Beyond The Tipping Point: Funding Strategic Communications When Under Attack
The administration’s attacks on nonprofits and “DEI” have led us to this moment where our industry is seriously reflecting on and reckoning with the way we’ve been operating, and how we find creative ways to still do the work. A recent article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy notes that funders are shifting money, resources and energy away from public relations (PR) – namely media engagement – because it’s dangerous to bring attention to non-profit organizations working with marginalized communities in a time when “DEI” is being attacked. The administration wants us to be silent and hidden. Even as protection for our organizations is paramount, this is an opportunity where funders can and must reimagine what investment in communications looks like. We are beyond a tipping point: it’s time to invest more deeply in narrative power building.
As a communications and narrative strategist working in and with nonprofits for over 20 years, the article underscored three major issues that many of us communications professionals have been speaking (and screaming) about for years, ahem, decades.
1) how communications funding structures limit sustainable movement building;
2) a lack of clarity around what building narrative power means and entails;
3) PR seen as a short-term tactic and not integrated into a broader strategy.
I understand the environment that funders are working in is incredibly challenging and that they want to support our organizations. I know many want to ensure the work continues and is protectd so this is not to trash philanthropy or minimize the realities of our situation. I’m not in rooms with funders but I am responding from what I know to be true from the people involved in the day-to-day communications work. This is a good faith response in the spirit of effectively utilizing some of our most powerful tools for liberation: strategic communication to build narrative power and a formidable progressive movement. It’s also in the spirit of preserving the dedicated people who are doing this work on and offline.
Despite this sensitive and harrowing climate, I want to offer some ways that funders and organizations can meet the moment to help communications professionals build a sustainable and effective infrastructure and set our movements up for success.
Funding Structures
Since I’ve been working with non-profits, “communications” for organizations has often been funded as part of a campaign – as an add to a policy or research campaign, or to amplify a specific program. This is because communications on its own is considered as “general support” and/or “infrastructure.” But general support grants are scarce, so it must be written into grant applications as a part of a specific campaign or program deliverable.
When communications is framed this way, as opposed to being an integral part of an organization’s strategy for success, it becomes narrowly focused on a particular outcome to be achieved within a finite amount of time. Communications tactics are thus shaped under the confines of that grant deliverable. The campaign ends, the grant money is gone, on to the next. This framework undermines the importance of consistency, underutilizes strategic communications’ power, and stunts its potential.
Let me explain.
Strategic communications goals should support the organization’s overall strategic goals. That requires weaving communications into all aspects of the organization’s functions and strategies for success. It’s not just a temporary campaign tactic, or a party trick to pull out when we need to make people magically pay attention. Communicating values and connecting with the community must be ongoing: you don’t pay the electricity bill only during a campaign, right?
When I coach and train nonprofit communications professionals, I often hear that there’s no room or time for communications strategy and planning. There’s barely time for overall organizational strategic planning…but that’s a conversation for another post. Executive Directors (EDs) are super busy holding the organization and trying to raise money, especially now when our communities and funding for the work are being attacked. There’s pressure for “tangible” communications outcomes, i.e. the op-ed in the New York Times, the viral Instagram post; but they often don’t have, or allocate, the time to do the substantive strategic thinking that asks why shiny metrics are important and what they hope it will achieve. A lot of that pressure comes from wanting and needing to “show and prove” to funders.
Communications staffers also are bombarded with tasks, usually related to ongoing programmatic work or a campaign; and in smaller organizations it’s often a department of one. Meanwhile basic communications functions like evergreen talking points or a brand guide – the unsexy stuff that’s not campaign-dependent but fundamental to organizational communications – gets constantly pushed to the backburner because they are stretched too thin. I hear repeatedly from comms folks that they feel like the “FedEx/Kinkos” of their organization because they’re brought in last minute to make a flyer, write a press release (sigh), or make a post “go viral” after an entire campaign has already been created. This is not an effective use of money, it devalues communications staff, and it’s a set up to fail.
Communications staffers are often expected to push out campaigns, that are dependent on vanity metrics, when they had no input on audience segmentation, messaging, or engagement strategies. It leads to interorganizational tensions and burnout especially among younger staffers who have less decision making power. Comms professionals occupy an unique role where they can see how the various moving parts of the organization intersect, which gives them important insight about how the organization can effectively contribute to online and offline conversations. So many platforms, so little time and so little direction.
