Information Management Weblog

Grassroots publicity

I've been corresponding with an old friend (and...don't tell him this...something of a hero of mine), Jim Anderson. Jim and his wife Annette have spent their retirement helping people. They've volunteered in schools, and made a number of trips to Africa. Jim has chronicled his latest trip in a blog.

We've been talking about a friend of his who has a small nonprofit organization. The organization is having trouble getting the word out. I shared with him the experiences we've at work (also a nonprofit) with communications, marketing, and PR. He pointed out that this was all fine and good for an organization that already had some resources, but what about those with very little? What then?

My response included:

In one sense, I think you're right: the rich do get richer. Of course, it is relative. A non-profit with a low multi-million dollar budget isn't necessarily "rich" by US standards, but that would be an impossible sum for your friend. There are other cliches that apply: "you get what you pay for" and "you have to spend money to make money." Probably more than a grain of truth there.

But putting aside the cliches, I think there are some possibilities for low-budget, grassroots publicity.

First, I think there is power in blogging, and the communities that have grown up around this and other recent web technologies. Blogging is essentially free (assuming, of course, access to a computer and the internet). I don't think that a nonprofit group needs to have a fancy website. But, they do need a compelling story. Good thing, then, that humans are hardwired to respond to stories. So one way to get the word out is to simply tell compelling stories. (Of course, that assumes some competency in writing.) Blogs were born for storytellers.

The next way to spread the word is to become active in the online "conversation." Read other blogs on the topic and communicate (with email or blog comments) with the authors. Find discussion boards or wikis and participate there. Make sure that people know that the organization exist.

Next, make sure that you provide people with a "call to action". Do you want them to volunteer? Give money? Tell others? There are some interesting services out there that can help organizations accept donations online. Amazon.com comes to mind. Their "honor system" allows people to donate money, and they have other programs that could be of use, too. Other options like this may exist, too.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the group needs to be doing something compelling. What's the message? I'm betting that people don't want to hear about yet another problem in Africa. (Cynical? Yes.) What is different about this group? Is it working? Is it effective? (At work, we've been touting some recent positive external evaluation results...data really catches people's eye.) It doesn't have to be high-tech or "innovative" to catch people's eye. I love Water 1st's approach. They have a simple message (clean water is the foundational step to end poverty and disease), and rather than fooling around with fancy technology, they've innovated on the process side. They're using very basic technology (it works, and people can fix it when it breaks) and they put women in charge of managing the water projects in the local community (women feel the pain in the labor it takes to get water and in the disease that affects children, therefore they're more likely to support the project). Low tech, high touch. Brilliant stuff.

Bottom line is that there needs to be something interesting going on to attract people (and their dollars). The good news is that if there is something good happening, attracting attention gets easier, because people like to tell each other about the interesting things they see.