Hey, non-profit communicators: Are you ready for Google Zero?

 

As I read and talk to people about how AI is going to change communications, I hear a lot about how it is going to change or eliminate jobs. 

I hear less about how it is going to change the way we communicate. But that is just as important—especially when it comes to non-profit websites. 

Currently, the main driver of website creation is how to make it visually appealing so it is attractive, intuitive and easy for people to use—and to make the donate button easy to find. 

Another goal was to make it easy for Google to find, so you would come up on the first page and deliver people to your website. 

But what if people no longer need to go to your website to find out who you are and what you do? What then? 

Welcome to Google Zero. 

Google Zero, also known as People Zero, is the term used to describe what could happen—what is happening—because of AI like Google Gemini, ChatGPT, Perplexity or Claude. 

This is how it works.

These days, if someone needs information about your organization or cause, many ask AI about it. AI then scans all the information available on that topic on the  Internet and delivers an answer. 

Or, if they ask Google, they get the answer at the top of the page from Google Gemini.  

The requester, having found the information they sought, is done. They don’t need to visit your website. They never see your donate button, have an opportunity to subscribe to a newsletter, or learn about any other neat or important things you are doing.

They are done, satisfied. Goodbye.  

That’s Google Zero. 

With Google Zero, Google is the final destination. It’s not the gateway to other websites, lie your website, as it has been in the past. It’s the same with other AI. 

This matters for non-profits. It also matters for journalism, since news sites are also getting fewer visitors. And fewer visitors means fewer advertisers, or advertisers not willing to pay much for being on a media website. 

It also surrenders information sharing to Google or AI; they may get it right, or they may not. And they may not provide any of the nuance that is important for a story or campaign. 

And—importantly for non-profits—it can prevent them from building relationships with people who seek information, prevent them from guiding visitors to information they might not have seen otherwise, and also prevent them from subscribing to a newsletter or donating. (Yikes!)

Media outlets are already dealing with this reality as search referrals and website visits decline significantly.

To summarize, Google or People Zero happens like this:

1.    A person asks AI a question.

2.    The AI pulls information from many sources.

3.    The AI generates a synthesized answer.

4.    The user receives the answer without seeing the original website. 

What does this mean for communicators? 

First off, it means designing websites for AI—not just for people. After all, if most people are using AI to find information, you want AI to be able to find you easily. 

Of course, you still want your website to look good. But the visual appeal isn’t as important as the content—when it comes to AI. AI doesn’t care what your website looks like. 

To find out AI is looking for in a website, I asked: AI! (Who else?) 

According to ChatGPT, a website that helps it find information:

• Has clear headings that describe the content of each section. Cute or whimsical headings might cause a human to chuckle or take a second look to find out what it means, but not AI.
• Each section or page should have a descriptive title. (“News,” “Events,” “Calls to Action.” Etc.)
• Photos and images should include descriptive text and captions. for images
• Ensure content is crawlable by not embedding important text in images or JavaScript-heavy sections.
• Use clean URLs with meaningful words, not random IDs (/hunger-Sudan vs /page?id=123).
• Provide internal and external links to content. If a story builds on a previous story, put a clear link to that story in the text.
• If you post a PDF, make sure it is searchable.
• Don’t embed important content in images.
• Keep content concise. (Which is important for humans, too!)
• Use clear, factual writing and avoid overly ambiguous phrasing.
• Include dates, sources, and units for statistics.
• Break long content into smaller chunks with descriptive headings.
• Keep decorative elements to a minimum; don’t clutter the page. 
• You may also want to make sure the donation option, call to action or request for funds is stated clearly in the content (if you aren't doing that already). 

We are at the early stages of this change in Internet behaviour. There is no telling where it will go, or how fast. But one thing is clear: AI, in some form, is here to stay. Now is the time to start thinking about how your non-profit can adapt to it. 

 

 

Making the News book available online—for free!

It’s been a long time since I posted to this blog! Almost five years. That’s mostly because my attention has been elsewhere as I developed a religion beat at the Winnipeg Free Press and Canadian Affairs, and dedicated more time to journalism. 

But media relations still comes up, like it did this morning when a friend asked for some advice about how to deal with the media. I mentioned by book Making the News: An Essential Guide for Effective Media Relations, saying I would send him a link to where it can be found online. (It’s been out of print for years.) 

The book was written in the late 1990s, and went through to more printings (with two different publishers). The last edition was published in 2006. 

The goal was to help non-profit groups which had few resources do a better job of telling their story with the media. 

It has chapters on what is news, rules the media lives by, how to write a press release, interviews, press conferences, crisis communications, etc. 