If philanthropy is barely funding general support then organizations are just living from campaign to campaign, or project to project. There must be a concerted effort to ensure organizations can do their strategic planning, and coordinated communications planning. This gives provides a foundation to amplify all of the important programmatic and policy work, even as campaigns end and new projects begin. When people are inspired by a campaign they can stay engaged or deepen their engagement, if they can connect to a clear, ongoing mission. And we can build long-term relationships with our communities, in concert with on-the-ground organizers.
So how can this get funded? Asking for a friend.
When communications centers around campaigns without connecting it to the larger strategy or narrative the organization wants to advance, the work becomes about chasing deliverables and perpetuates a cycle of being reactionary instead of generative. A well-executed campaign where tons of people sign up for your newsletter, follow your org on Instagram, or attend your rally, is an entry-point but how do we maintain that relationship, and momentum, with our audience members once the campaign is over and funding stops? And if we can’t, right-wing propaganda machines are ready to catch them.
But that’s where narrative power building comes in.
Narrative Shift Means Building Narrative Power
As “narrative shift” grew in interest within philanthropy, the word “narrative” became interchangeable with the word “message.” However, they are distinctly different. The narrative power building organization, Reframe, defines narrative as “a collection of related stories that are articulated and refined over time to represent a central idea or belief. Messages are the stories and ideas that build up a narrative overtime.” Lightbox Collaborative, a nonprofit communications consulting firm, uses this helpful analogy: imagine narrative as a mosaic image – the messages are the tiles that make up the mosaic, and the full picture represents the narrative. (Full disclosure: I work with, or have worked with, both of these organizations.)
I also think of it as a song. If narrative is a song, then messages are the drum beat, the melody, the instruments, the voices. The drum holds the foundation, maintains the rhythm of the song while the instruments and vocals harmonize and create a melody. They usually come in and out but the drum stays steady. We are often playing the trumpet, singing runs, shaking a tambourine, and beatboxing in our campaigns, but are we keeping the beat?
Narrative shift is a long game and it requires consistency of messaging – like a drumbeat. (I’m mixing metaphors but bear with me.) Think about how the drum often holds the foundation of a song. If communications is funded through one-off campaigns, or relies on external consults or PR firms, then the work of building narrative power -- steadily over time -- becomes more difficult. When communications positions are only be funded for two or three years, people with institutional memory are laid off, burnt out, or want to be promoted so they go elsewhere. Someone new comes in to start from scratch having to rebuild relationships with other staff, partners and media; and must learn or create systems. New people bring fresh ideas but too many bright people start to lose faith in this system, or that we can win. Consultants, like myself, are hired build capacity through strategic communications and narrative strategy trainings but are funders and the organizations creating an environment where communications staff can implement what they learn? Especially if the organization is focused on getting on Rachel Maddow to please the funders? The lack of sustainable infrastructure means narrative power building in the organization, and our movement, suffers.
Old Tropes, New Technology
When we look at the narrative and technical infrastructure that the right-wing invested in over 40 years ago as Reagan was running for president, it’s clear they were playing the long game. They were (and still are) consistent in their evil mongering and double/d down on it with money, time and resources. The opposition capitalizes on fear-based stereotypes and dehumanizing tropes about the “other” that have been reinforced since the first colonizers arrived and the newspapers were created. They tap into the basest human instincts around survival and scarcity to demonize Black, Brown, women, immigrant, queer, trans, disabled humans. (It's especially clear now if you look at the rhetoric that lead to the ICE raids and their "justification" of them.) They have been building news cycles since the advent of newspapers, and now via internet chatter, reinforcing these messages by saying inflammatory things to enrage and distract us.
Failing to invest in a sustainable and strategic infrastructure for left-leaning non-profits, or more importantly progressive communications, has kept us on the defense when we need to be playing offense. Executive Directors (EDs) feel pressure from everyone except communications professionals to respond to every news cycle or trending topic. A lot of it is around some race-baiting, divisive, antagonistic framing of a story designed to rile up attention and distract people from the legitimate systemic failures. We can clock it and we also don’t have to participate in that conversation. Scrambling to respond to all the (admittedly) terrible news is antithetical to building narrative power. It’s also exhausting.
