Standing Strong
Chances are, the actions of the current administration have troubled your nonprofit. That might have to do with government funding freezes, DOGE’s elimination of a large percentage of the government workforce, or directives to disappear anything that could be construed as related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. These are actions that question or threaten the very foundations of many nonprofits, and most people we know are feeling unmoored, scared, angry, or some combination thereof.
That feeling probably won’t go away for a while, but we’re here to recommend some strategic communications actions that will put your organization in a place of greater strength.*
1. Be Crystal Clear About the Problem You’re Looking to Solve
Many recent executive actions and communications seek to destabilize views of the world that are grounded in history and research.✳ Oftentimes, these are the same understandings that animate a nonprofit’s work and galvanize its supporters.
A common pitfall of many cases for support is that they don’t properly address the problem that funding will solve because people assume that donors already understand this. In reality, donors often don’t have the full picture or they understand the problem in a different way than you do. This is why identifying “the problem” is at the heart of the first of our 10 Questions to Answer in Your Case for Support.
When you properly articulate the problem, you do a better job of explaining the need for your work and making clear why it’s important. In the past, that may have been as simple as providing some statistics or sharing moving personal narratives. But now you may need to spend some time describing the social and historical contexts that make, say, support structures for first-generation students important.
2. Stay Aligned
Once you’ve created solid language for describing the problem your organization works to solve, make sure that people actually use it both internally and externally to build a shared understanding. That means collaborating across the divide between communications and development and infusing this language throughout articles, talking points, social media posts, etc.
Be aware that members of the media may also reach out to colleagues in other departments who represent activities that are currently under attack, like program directors, deans, or emblematic researchers and faculty. Bring them into your circle, too, and make sure that they have proper media training so that your organization is well-represented should this outreach occur. At the very least, let individuals throughout your nonprofit know that there are resources available should members of the press contact them.
3. Leverage Donor Messengers
Donors who have funded activities that are now under attack are likely angry that their intentions may not be carried out. Independent of sorting through any legal murkiness, put that anger to good use by giving them tools to communicate.
Advocate toolkits that include messaging and images tailored to social media platforms are invaluable for mobilizing your closest supporters and empowering them to speak to their peers about your organization. We typically recommend developing these toolkits during a comprehensive campaign, but the current moment opens up a great opportunity to use them differently.
Consider populating an advocate toolkit with messaging about why they support specific priorities, why they support your organization in particular, and how positive outcomes will suffer due to recent government interventions. While this kind of messaging will help fundraising, it will also do the added work of combating misperceptions about your organization’s work and its value.
*To be clear, we’re not lawyers so we can’t advise you on how to respond to any legal threats and our advice isn’t a substitute for crisis communications counsel should your organization need it. However, these recommendations should help you contend with the current hostile environment and reclaim the ground that your nonprofit deserves.
✳Some recent actions of the current administration include the expulsion of the AP from press briefings because it uses language that doesn’t conform to the Trump administration’s wishes, trashing DEI without acknowledging the history it seeks to confront and mitigate, and even framing Ukraine as the aggressor in the current war on its soil.
