Sign in Subscribe
Content

Google zero. Communications department zero.

Notion got rid of its communications department. Financial Times wants to go Google Zero. What's going on here?

Google zero. Communications department zero.

🤠 Howdy there Phillip, Glenn, James, J. and Shradha. Thanks for joining us at Future Community.

Reply if you have an idea for a story, a link to share, or just have questions. And please reach out if you want to say HI and chat for 15-20 minutes. Here's my calendar.

What's Our Job, Exactly?

Nonprofit leadership is a mess. Maybe it always has been. But over the last few years it seems like we've seen countless stories about nonprofits whose leaders have flamed out through disputes with board and staff about funding, strategy, unions, harassment, downsizing, growth, branding, and more.

I've had dozens of conversations in the past 18-24 months with leaders looking for new roles. Many by choice. Some not by choice. Most all as the result of financial stress in the organization. Many who remain in place aren't happy about it.

Development and Communications Directors (and their deputies and staffs) are are particularly low duration roles these days.

There's so much complexity in the communications and fundraising role now. And so much pressure for results - almost all of which is misguided and unrealistic.

Here's what I think: Too many organizations are trying to be heroes of someone else's story.

Our job as nonprofit leaders is not to do all the work and change all the things. It isn't to come up with the ultimate strategy or plan and make all the money and do all the staff hiring needed to see that most ultimate brilliant plan to its fruition.

Our job is to create the conditions in which community members act, see, engage, hold and use power. Our job is make it possible for more others to act and lead.

We fail when we try to become too big, to solve too much, to not trust communities and people in them. We become seduced by stories of dominant brands. We are convinced that money follows attention.

My hope for Future Community in December is that it focuses in on examples, stories, habits, projects, and ideas that organizations can use to be stronger community partners. I want to see communications and fundraising leadership that is excited by ideas and voices that come from community needs and not itinerant internal leaders, consultants, and conference keynoters.

Bright Ideas

In Become an Octopus Organization, Jana Werner and Phil Le-Brun show us how to navigate complexity by focusing on providing value to those we serve. A strict reliance on plans, process, and habits just creates inflexible and outmoded operations that struggle to flow. Anyway, I love the concept of distributing intelligence, learning, and action across an organization. Thank you Julius Honnor for the link to this one.

Ashley Norris wrote about the Financial Times plan to become a Google Zero organization. Basically, by completely owning the reader/user relationship from finding to viewing to using to sharing, a publisher may free itself from any reliance on Google driving traffic.

The traditional distinction between internal communications, external communications, social media, and brand marketing is dissolving because audiences no longer recognise those boundaries.

That's from Adam Malik's recent look at why Notion dismantled it's various communications and PR teams to build a storytelling team. Could nonprofits follow the example? Sure but I think it means having a leadership team (and board) that fully commits to participating in storytelling and is able to put themselves and their colleagues out there in all the channels.

The ZEG Storytelling Festival has issued an open call for presenters at its next gathering in Tbilisi. Pitches are due February 1, 2026, and the event is June 19-21, 2026.

🦉
Get Future Community from a brilliant friend? Subscribe at Bright+3.

Future Community Jobs

These are the latest links. Check out the full job list here.

Hiring? Consider shipping a featured job out into this amazing community. Learn more here or just reach out on email.

🗞️ Audience, content, journalism and news roles

🗣️ Communications

Mostly at nonprofits/NGOs

⚡ Nonprofit organizations

Has this been helpful? Pitch in to Future Community.

💰 Fundraising and Development

💸 Foundations and Philanthropy

💻 Agencies, politics, products, projects & more

Future Community is a product of Ted Fickes and Bright+3. Reply or visit Bright+3 to get in touch and learn more about our work.

Read next