Here’s an example: When the NFL announced that Bad Bunny would be the halftime show performer, the internet went nuts. Depending on your feed, it was either elation and pride for this Puerto Rican superstar who sings and raps socially and politically conscious music in Spanish to be on such a massive U.S. cultural platform. Or it was (manufactured) outrage from the opps, using xenophobic and racist dog whistles to garner support for their anti-immigrant policies. They were BIG MAD that someone who primarily speaks Spanish and reps his home of Puerto Rico super hard got this opportunity to represent “America.” I was out of the country at the time and purposefully laying low with my social media usage as the conversation was heating up. But as I would open my apps, I noticed that the more right-wing news outlets and agitators would repeat and amplify their messaging, more pro-Bad Bunny, and/or pro-immigrant, individuals and creators responding to (and literally re-playing) the clearly racist talking points. The algorithms were eating it up for two weeks, and I wondered “what if we just ignored the agitators and continued our celebration outside of their xenophobic context?” What if we didn’t mention them at all and just talked about our love of Bad Bunny, how dope it is to have his music and message at the Super Bowl, and kept it moving? What is possible if they had less of our fury to feast on?
It exhausted me watching people, in and outside of our movements, spin themselves out responding to an onslaught of bots and race baiters (i.e. Fox News and the right wing ecosystem). The opps thrive on our fury. I note this because there certainly is the pressure of FOMO (gotta be the first!), or being seen as tone deaf because everything is on fire and overt racist crazymaking. We want to help people understand how systems of oppression intersect. But our news and information landscape is now designed for distraction, chaos and outrage; and organizations must prioritize communications in alignment with values not just online trends. Speak about the issues affirmatively, not in the framework of the opps. I want our orgs to stay focused.
Narrative power building asks us to affirm our vision for the just world we desire on our terms. We must reinforce these messages within our communities so they ripple out to the disaffected people looking for something aspirational they can believe in and a place to belong. We must provide resources and ways to take action. We cannot give the agitators so much airtime and thus reinforce their messages. Or we need to clown them a la Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s campaign did. Our organizations need resources to plot, plan, vision, dream and implement. Funders must play a role in making this happen especially as we shift away from conventional PR.
Even with 400-years of messaging tyranny under their belt, the opps are not smarter – they have just been more strategic, persistent and well-funded. They also are liars with no scruples so there’s that. But we are more creative and we are magnetic, particularly when communications strategy and staffers are valued and supported. And when the voices and perspectives of those most impacted are centered.
Shifting PR from a Tactic to A Strategy
Press hits became a popular metric for communications success because it is a clear and measureable output that grantmakers, EDs and staff can all understand. It’s the entire reason PR firms exist. Media attention signifies external validation, it’s shiny and shareable, and makes people think we’re experts, right?!
Sometimes.
Typically when funding communications for a specific campaign or program, there is an emphasis on press mentions about the campaign, the specific objectives of the campaign, and especially the name of the organization and ED. But now organizations have to be more cautious about stepping into the spotlight because of the political landscape, so funders are divesting from media relations especially through big PR agencies. It is a wise and necessary adjustment but we cannot throw media relations away. Instead we have to reframe what media we value, and emphasize genuine long-term relationship building. Media outreach is a useful tactic to advance messaging but can be a missed opportunity if it’s solely centered around a particular program or campaign; and disconnected from a broader narrative strategy.
Let’s explore.
Media attention can be a deceiving and inaccurate way to measure communications success, especially if it’s not attached to strategic organizational goals and is just for the sake of campaigns. This emphasis on press mentions has created a lot of tension amongst nonprofit organizations doing work in the same sector. Organizations were/are internally trying to balance the scarcity of mainstream media opportunities -- thanks to media consolidation where journalists were laid off and progressive outlets closed shop – with low communications capacity and the pressure to meet funder expectations. It pit grassroots organizations against each other for air time; while the larger non-profits -- with multi-person comms departments, PR firms on hand, and greater capacity -- could answer press requests. This often meant voices from those most impacted were left out. The national Planned Parenthood Federation and the ED of a community clinic in Georgia are likely to have very different perspectives and talking points that are both necessary to shape public perception and build narrative power. Measuring impact solely by mainstream press recognition neglects the actual strategic communications metrics of impact: did the message reach the right people, i.e. the target audience(s) who need to be informed and moved?
Now isn’t the time to divest from media relations or “PR” but instead reframe what it means and lean into it. The opposition is tripling down their investment in media and strategic communications. We have to look at what outlets and individuals (yes, creators) outside of the “mainstream” are reaching our people. Organizations need to specifically and methodically define who their people are -- who is their audience -- and then tailor their plans towards them. This points to my previous assertion that strategic planning needs to be prioritized so when everything is hectic, there’s a north star of who the organization want to engage and build with, and why.
