership Puzzle, the Coral Project, Open News and others. These projects demonstrate the value that testing and networking around membership and engagement bring to communities of practitioners.

We envision a project that advances membership innovation in nonprofits, collaborates with other sectors and ongoing projects to share learning, and makes it possible for far more people to become more sustainably engaged in social good and community change.

Goals of this project

Here’s what we believe this work can accomplish:

Revitalize the membership field so that a wider range of organizations and campaigns can reach more people, engage people more efficiently and sustainably, and promote growth of leadership, revenue and program innovation.

Build a learning community of people working in and around membership. This may include people in nonprofits, NGOs, advocacy groups, political campaigns and social movements, associations, trade groups and labor unions, journalism and community media and more.

Rapidly share data and resources needed to test membership and related programs in fundraising, organizing, mobilization, volunteering and leadership.

Identify and assess a variety of new and existing membership models that organizations, funders, consultants and members can apply, learn from, test and iterate upon.

Create a culture of measurement, testing, reporting, iteration and transparency that supports broader membership program innovation.

Process

What would doing this actually look like? Here’s an idea:

Create a network through baseline research and reporting.
  • Survey a broad cross-section of people involved in members
  • Get direct and subjective feedback on:
    • What is and isn’t working.
    • Identify good, great, creative work and thinking in membership.
  • Bring subset to a kick-off meeting/event/conference where diverse group meets, networks, shares learning, creates plans for next steps in community.
  • Identify what needs to be measured/evaluated for project impact and success.
Continue growing and sustaining a network of membership innovators and leaders.
  • Online/offline community (could range from just email list/facebook group to one or more in person events in different locations)
  • Identify need for and create training materials
Identify and showcase membership innovation and testing in the wild.
  • Membership Innovation Showcase and/or Membership impact guide. Read more.

Inspiration / Background / More Reading

Who’s thinking about this now? We’ll continue updating this list as we find/receive ideas.

Speed up membership innovation

Compact Flash photo via JD Hancock, Flickr. CC 2.0.

Helping people create change by helping people

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Bright Ideas: How stories, strategy, people and tech are creating change.

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25 September, 2018

Do you need a digital team, what roles would be on it and who would be included? Good questions. I’m skeptical that most organizations need a digital team so much as need digital first leadership and cultures. I wrote about it the other day in a piece called Thinking about digital strategy in teams:

“Digital is in every role in the organization, not just a few people easily pulled into a single team. Everyone and every role can, will and needs to understand how digital works.”

If nothing else, check it out the digital teams resources shared at the bottom. Other good/smart people have been thinking hard about digital teams in nonprofits the past few years.

Another good read on nonprofit digital strategy comes from Ryann Miller at Toronto-based Grassriots. Digital is a strategy, not just random tactics, posted at Charity Village, distills more thinking about how and why a digital-first organization isn’t just running better online fundraising and social media campaigns but is building lasting relationships with people built on member needs. Miller identifies building blocks for a digital-first org:

  • Supporter/consumer-centric
  • Transparent
  • Collaborative
  • Empowered
  • Data-driven
  • Agile / iterative
  • Innovative

Have you seen the new book, Driving Digital Strategy by Sunil Gupta?

Gupta, Edward W. Carter Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, explains how legacy organizations need to approach digital strategy in an org-wide / holistic way and not as a single tactic, single department, or as something that just gets added onto existing strategy.

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Leaders need to think about what people really need. If you understand what people are trying to accomplish and build for that, instead of thinking of digital as a channel to reach more people, you’ll be more efficient, advertise better, save money, sell more.

Gupta’s aiming at the for-profit world but the point stands for NGOs. Here’s another summary from an interview with Gupta. He was also interviewed for the HBR Ideacast in August. Great listen for the ride home.

Gupta talks about Peloton, the stationary bike company, in the Ideacast interview. Peloton doesn’t view digital as a way to reach more people but as a way to create a fuller experience that people will crave, rely on, pay more for and tell people about.

This brings me to exciting examples of companies putting people first to build powerful relationships (and businesses) in a Vox article called Crossfit is My Church. Sounds weird, perhaps, but a powerful read.

Casper ter Kuile, a researcher at Harvard Divinity School and Executive Director at On Being’s Impact Lab, looked at Crossfit and Soulcycle (again with stationary bikes!). They wanted to understand if, why and how millennials are replacing organized religion with other experiences that fulfill a need to be part of something bigger than themselves.

I think unions and membership orgs (e.g. Sierra Club) once did this very effectively but for a variety of reasons failed at thinking about membership as anything more than payment for services.

Skipping ahead, what if a membership organization’s strategy (most of which was digital and probably all of which was guided by core elements like transparency, empowerment, being supporter-centric) was directed at creating at experiences that addressed people’s needs, including a need to belong to something bigger / better than any one individual’s self?

Charity:Water is one example of this approach in action. There are loads of ways for NGOs to solve advocacy / political / community problems. But few are built from the ground up to give supporters direct roles – and personal meaning – in addressing water supply problems in communities thousands of miles away.

Putting the needs of supporters first would change how most groups staff themselves, think of revenue streams, approach role of volunteers, define membership, develop content, and more.

This isn’t an especially new idea (see older versions of Sierra Club, trade associations, and labor unions).

But does an updated version work in complex legacy organizations (and newer startups) that are solving advocacy problems (protecting forests, stopping mining, reforming health care finance)? It can and, I suspect, has to work in more orgs, more campaigns, more communities.

Don't stop believing

Good more or less related reading:

I’m not the only person who once subscribed to National Geographic who ended up confused about what membership means there. Membership Puzzle shares Lessons and cautionary tales from 130 years of membership at National Geographic. By the way, Membership Puzzle is doing an amazing job looking into how journalism/media nonprofits and startups are rethinking and testing membership engagement.

“When newsrooms start valuing their relationships with the communities they serve over the quantity of content they can produce, it shapes journalism for the better. And that focus on relationships is helping newsrooms have an impact and develop new opportunities for revenue and sustainability.” American Press Institute releases A Culture of Listening, a report diving into how/why journalists strengthen reporting and value through deep listening practices, tools and techniques. Useful for community organizers and activists

Want to kill democracy? Starve civic institutions (and parks and public lands). From Eric Klinenberg, a sociologist at NYU: “Just as certain hard infrastructures, such as those for power and water, are ‘lifeline systems’ that make modern societies possible, so too are certain social infrastructures especially crucial for democratic life.” Libraries, environmentalists, outdoor recreations groups, the YMCA and many more should be talking about this at a time when government zeroing out spending on community institutions.

Don’t stop believing. Never thought I’d share a New York Times piece about Steve Perry (yeah, that Steve Perry) but this story has it all: music, love, tragedy, redemption, croquet, the Eels, big hair.

Addendum

Question? Idea to share? Let’s talk. Email [email protected].

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