“Thank you so much, you’re really helping our family.”
Awww… that’s a nice note you just received from a member of the community you serve. What are you going to do with it? Share it with your boss? Send it to your whole team? Blow it up to poster size and hang it in the break room?
All of these are good options, but there’s one thing you can’t forget to do: share it with your community.
Your organization has a fan, passionate enough to send you a thank-you note and with a story they might be willing to share. So when you receive a note like this, follow-up with them. Learn more about them. Listen to their story. Because what they tell you might just become your next successful marketing or fundraising campaign.
I know there are a lot of concerns about taking advantage of the people we serve by plastering them all over signs, letters, advertisements, etc. And that is a real concern. But when we become too concerned about that, we often miss out on incredible opportunities. There is a right way to enlist your community’s help, and I think the best way to share the right approach is by telling a quick story about a poor approach.
My team was working on a story about a young woman from another country. She was already hesitant to be involved because culturally, it just wasn’t something that many people did. We had a great interview with her and a nice photoshoot. When we shared the story and photos with her that we planned to use, she begged us not to use the main photo. She didn’t mind being photographed, but she said that the photos we selected would not go over well with her family or community.
Some of us understood, and were willing to push back our made-up deadline so that we could redo the photos. Our photographers insisted that the photos were “good” and we needed to release the story. They simply weren’t understanding the cultural piece. And I think that’s where many organizations run into trouble.
When you’re working with members of your community, you have to expect delays and last-minute changes. Maybe they won’t happen, but you have to build them in because your community is your most valuable asset. If we had simply let the photographers push us over and post the story without going back to the young woman, we would have alienated her and potentially her entire community.
Instead, after some internal… we’ll call them “discussions”… we ultimately decided to push back the deadline and redo the shoot. We shared the assets with her again, and this time, she was much happier and gave us her blessing to use the story.
I share this story as both a caution and a roadmap. When you use stories from your community, you run the risk of alienating them if it’s not done well. But if you approach it with sensitivity and a flexible timeline, you can create some truly magical marketing, donor appeals, or stewardship content.
This is exactly the kind of work I help organizations navigate. If you or your team could use some help planning or executing on a story from your community, reach out to me. I’d be happy to have a conversation about the challenges you’re facing, and how I might be able to help.