Although the essential message is timeless, it was last published before the arrival of social media—so you won't find much about that in there. (Maybe one short mention.)

And the media is very different today, too. It’s not as pervasive or influential as it was back then. But it still reaches millions of people and has a role to play. 

Although long out of print, the book can be accessed here on the Internet Archive—for free!

 

 

One Year Anniversary of the Pandemic: Reflections from Communicators

 

A year after the pandemic was declared, how are some Christian communicators doing? 

That was the subject of a recent water cooler webinar sponsored by the Canadian Christian Communicators Association. 

“The workload ramped up significantly,” said one person, who works for a denomination. “Suddenly, everyone wanted to put things online.” 

That was the right thing to do, he said, but the communications department was not staffed to accommodate all of those urgent requests. 

Another communicator said he got “roped in” to helping colleagues at his office with their Zoom needs—setting up and managing webinars and meetings. He was happy to help, but it was not in his job description. 

Another person echoed those sentiments, noting that at her office there was a sudden upswell in online meetings. Of course, everyone looked to communications for help, but nobody suggested taking other things off her desk.

“I felt really burned out by December,” she said. “I needed a mental health break.” 

2020, she added, “was one long scramble. I was always flying by the seat of my pants.” 

With everything across the country online, the editor of a national denominational publication noted she couldn’t use the usual response for why she couldn’t attend them all—she didn’t have the time or budget. 

But with the travel costs now zero, she found herself struggling to say no to everything the denomination wanted her to cover. 

“There were so many Zoom meetings I could have been going to all of them all the time,” she said. 

Worse, attending online meant not being able to take advantage of those important serendipitous hallway conversations that not only provide precious breaks in day-long meetings, but often provide interesting story opportunities. 

A concern for another editor is what will happen to legacy—print—media when the pandemic is over. 

Everyone knows print has a short shelf life, he said, but the pandemic may have accelerated its demise. He added so far nobody seems to be giving that much thought. 

For a couple of communicators, the pandemic shut down all of their projects. This gave them a chance to review communications and come up with new plans to be more strategic. 

“The pandemic gave us time for some conversations about what content we wanted to make,” said one. They could ask questions like “What do we pull back on? What can we do better? What content is most highly valued?” 

Another editor noted the pandemic made her think more intentionally about the needs of her staff. This included being deliberate about checking in to see how everyone was doing. 

Her magazine also instituted “no meetings Fridays,” so people could get a break from Zoom. 

Another organization mandated that nobody needed to reply to e-mails on Friday afternoons if they didn’t want to; at the same organization staff were encouraged to build in periods of “unavailable time.” 

One editor said a positive of the pandemic was she was getting more thank-you notes from readers. 

Near the end of the watercooler, someone wondered if everyone’s job descriptions will be changed post-COVID—so much has changed. 

So there you have it—a few thoughts from communicators after a year of lockdown. What was your experience?

Hey Communicators—Keep Your Problems to Yourself

Maybe you’ve seen this poem by Donna Ashworth, which has gone viral during the pandemic:

You’re not imagining it, nobody seems to want to talk right now.

Messages are brief and replies late.

Talk of catch ups on zoom are perpetually put on hold.

Group chats are no longer pinging all night long.

It’s not you.

It’s everyone.

We are spent.

We have nothing left to say.

We are tired of saying ‘I miss you’ and ‘I cant wait for this to end’.

So we mostly say nothing, put our heads down and get through each day.

You’re not imagining it.

This is a state of being like no other we have ever known because we are all going through it together but so very far apart.

Hang in there my friend.

When the mood strikes, send out all those messages and don’t feel you have to apologise for being quiet.

This is hard.

No one is judging.

*       *       *

I don’t know about you, but that poem rings true for me. 

The pandemic drones drearily on, day after day, week after week, month after month. Some days it’s hard to get up the motivation to do much of anything at all. 

All too true, you say. But what does that mean for communicators, and especially for those involved in communicating about hard issues like international relief and development or justice issues? 

At a time when everyone is stressed, the people you are trying to reach aren’t terribly interested in having you add to their problems. They have enough problems of their own, already. 

That truth was brought home to me recently in an interview with communications researcher and campaign adviser Anat Shenker-Osorio in Slate magazine.

In the article, titled The Theory That Explains How Senate Republicans Justify Acquitting Trump, Shenker-Osorio was asked what advice he would give progressives who are having such a hard time trying to get Americans to pay attention to the importance of the impeachment decision.

Or, as the interviewer Dahlia Lithwick put it, why are progressives “generally suck-ish” at things like this?

“If you look at progressive messaging, one hallmark of it across issues is that we like to begin with some permutation of, ‘Boy, have I got a problem for you,’” said Shenker-Osorio.

Shockingly, he said, people already have “99 problems and they don’t want ours. They’re generally not shopping for new things to worry about. They have plenty on their plates, especially right now.” 

That idea stopped me in my tracks. 

Intuitively, I know it to be true. Especially now, during the pandemic, when many are just barely getting by. I know I don’t need more problems, more bad news, more information about things going wrong.

So why would I think the people I am trying to communicate with need more problems, too? 

What I want are solutions. I want some good news. Tell me something that’s going right for a change. Something that makes me feel a bit better about this sorry old world. 

Don’t add to my list of problems, in other words. I've got enough already, thank-you very much.

For communicators—especially those involved in hard issues international relief and development or justice, climate change, natural disasters and the environment—this is a challenge.

We know only too well about all the things going wrong in the world. How can we communicate about those things without making people turn the page or leave the page?

People are looking for hope. For themselves and for others. Fortunately, we are also in the hope business, not just the problem business.

Maybe now is the time to focus on hope, even just little bits of it. Especially now when, as the poem says, we all are spent, just putting our heads down to get through each day.

Donna Ashworth’s poem, Ladies, Pass It On, is from her book To The Women: Words To Live By. Photo by Getty Images via the BBC.

Challenges & Opportunities Facing Communicators Today

Earlier this summer, I surveyed communicators working for Mennonite church-related organizations. I wanted to know their thoughts on the challenges and opportunities facing communicators today. 

Below find their responses. 

Challenges 

Amount of information. This is one thing everyone agreed about. People are overwhelmed with information. 

“The volume of news and information is staggering, and the speed with which it just keeps arriving can be overwhelming,” said one. “The communicator somehow needs to find a way to gain the attention, hopefully the sustained attention, of an audience ready to interact.” “We are living in a data smog today,” added another. 

Declining budgets. Although communication is more important than ever, it’s hard for communicators to get the resources they need to do all the things management and boards want them to do. The pandemic has only made it harder as donations decline. 

As one person put it: “An ongoing, and now amplified, challenge is to produce quality content that is relevant to our audience with next to no budget. 

“There is a need for increased and varied communication in a time when financial situations would suggest cutting expenses—but communication is disproportionately important right now,” added another. 

Denominational loyalty. There once was a time when groups could appeal for money and attention on the basis of group identity. No longer. People have choices, and just being a Mennonite (or Baptist, Catholic, Pentecostal, Anglican or whatever) organization or school isn’t going to cut it for many. It’s all about the offer; what difference are you making in the world? 

Diverse audiences. At one time, audiences were more homogenous. Not now. “The diversity of our audience is both a challenge and an opportunity,” said one. 

“With Mennonites worshipping in so many languages today, we need to think more about translating materials,” added another. “We need to do a better job creating connections with different racial and ethnic groups.” 

“There aren't many resources out there for connecting in the ways that we need to connect—across geography, culture, language, generation, etc.,” said another. “It feels like we make our way by walking, but it can be exhausting to try to figure it all out.” 

Competition. Most of the groups the communicators work for are small and stretched. “We lack the ability to produce the quality of larger, more well-funded Christian groups,” said one. “Often their materials give our constituents the tools they need that we can’t produce.” 

Multiplicity of platforms. Once upon a time, groups could get by with a magazine, newsletter and direct mail. Things are different today. 

“Different demographic groups use a variety of social media, so how do we choose which ones to engage with?” asked one person. 

“Do we have the staff time to learn and use them all effectively?  How do we engage with them, knowing that each social media platform is a culture in itself, but also that those using the sites have different cultures (so it's not about just copying and pasting what you do on one platform to another).” 

“The platforms are fragmented. Facebook for Boomers and Xers. Twitter and LinkedIn for business and news, Reddit and TikTok for younger folks,” said another. 

“We hired a full-time digital communications specialist to keep up. That’s where we have to put our energy,” offered a third. 

But not all are willing to do that. “Organizations are unwilling to pay what is required to hire expert communication professionals,” stated a fourth person. 

Youth. What about engaging youth? That’s a question on everyone’s mind. “Ask them. I ask my daughters all the time to suggest pieces that I should read or listen to or watch. I ask them to describe their media diet and how it is changing,” said one. 

“Experiment. Keep exploring ways to connect with folks under 40; they are your future,” said another. 

Involve them, said a third. “Organizations need to make space for younger voices in leadership and at board tables.” 

The growing edges of the Mennonite church are not represented in leadership in many organizations,” said a fourth.

“Be open to harnessing the knowledge they have, while offering mentoring at the same time,” added a fifth. 