Philanthropy must redefine “media” and what media makers we value beyond MSNow and The New York Times. As Shanelle Matthews, who created the Radical Communicators Network, notes in the article, most mainstream outlets are not our most effective, or most trusted, methods for message dissemination right now because of increased right-wing bias or outright censorship via corporate ownership. This rightful mistrust in media led to the growing influence of podcasts, content creators and independent niche media in the 2024 election. There’s a burgeoning ecosystem of independent progressive journalists (e.g. Joy Reid, Mehdi Hasan, Don Lemon, Wajahat Ali) that were fired or left mainstream media outlets because their views and ethics collided with corporate ownership. There’s also conglomerates like Courier News who are seeking to amplify progressive perspectives and stories. A lot of these journalists understand narrative strategy and propaganda because they’ve been part of the spin cycle. They are bringing each other onto their respective their YouTube or Substack channels to reinforce (beat the drum if you will) progressive messages in service of narrative shift. They have clocked how right-wing creators and propagandists create echo chambers to amplify the same talking points (because repetition and consistent messaging breaks through!); and are creating a progressive media infrastructure in ways they couldn’t as part of legacy media.
Media relations now means that our organizations are building relationships with independent mediamakers (including content creators) with their own platforms. I’ve written extensively about my love and respect for independent media, particularly how we can be in community with each other at this time when the press is under attack. They are feeling the stress too. Our relationship with ethical journalists and creators is symbiotic, and can help sustain both of our industries, even as they shape shift.
Ethnic and local media outlets, trade publications and niche creators are all also a part of this strategy. There are location-specific newsrooms, i.e. Verite in Louisiana, and creators who are community reporters that serve as trusted sources for many of the audiences we want to enagage with. In the age of mis- and disinformation, AI slop, and media mistrust, these are places our communities turn to for information they trust. And these are messages and conversations that spread in WhatsApp group chats, at places of worship, and at the family cookout. This looks like connecting with local and regional press – newspapers, radio and broadcast, vloggers. Each city and town has its media ecosystem that can be more influential than nationally recognized media – legacy or independent.
I give respect where its due: the mega multinational PR firms that funders contracted with did a lot of solid work, getting results for the organizations that had the funding to hire them. They understand the media industry and the rules of the game. But that’s the job of massive agencies – they have pressure and quotas to get their clients in as many publications/outlets as possible. Was it always strategic? Maybe? However, the teams within the huge firms working with the nonprofit organizations have multiple clients and often aren’t directly in or from movement spaces. While that offers a fresh perspective, they also may miss certain nuances or context. Are they attuned to the overall communications and narrative strategy for the organization, or just the campaign they were hired/funded for?
At the same time, when they get press hits no one at the organization has time to take the reporter’s call, or no one is prepared with messaging to speak with media. It’s no shade, just a capacity reality where nobody wins. It’s also another reason why I wholeheartedly encourage philanthropy support for ongoing communications – that strategic planning piece must include message development. Another issue is that the firm is the intermediary between the press and the organization, holding the relationship. Once the contract with the PR firm is up, no one is continuing to build that relationship and continuing the narrative power building work.
Not outsourcing media relations to large corporate firms can mitigate some of these issues, and it means organizations can directly build relationships. “But like, with what time?!” Let me make the case for boutique firms and solopreneurs that have been doing media relations strategy within our movements for Black liberation, immigrant rights, trans rights. I won’t name them drop here but I know them so ask! Hiring these skilled media strategists and media relations experts is also a major part of sustaining our movement communications infrastructure. They also need to be paid well even if they aren’t massive firms. Even as we protect organizations and EDs from being highlighted and targeted, doing background interviews with journalists to contextualize issues is a powerful tool to build narrative and shape messaging. There are journalists who want to hear from us (like the ones I reference above) and they need the perspectives from our communities. One of the best ways to be helpful to journalists, editors, producers is to bring them stories, and be a source of reliable, trustworthy information.
We truly have culture and creativity (and human decency fwiw) on our side but our comms professionals can’t tap into it when they are overworked and often misunderstood and tasked with tactics. Our narrative infrastructure needs attention, resources and commitment. Investing in media relations, as a part of a broader narrative strategy, is critical to our movements’ power building. We want to win and we need to win. Do you? It’s beyond time — let’s go.