aid organizations need to improve donor outreach
12:32, 10 July 2009
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New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof muses in a somewhat meandering July 8, 2009 column about how we're all much more likely to be moved by the plight of one person than we are by large-scale humanitarian crises. There is a mountain of evidence to support that musing, some of which Mr. Kristof notes in his column. He also criticizes the marketing efforts of aid and development organizations:"...humanitarians are abjectly ineffective at selling their causes. Any brand of toothpaste is peddled with far more sophistication than the life-saving work of aid groups. Do-gooders also have a penchant for exaggeration, so that the public often has more trust in the effectiveness of toothpaste than of humanitarian aid... There’s growing evidence that jumping up and down about millions of lives at stake can even be counterproductive."
He's right! Too many aid groups rely on statistics and old-school "look at all these many, many suffering people" images to get their message across. And I've seen some toothpaste ads that give the impression that the product is doing a lot of good in the world, moreso than some aid organizations' ads I've seen.
But not all humanitarian organizations take the old-school outreach approach anymore, and I wish Mr. Kristof had noted this. Three aid organizations that, IMO, have been brilliant in their outreach approaches to current and potential supporters are CARE International, KIVA and BPEACE. What makes these three organizations different in their outreach efforts from the aid organizations Mr. Kristof is talking about?:
- Lots of stories focused on individuals who have benefited from their efforts. These stories about individuals represent the work of these three organizations regarding many other people, sometimes entire regions, but they give supporters that one face, that real name, that many of us need in order to humanize a situation and feel inspired to continue to support the overall cause.
- Stories of results and hope. These organizations don't issue endless pleas of desperation (though crisis communications for immediate aid are, indeed, still necessary); they also talk about how their efforts have had real, tangible impact on local people, on a day-to-day level. That relieves the feeling of fatigue many donors get with constant appeals-for-crisis. It leaves a supporter feeling hopeful, and ready to give again.
- In the case of CARE and MADRE, stories delivered a variety of ways. I get CARE and MADRE updates via an old-fashioned paper newsletters (yes, I still read those -- they don't crash and I can read them even when my Internet is down) and email (leading to stories on their web site). I like having those different ways of communicating.
- In the case of CARE and KIVA, opportunities to connect online with other supporters, through their online message boards. I really love that sense of community and interaction. Again, I feel inspired to continue to support the overall cause.
