…Authenticity
‘The world demands excellence and has the ability to exile the average with a one-star review.’–Jason Calacins
When you build an iPhone app for your non-profit it’s being compared by your audience to apps they USE, not apps that are similar. That means Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to name a few.
When you post a video on YouTube it’s being compared to your audience’s favorite videos, which often have hundreds of thousands of views.
Most non-profits do not have the resources to build Instagram or produce KONY 2012, but every non-profit can communicate with authenticity.
For me it looks like hand-written thank-you cards, and 1 minute thank you videos in front of my webcam for those that volunteer or donate to my non-profit. It’s also figuring out the ways in which my audience prefers to receive information from me, and making them the subject of all communications. I can be excellent at these tasks since they match the resources I have.
Non-profits of all sizes must rethink excellence in relation to authenticity, particularly the transparency digital and social media brings. Otherwise we risk investing time, money, and people in projects and communications that we may think are excellent but our audience considers contrived or irrelevant.
The easiest first step is to start by genuinely saying thanks. Charity: Water leads the way: