How can non-profits build community support through creative engagement?

Defining and repeatedly returning to your goals is critical but often overlooked. I’ve seen many non-profits implement an engagement campaign or event because “that’s what we’ve always done” or because it is what others do. Focusing on your goals will ensure you are more efficient and effective—vital for non-profits with limited resources.

Defining goals is indeed the basis of a successful community. However, identifying goals for a non-profit is harder and requires a broad view of the targeted audience. The secret is: To find goals that answer as many questions in "WHAT's IN IT FOR ME". People will join and contribute to a non profit when they can clearly see their own benefits. The primary motivations are usually: (a) personal and professional interests; (b) joy and pleasure; (c) expansion of network; (d) get business ideas.

The context primarily decides creative engagement for community support. What we wish to achieve or change in terms of goal decides the content and messaging used for the call to action. An interesting example to explain this would be promoting digital transactions by women, as well as self-employed entrepreneurs working with women's self-help groups. The concept of saving, investing and borrowing, coupled with developing trust in new mediums, would have to be explained through focused group discussion, street plays, comics and jingles in the local language. These will be developed with the community and in best case scenario delivered through them.

I would also add that making sure that the goals align with the mission and vision of the organization. You can come up with a great engagement idea, but it may fall flat if it doesn't align with the mission of the organization. I think of an addictions recovery event that was freely serving alcohol and the confusion many of us in attendance had to the messaging behind that.

With your goals, also be open to the idea that your goals may change. Sticking too much to them can be detrimental to organizational success.

One of the ways our organization engaged with businesses to outreach and to also learn about the for-profit sector was to join our local BNI Chapter. It very successfully put us in front of people and businesses who otherwise would not have learned about the work we do and our why.

In my experience, audiences are drawn to unknown and uncharted area only when they feel confident and understand how these new things you are trying to achieve connect to their day to day life, job and interests. If you offer contents that are completely detached - you will lose your audience.

A non-profit can increase relevance by having regular community engagement events where people in the community interact with the non-profit to become more aware of it's activities. At such events the non-profit also gets useful feedback from beneficiaries of the organisation's community activities.

Community Outreach starts with engaging the community. Marketing is good to get people in the door and excited, but what do the people in the community want? Do they know what they want? How are you going to find out? Are the most vocal people really the driving force behind a community, or is there a silent majority that you have tapped yet? There is nothing like getting out there and meeting people and creating relationships with the community that you want to help.

Knowing your audience will make your programs excel and the interaction of those programs is important for the program success. 4 important questions; who they are, what they care about, what they need, and how they prefer to communicate and interact.

We have notice in our organization that virtual events are excellent because we can include members from different time zones and parts of the country at any time. At the same time, the feeling of human connection at in-person events are more enjoyable.

In the programme I lead I have found helpful to engage with participants through interactive activities. Particularly when facilitating online sessions for individuals with diverse backgrounds and ??.

The format that you should rely on should match your talents, strengths and gifts. Don’t waste your energy developing a format that is disconnected to your strengths.

Format is not only the platform - it is much about the outcome. If at the outset or even the invite you can show notional dashboards, notional report formats, notional graphics that will be generated from the activity - people will be more likely to join, as you have given them a glimpse of the outcome and final result.

Always begin by identifying a problem that you are trying to address, then work on developing tasks and activities that solves the problem and fills the gaps.

All stories have a beginning a middle and an end. They start with a problem, and show the difficulty in achieving the solution. The Fox came upon delicious looking grapes, much as they tried they could not jump high enough to reach a single grape, and walked away thinking "sour grapes." By telling a story like that I activated all sorts of things deep in your mind, I touched permanent memories and pleasure centers and increased your awareness and compassion.

Nonprofits like Forgirlsake can build community support through creative engagement by organizing events like our Annual Tennis tournament or holiday school festivals, that resonate with the community’s interests. Utilizing social media, and sharing compelling stories can help create a strong connection and inspire community involvement.

These are good points but I would add that how you are perceived by your audience is the greatest indicator of success. I have seen many situations where the message or messenger has become detached from the passion of the project - become “corporate”. Audiences observe these nuances. Authenticity and sincerity go further than polished graphics and keywords. Address that when implementing an activity.

Develop logic models that links all resources and functions to your goals. You can find examples and templates of logic models online.

Thing is your a non-profit so your expected to be professional with limited resources which means someone is getting underpaid or not paid, keeping a lid on that while keeping up appearences is a real challenge all leaders eventually must overcome. In all things like this when there is risk involved - keep it simple! That doesn't mean keep it small, bigger is better, but do what you do well first, and build from there. Do it in a big way and make sure there is something for people to take away. Whatever they keep, thats where you can make a difference. You want to build community, show them how you build community, you want to raise money, show them how you raise money, stick to the things you do well and there is a chance for excellence.

One of the things I believe that nonprofits need to do is to narrow down and focus. Focus on “their” audience. How do they engage and sponsor? When you align their head and heart to your mission with theirs, then people don’t mind giving a hand whether it’s as a volunteer or as a donor. You must touch the heart before you ask for hand. When you tie your mission and engagement to “the head”, meaning that that company’s Mission and vision aligned with their CSR goals, that makes the ask, the engagement and messaging more focused and impactful.

El propósito es la principal potencia de la organización y debe ser expresada con fuerza e impacto por un vocero, sea su fundador o su director ejecutivo, para movilizar y comprometer a la audiencia a ser parte de la causa y de ese propósito. Dos grandes ejemplos en la Argentina son Catalina Hornos y Eduardo Coco Oderigo.