It works like this: if you have a Nandos loyalty card or Tesco ClubCard, you’ll be well-versed in revisiting these stores in order to collect stamps and points (’cos these mean prizes). This is gameplay, introduced to mean we have fun whilst buying products and staying loyal. Social networks like Foursquare personify the element of game (collecting badges, becoming ‘Mayor’ of a location) – a number of businesses are rewarding repeat customers with freebies and discounts.

And some men will have seen those painted-on flies in urinals so we – ahem – aim properly? Social responsibility and hygiene as gameplay.

This is rich territory for non-profits; ‘gamifying’ our supporters’ journeys could be the key to both attracting new people and also making them competitive in terms of how much they wish to give or get involved. Can we create a path to convert people from slacktivism (Level 1?) to activism (Level 2).

Living Streets caught my eye last week, for employing this model in a playful way. The charity’s Great British Walking Challenge asks users to sign up online and document how many miles they have walked (in one go, over a week – it’s up to you). It uses bright visual icons to depict what this equates; so, for example, I have walked around Wembley Stadium 4.6 times, saved 1.2kg of CO2, and burned off the calories of one large muffin. I’ve also been rewarded badges like ‘The Grand National’, because I have walked the length of the race track. Living Streets also uses a teamwork element, encouraging us collectively to walk the distance from Land’s End to John O’Groats. Nice.

The execution is simple, with a low entry-level (you can use your existing Facebook account to sign-in, with the option of sharing your successes with your friends). They cover the other bases too: a Pinterest Board to share photos, a Facebook page, a Twitter hashtag. It’s beautifully integrated. For someone that’s watching their weight, into exploring London and making it more accessible, and above all else mashing-up digital and offline innovation: I love it.

I’ve highlighted one case study, but there was a great discussion over on The Guardian’s Voluntary Sector Network two months ago that you might like to explore too.

You could already be using gameplay and reward within your own charities, yet (like my own organisation) you probably don’t have a lot of marketing spend to create something as developed as Living Streets has done. But consider all of the free platforms available to us, from Foursquare, to Twitter, to Flickr, Facebook and Pinterest. Narrow in on who your most loyal supporters are – take a good look at those databases of event participants, Facebook fans, and donors. Who might you want to nudge to do more? What could they do, where might you take them? Let’s get playful – the game is on!

Rob Dyson is the Public Relations Manager at disabled children’s charity Whizz-Kidz, a trustee of CharityComms, and founded the Third Sector PR and Communications Network on Facebook. He tweets at @RobmDyson.

But just because everything communicates it doesn’t mean everybody is a communicator – no more than everybody with a bank account is an accountant. Just doing something doesn’t make someone an expert.

Yet many charity communicators suffer from the challenge of people thinking anybody can do comms. This mentality means that it’s easier to cut communications jobs and roles than finance ones, and that it’s easier to speak with a dozen voices as an organisation than one. So how does a charity communications team or sole communicator deal with their professionalism being undermined?

The tempting response is to throw the toys out of the pram and complain to anyone who will listen. There are perhaps three more constructive approaches:

• The communicator as shepherd, herding the multiple voices towards a greater unity and coherence. This requires the communicator to focus on the broader communications strategy and then use cunning, guile, charm and persistence to get those key messages into all communications.
• The communicator as nudger, helping make sure that the people who want to do their own thing are aided, nudged and cajoled into smoothing off the most jagged edges of their communications. This approach is largely tactical, while the shepherd approach is more strategic.
• The communicator as techy. While many directors and chairs see themselves as communicators, far fewer think they are technology wizards. So the more comms is seen as a social media function, the less likely that others will think they are able to do it themselves.

In the longer term the goal must be to get greater respect for the expertise of comms professionals in the charity sector.  This is a multi-pronged task, and while at the heart of CharityComms’ work, attitudes will take many years to change.  In the meantime, charity communicators need to work out their own approaches to promoting the importance of co-ordinated comms internally, so their organisations can speak with one voice externally. What are yours?

Joe Saxton is Driver of Ideas at nfpSynergy and founder of CharityComms.

Image by SashaW

Like many folks I subscribe to a handful of campaign newsletters. They keep me informed and usually encourage some form of campaigning action, ranging from signing an e-petition to marching.

This seems sensible given how easy it is for slacktivists like me to support campaigns using social media, e-petitions etc. But because it’s also easier to communicate with readers in the first place, copywriters have to work hard to achieve cut-through. Right now, this seems to mean really pulling the emotional levers.

There’s lots of evidence to support this technique – fundraisers, marketers and campaigners have known for decades that emotional responses are more likely to underpin action. But with every writer adopting similar techniques, what can we do to elicit the action we want from readers?

For a start I’d suggest communicators stop and take a breath. Just how many times in a month do you think your audiences can get incensed about issue X, shed a tear or two and be prompted to action? There are a lot of injustices in the world but we cannot sustainably be angered, guilted or upset into continually supporting all of them.

This kind of emotional energy is limited and there is a risk that audiences can become desensitised if we use emotional communications too frequently. Here’s an example: I get weekly updates from the laudable campaigning organisation Avaaz but over the last month I’ve received nothing but powerful communications designed to provoke an emotional response to a number of different ‘outrages’.

I simply don’t have the emotional energy, the tears to spare, or the time to give each of these causes the support they deserve, so at best I’m signing an e-petition. And I suspect I’m typical.

Leveraging emotional responses to encourage action in our communications is a tactic worth deploying, but perhaps we could improve response rates by thinking about the following:

• Don’t send powerfully emotional communications too frequently – their impact will diminish over time.
• Understand your target audience and find out what ‘too frequent’ is in reality for them.
• Mix up techniques so that not everything you say is designed to pull on readers’ heartstrings. Informative, pictorial and story-based content can all be interspersed with leveraging the emotional response.
• Target your audience as much as you can based on their motivations AND behaviours; just because someone signed an e-petition about whaling it does not mean they will sign another for a different cause.
• Follow up the actions with a more informational approach, sharing the successes that arose from their contributions (showing them that their support makes a difference).
• Think about the timing of your message. Disasters aside, most causes do not exist in a vacuum. For example, if the media is full of stories about how UK taxpayers are bailing out the Greek economy, campaigning for greater EU powers may not drive as much positive action as we want (this is a true story!).

How does your organisation use emotion to drive responses? Ultimately, the acid test is in response results – if readers’ commitments are falling or we’re finding it tougher to elicit responses, it could be that we’ve collectively pushed the emotional reserves of our audiences a little too far.

And if anyone has any robust research on this issue, I’d be fascinated to see it.

Kevin Baughen is the founder of Bottom Line Ideas, a Trustee and serial volunteer. Say hallo on Twitter @KevBaughen.

Here at Forster we share the sector’s very real concerns and fears for the future; but we also believe it’s important to recognise that there has rarely been such opportunity for targeted campaigning, or such a wealth of platforms available to a canny campaigner, and here’s why:

You can change people’s minds.

It seems that the government will change its mind if you lobby hard enough, using the right advocates. Ok, not every time. But as campaigners in favour of legal aid for victims of domestic violence, for NHS Direct and against the sale of national forests have shown, with the right messages, conveyed by the right people, you can and will make Westminster listen.

Let’s see how well the #GiveItBackGeorge campaign works. While the name is combative, it’s actually building on established opinion: its own survey found that 65% of coalition MPs already believe that charitable giving should be exempt from the new tax cap measure. This is probably the way forward: targeted campaigning with a keen eye to public affairs mobilising voter power.

Often, it’s the idea not the budget that counts. We worked with the World Development Movement to create a low cost viral campaign generating interest in a day of action against bankers’ food market speculation, culminating in the world’s largest ever game of Human Blackjack, gaining thousands of campaigns hits.

While it’s tempting to fall back once again on trying to reach the largest possible number of people, it’s cannier to focus instead on reaching the right people: the people who can and will make a difference to your campaign.

Top tips for powerful targeted campaigning to create positive change

1. Choose your battles
Be realistic about what you can achieve, and what you want actually to achieve. Focus on both the immediate and the long term. If you can’t get what you want straight away, can you identify a series of steps that will lead you there? Who needs to know about your campaign – is this really a public facing campaign, or is it about high level lobbying?

2. Understand the context

At Forster, we’re great believers in audience and issue insight: before you commit to your campaign, scope out where the land lies at the moment. Who already agrees with you? Who’s likely to shout you down? Whose toes will you be stepping on if you launch? What potential pitfalls lie ahead?

3. Simplify your messages

Sometimes we can overestimate how much the wider public needs to know. Ask yourself a series of questions requiring single sentence answers: What do you want? Why do you want it? How will you get it? Why should people support you?

4. Build your coalitions

Turn your competitors into collaborators. Making clear that your supporters aren’t the usual suspects is a sure fire way to capture policy makers’ attention, and a coalition enables you to reach far and beyond your existing pool of support, offering you new and fertile ground to push your campaigns further.

5. Understand the new nature of celebrity

It’s no longer the case that the biggest grossing celebrities hold the most power. There’s democratisation at work here, and careers are made on understanding where the power lies. Use your audience insight to work out who really has the influence to make a change. One well-connected political blogger might tick all the boxes you need.

6. Hold your nerve

However, this very democratisation makes it impossible to keep control of a story as the old fashioned PR industry maintained. You might generate a story but once you’ve put it out there, it will grow and transform, often in ways you never expected. Make sure your sign off processes are clear and agreed at the start and that your whole team and board are on side. This will enable you to maintain your status as a trusted voice while responding quickly and getting out there to maximise your campaign.

7. Take a deep breath and try again

It’s incredibly rare that there’s nothing useful to learn from a project. Keep your new followers on board, react to anything relevant that comes up, and be ready to jump in with both feet when the right battle rears its head once more.
 
Agree? Disagree?

Ellen O’Donoghue is  Director at Forster, the social change communications consultancy. Say hallo to  Ellen on Twitter @ellen_odonoghue.

We asked the people round the table – many of whom are still involved in CharityComms today – two questions. The first was whether we needed a new body to represent charity communicators, or if we should align with one of the existing bodies. The second was whether we should represent the breadth of communications disciplines or start with a couple of areas and broaden out later. We concluded that we did need a new body and that it should represent the breadth of disciplines. Those two decisions have been at the heart of CharityComms ever since.

It took another two years for the embryonic organisation discussed in that cafe to become registered as a company (becoming a charity later still) but CharityComms is now five years old.

The vision of the people in that meeting has been born out. CharityComms has tapped into a huge need for ideas, inspiration, information and insights on how charities can communicate more effectively. Our conferences and seminars are thriving and still led by our very first employee, the amazing Emma Wickenden. Our website is building its reputation as an indispensable source of communication ideas and case studies and CharityComms’ use of Twitter makes me embarrassed by showing how much we have to do at nfpSynergy. We are just beginning to campaign, with our work on media licensing. And the first best practice guide on portraying beneficiaries is out now for consultation.

We have done all this without any grant funding from government or grant-making trusts, generating all our income from membership and conference fees. For me, it is the ultimate proof that what CharityComms does is needed.

There is still much more that we need to do. There is a real scope for professional qualifications in charity communications. We still need to do more to showcase to the public and the rest of society how important and how effective modern charities are.

But for now we can celebrate five years since we registered with Companies House. And we can say thank you to all the people along the way who have started to bring to reality our vision of inspiring better communications at the heart of charities.

Joe Saxton is Driver of Ideas at nfpSynergy and chair of CharityComms.

This is the brief I’m (still) often given when I ask charity clients to describe the tone of the writing they want me to produce.

It’s no wonder. Over the last 13 years, drinks and healthy eating company Innocent has grown from a three-person outfit to a multimillion pound business. A large part of the company’s success is thanks to the brand created through its tone of voice.

It’s distinctive, friendly and engaging. Of course, cracking jokes and being cheeky often isn’t appropriate for charities. But I certainly think that the third sector could benefit from putting the principles of Innocent’s informal tone of voice into practice across their communications.

Here are five tone of voice lessons that I think charity communicators can learn from Innocent.

1. Remember that you’re talking to someone

Innocent’s language is warm. When you pick up an Innocent smoothie, you feel as if the people behind the brand are talking to you. There’s room to make your charity comms do the same. People are used to informal language and if you communicate in stuffy speak, your content will stand out for all the wrong reasons. You don’t need to overegg the colloquialisms but talking in a natural way, using plain English and avoiding jargon, should be your aim. Often, one of the most powerful words is “you”.

So instead of:

Looking forward, a key aspect of our management strategy is to work alongside service users to create impactful outcomes.

You could have:

We will support you to reach your potential.

2. Have conversations

Social networks are the ideal place to inject some personality into your charity’s tone of voice. Instead of sharing links to your latest press releases, use tools like Twitter and Facebook to talk with your supporters and donors. Make it a rule that you communicate with someone at least every third tweet. If they raise concerns about an issue, respond. You never know, they could become your future star campaigner.

3. Make your writing reflect your values

Innocent doesn’t have strict brand guidelines. Instead it focuses its brand on the business’ values. Charity communicators should also see their organisation’s values as a tone of voice guideline and ensure their writing reflects them. If your organisational values are to be “friendly”, “approachable” or “honest” but your external communications talk about “strategies”, “stakeholders” and “service users”, they might not be conveying the image you want them to. Your words need to fit your brand. Always think about why your audience needs to know what you are telling them.

So instead of:

The new supporter stakeholder panels are a key part of our organisation’s 10-year plan to empower people affected by mental health problems.

You could have:

Our local support groups bring people affected by mental health problems together to campaign and raise awareness of stigma and discrimination.

4. Get people doing things

The number for Innocent’s banana phone is included on every one of their smoothie bottles and customers are encouraged to drop into their head office and have a chat. In the same way, all your charity comms should have a purpose. Most likely this will be to get new donors, supporters, volunteers or commissions. Make sure every web page on your charity’s site has a call to action and that each story in your newsletter is followed by a ‘find out more’. Social networks should be monitored regularly and guide people to further content.

5. Use words that describe the impact of your work

For fresh inspiration, Innocent asks their customers to suggest witty words for the bottom of their drinks containers. Similarly, charity writing should use the words of the people supported by the organisation’s cause. Doing so will ensure your writing is more authentic and striking. In these difficult economic times, donors don’t want to read over-marketed copy that’s obviously only meant to make them part with their cash. Using the words of your service users, staff or volunteers in your writing is a much less obvious way to make the case for your cause.

Trina Wallace is a freelance charity copywriter. Sign up for her top tips on charity communications at www.trinawallace.com or follow her on Twitter @trinawallace

That was the blunt statement that made a room full of senior digital comms professionals catch its collective breath for a moment before the silence was broken by murmurs of agreement.

Around 40 digital comms managers from some of the UK’s largest charities gathered at the CharityComms/Cogapp Heads of Digital Networking Event last night to discuss the state of digital literacy within the sector.  The sense that this was as almost as much a support group as a networking evening underlined the recognition of the common issues and challenges facing all charities trying to embrace digital.

A host of valuable points were raised during the discussion – enough to feed a weekly digital group therapy session for at least a year – but I pulled out eight key themes that deserve further exploration.

1. Leadership at the highest level is necessary – but not sufficient
2. Understanding at the highest level is necessary – but not easy
3. Entrenched cultures and attitudes stand in the way of innovation
4. Digital managers need to gain trust, influence and – crucially – budget
5. Expectations around digital’s ability to deliver need managing. It’s not destined to fail but neither is it a miracle cure-all. And it’s definitely not free.
6. Simply creating a new silo for digital to sit alongside existing functional silos won’t help
7. User experience should be at the heart of all digital development
8. Digital literacy needs to be viewed as a core competency across the organisation

For more on the issues that were discussed, read Katie Smith’s post on why digital literacy in the third sector matters, Alison McCormack’s excellent round up of the evening, or Laila Takeh’s advice on building digital literacy within your charity.

Early results from a survey CharityComms is conducting into perceptions of digital literacy in charities bear out the warning about the risk to charities of not moving quickly enough to embrace digital. While there are areas where digital has helped to deliver successful outcomes – notably in campaigns and marketing/PR – those surveyed fervently believe the current level of digital literacy is hampering charities, particularly within fundraising, but also in advocacy and service delivery.

Over the coming months, CharityComms will be working to try and address some of these key strategic challenges individuals and organisations face when trying to operationalise digital media effectively. We’ll be exploring some of these themes in our Strategic Digital Comms Seminar on 12 July. And don’t worry if it all gets a bit much – we’ll have trained support counselors there for you in the breaks.

Vicky Browning is director of CharityComms, the professional body for charity communicators.

Here are some tips on how you can take full advantage of local media.

More than newspapers 

As media models are changing, so are local news outlets. Look further than traditional newspapers and tap into evolving avenues.

• University, council or community publications
  These niche publications may not have the kudos of bigger brands, but have healthy circulations and are often scoured by larger media for story ideas. Their content will often be well planned so call up and find out what they are working on.
• Local lifestyle magazines
  There has been a growing trend for local lifestyle magazines, many of which are led by advertising and delivered free to residents. These magazines are keen for pre-written content, have a captive audience and are a good place for syndication articles.
• Radio and TV
  Radio is often at the heart of the community and producers are always on the look out for experts to discuss local issues. Make them aware of your networks of local volunteers or service users who can talk knowledgeably and passionately about subjects at short notice.
• Blogs and online portals
  With a number of local publications closing down, micro-news sites like the successful Saddleworth News have been springing up. These sites have small but loyal followings and are good for increasing online presence and sharing through social media.

Syndicate

For a little extra work you can create numerous regional articles from the same story. If you are doing a survey about care for the elderly, factor in region specific questions about the cost of care homes and levels of satisfaction in certain areas. You’ll end up with:

• Birmingham’s elderly are worst cared for in the country
• Londoners pay least for their elderly care
• Three quarters of Scousers are happy with their care homes

Link local stories to global news

If you’re working for an international charity, don’t discount using local media. As long as there is a strong local connection then it is still a good avenue.. 

Concentrate on how to relate global issues through local links like town twinning, school education initiatives or strong personal stories, like these newlyweds who spent their honeymoon volunteering for Mission Direct in Kenya.

Use digital media

Most local media is run on a shoestring with small teams and even less money. While they may not have many resources, they are good at using what they have, including digital media.

The majority of local stories get posted online and journalists are increasing their use of video, audio and social media, so tap into this. Follow local journalists on Twitter, produce video of local events and offer to create podcasts for online radio content.

Think local

The same basic rules of PR apply when looking for local coverage – find a good story and hook, know your publication, use your 5Ws and cultivate your contacts – but there are a few basics to remember.

• Find a local angle. Tap into the issues and topics that affect people in the area.
• People power. A strong personal story is a great way to engage people.
• Make it easy. A well written press release, pre-produced case studies and photos will all be appreciated by an overworked editor.
• Use local celebs. Get the town’s mayor, breakfast radio presenter or favourite community character onboard to add interest.

Emma Jayne Jones is Director of Communications at Kizuka, a communications agency working with international NGOs.

CharityComms’ recent report on the sector’s experience of the agency found NLA staff described as “pushy”, “bullying and rude” “ballbreakers” who are “operat[ing] a confrontational system of dark threats”, with a “hostile and aggressive approach”.

As part of CharityComms’ campaign to have charities exempted from copyright licensing fees, we visited the NLA’s offices in Tunbridge Wells to meet the sales team and view the operation of the business.

Up close and personal, the staff at the agency seem pleasant, mild and amenable. They are, as sales and marketing director Susan Dowley puts it: “trying to do a difficult job, politely”.

Unfortunately, part of the “difficult job” the NLA does is to take £1.3m annually from charities in exchange for copyright licences. These licences allow charities to monitor and circulate press coverage, the vast majority of which is direct coverage of the charity in question, usually generated by the charity itself.

NLA staff are at pains to point out that protecting copyright is enshrined by law. In collecting copyright fees from UK charities, the NLA is merely protecting the rights of media owners by enforcing a legal obligation on anyone who copies information from newspapers for commercial purposes.

Well, up to a point: in fact what the NLA does is generate £26.5m income annually for the UK’s eight major newspaper owners (5% of which comes from charities) by selling licences granting permission to copy newspaper articles at a fee set by the NLA to profit its shareholders and – to a lesser extent – publishers of regional newspapers.

CharityComms does not disagree with copyright as a principle. But the NLA doesn’t just uphold the law of copyright through its sale of licences: it has discretion over how and when fees are applied. The NLA decides who it charges, for what, and how much, or tries to - as the recent ruling of the Copyright Tribunal shows. While the principle of copyright was upheld in the case of circulating digital links, the level of fees for obtaining copyright set by the NLA was slashed by the tribunal by 90%.

In other words, it’s not the copyright principle that’s the problem, it’s the NLA’s application of that principle which profits media owners at charities’ expense. The way the NLA charges for copyright licences disproportionately favours the eight national newspaper groups that comprise its shareholders and correspondingly disfavours regional/local papers and the charities which get the majority of their coverage from them.

Our meeting with the NLA helped us to clarify how charities can minimise their obligation under the existing system. As they were quick to point out, in tones of utter reasonableness, if you don’t do any copying, you don’t need to pay for a copyright licence. If, as is the case with many charities, monitoring and sharing media coverage is an important activity for you, then the NLA has suggested a range of ways you can minimise the copying you do and the consequential cost. The agency has also agreed to put together clearer guidance, particularly aimed at small charities with small comms functions, to clarify what activity is and is not acceptable with and without a copyright licence.

The agency also insists that the perception of their staff as ruthless ball-breakers is a hang-over from working practices of over a decade ago. Staff training and an emphasis on improved customer service has shifted their formerly “aggressive” approach towards mere “tenacity”. However, since CharityComms’ research suggests a rather different impression of their customer service from the customer end, they encourage any charities with specific examples of poor customer service to keep a record of the staff member they dealt with and report issues to their business development manager, Maria Dawes (mdawes@nla.co.uk).

The case remains though, that however pleasant the staff at the NLA may be in person, the system they are enforcing is inherently unfair and burdensome to charities, which do not use press monitoring for any profit-making activities. The next step in our campaign is to approach the NLA’s shareholders directly to ask them to consider exempting charities from copyright fees. We will also be targeting journalists at local, regional and national papers to explain how the current system places an unfair burden on charities.

If you support our goal of exempting charities from newspaper copyright licensing fees, please add your charity’s name to our growing list of supporters: www.charitycomms.org.uk/support_our_media_licensing_campaign

Vicky Browning is director of CharityComms, the professional body for charity communicators. The research report on media licensing and charities is available from the CharityComms website at www.charitycomms.org.uk/resources/guidelines/charity_media_licensing

How did we cope without social media? The other day I asked a colleague to retweet one of my offerings. “Which one of your forty accounts shall I send it to?” he quipped. OK, I am a bit of a Twitter-holic: I have three accounts – work, home and CharityComms. It’s funny how times have changed; my daily news round-up now has Twitter as a key source. This has the added advantage of enabling me to see what my sector is saying and it can lead to good, daily conversations with like-minded comms staff.

Another thing I could have done with when I left journalism was having access to an organisation like CharityComms. I would say that because I’m a trustee – but I’m also a member, and each time I’ve met up with other CharityComms members I’ve had really useful conversations, about (amongst other things) relationships with journalists, cuttings systems, and social media.

And I have to say it’s surprised me. It’s easy to assume you know a lot, just because you are going for it in the job hammer and tongs. But I really appreciate getting different perspectives – and that doesn’t mean having to share your organisation’s business plan. So I urge you to go to some events or to read some of the articles (I enjoy the How We Did It section). Kellie Smith, from Contact the Elderly, wrote an excellent article recently on using audio on a budget. I took the liberty of contacting her and we’ve built up some great social capital.

I’ve also recently started mentoring a press officer for a national charity. She is full of new ideas and I can, I hope, offer guidance where appropriate. She wanted some help last week and I was able to send her some information. Next time, perhaps it’ll be my turn to go to her to get a different perspective.

But what about the time commitment? I feel that there’s certainly time for conversation. In just a couple of CharityComms events you can pick up some good information. I’ll be meeting my mentee about three times a year. I’d go so far as to claim that, for the time invested, I’m getting far more out of it in terms of ideas and enthusiasm gained.

No, my big regret is that I didn’t notice the potential of all this nine years ago and invent Twitter myself!

Steve is Press and Public Affairs Manager at the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE). He’s also a trustee of CharityComms,  a school governor and the Chair of PODS, a group of parents in Barnet whose children have Down’s Syndrome.