Communicating the Value of the Nonprofit [Arts] Community

June 14th, 2007 at 10:57am Gary Steuer

I have been serving on the Communications and Marketing Advisory Task Force for Independent Sector, which met today and I thought would be a good opportunity to share some thoughts on our Blog about their efforts to change public perceptions of the sector. First off, the Task Force is really a response to the recent serious of major news stories that present a negative picture of nonprofits - from the Aramony/United Way scandal of a few years ago to the most recent stories about the Smithsonian and Larry Small.  Independent Sector has been doing some really interesting work on researching attitudes toward nonprofit groups.  We in the arts need to be following and taking advantage of this new research and the findings. What they found is that approximately 82% of American adults volunteer, donate or advocate with a philanthropic organization.  This group is what they consider the “engaged public.”  Among this group, those who think nonprofits are “on the wrong track” has steadily declined over the past year, from 32% to 24%.  Most interestingly, the percentage who are “not sure” is consistently extremely high - now at 41%.  The folks at Harris Interactive, who do the research, feel this is an extremely high “no opinion” response, and basically means millions of Americans are easily swayed by whatever negative story happens to be in the news. The other interesting finding: There are five qualities that the public rates as highly important in a nonprofit that are also rated as relatively poorly delivered - Selfless, Efficient, Accountable, Effective, Results-Oriented.  The public already gets that we are committed, caring and passionate about what we do, so we don’t have to work as hard change any hearts and minds on that front, though we certainly should take opportunities to reinforce our existing strengths in those areas. Independent Sector recommends that all nonprofits adapt their communications to especially emphasize these qualities. Here are some other important aspects of the “message framework” they are developing:

1. the phrase “nonprofit community” seems to resonate best when describing the larger sector (not words like charities, philanthropies - or sector)
2. find ways to illustrate the key values listed above
3. use plan language - nothing lofty, avoid jargon
4. don’t denigrate business or government - emphasize that all three sectors are needed 
5. Offer collaboration and solutions to problems, not complaints 
6. emphasize people, not organizations
7. tell our stories, and move from describing what you do to what impact it has on people

 While this research does not separate out the arts, as IS begins to roll out this messaging campaign (which is targeting not just the general public, but Congress as well), arts groups would do well to think about how their messaging can reinforce this effort.  These findings also reinforce what we learned in our National Arts Policy Roundtable about how the arts are perceived - that we need to be telling our stories better, and emphasizing the impact we have on the people we serve. Among all segments of the nonprofit community we especially have a tendency, I would posit, to use lofty and potentially alienating language in describing our work. Independent Sector’s annual conference, where a lot of this messaging work will be shared, takes place October 21-23 in Los Angeles. I’ll be there, and it would be nice to have some more arts folks participating. [Also, see the article about Arts & Economic Prosperity III on their Web site!]

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