Be bold, said a sixth. “Groups need to be less worried about offending older people and more concerned they are repelling younger people by not changing.” 

“Don’t be fake,” offered a seventh. “The threshold for B.S. by young people is zero. Messaging needs to be real and honest.” 

Opportunities 

Yet all is not lost; there are opportunities today, too. 

More platforms are a challenge, but also offer opportunities to share stories in new ways. Social media is challenging, yet many people are on it—all the time. 

And unlike any other time, there are new opportunities for segmenting and targeting audiences. 

People saw opportunities with videos, but cautioned each video needs a plan. 

“I think it's important to start by asking very basic questions: Why do we want to share a message or content through a video? How often will the video be shared? Will the video have a long life?” asked one person. 

Also, “keep videos short,” said another. “Brevity matters. A short slide show on a topic is often as good as live action.” 

Formats and platforms have changed, but one thing that hasn’t is the need to tell good stories. 

“Telling stories disarms people and opens us up to the world of the Other,” said one. “Stories can be effectively told in words, photos, videos, tweets, poetry, and artwork. Focusing on the storytelling will take us far.” 

Then there’s all the data that can be collected. “Use data to drive storytelling,” said one person. “What are people interested in reading or watching?” 

Advice for Non-profit Organizations 

I asked them what advice they’d give an organization that wanted to reach them. Here’s what they said. 

Tell stories. “What I'd like to hear are stories from people who have been touched by an organization. I'd like to get to know the people who have benefited from it. How are their lives different because of its work?” 

“Storytelling all the way,” said another. “But pay attention to whose voices are being featured and who the heroes of the stories are. Watch out for paternalism or romanticism.”

Testimonials. “I'd welcome hearing from government officials or NGO officials about their high regard for the organization as a hard-working, faith-based organization,” said one. 

Tell us what we can do. “How can more of us get involved? Is there work for people who are ready to show up and contribute?” asked a third.

Find new ways to connect. A younger person noted that many groups she donates to only send her things in the mail. “As a younger, primarily digitally-based person, most of the time I didn't even open them,” she said. “Diversifying communication channels would go a long way.” 

Challenges and opportunities; what do you think?

Many of the people I interviewed are members of Anabaptist Communicators, a networking and support group for communicators working for Anabaptist-Mennonite organizations. 

Fundraising in Time of COVID-19: How Will The Pandemic Affect Your Giving?

How will COVID-19 affect your giving?

That’s the question that was posed to a group of friends meeting recently (online).

It came from the head of an international relief and development agency, which is anticipating a deep fall in giving this year.

The group included several retired people, one semi-retired, and a couple still in the regular workforce.

The consensus was we all will still give—just not give as much as before, or to as many charities.

For those on fixed incomes, who give a percentage of their incomes, they will give the same percentage. But due to the falling stock market, that will mean smaller amounts this year.

Others said they will still give, but likely give less due to reduced earnings and general uncertainty about the future.

Some said they will adjust their giving. They will continue to support key charities of great importance to them, but maybe drop some “extras” they give smaller amounts to.

Everyone said they were taking a pause in their giving right now, due to the pandemic. They indicated they would be open to giving if an organization gave them a compelling COVID-19-related reason to give right now.

None in the group are rich; no charity will rise or fall based on our giving. But we are faithful and regular, the kind of people charities depend on.

For the questioner, the answers were both positive and concerning.

It was positive, he said, to hear that we were still committed to being generous. But he also understood the circumstances facing the group; his agency will need to reduce its expectations for this budget year.

What will happen to your giving during COVID-19?

Communications in time of COVID-19: How Not to Write an Appeal Letter in Time of Pandemic

“I wanted to share a story with you about Rachel.” (Not her real name.)

That’s how an appeal letter I received in early April began.

The appeal asked me to provide support for Rachel, an entrepreneur in an African country.

Apart from the passive tense (“I wanted to share”), what is most jarring about the opening line is how if fails to immediately recognize the pandemic crisis we are facing in here in Canada.

No acknowledgement our lives are all disrupted, with most people working from home and some already unemployed. All of us worried, anxious and uncertain.

The writer—the CEO of the NGO—never once acknowledged my situation, or how I might be feeling.   

In normal times, it would be a fine appeal letter. But these are not normal times.

To her (slight) credit, the CEO did note the world has changed since Rachel’s story was first written—for her. But there was no acknowledgement it has changed for me, too.

In fact, it never even used the words “virus,” “COVID-19” or “pandemic” at all. I needed to infer that's what changed for Rachel.

In fact, the only reference to the pandemic was a plea in the P.S. for me to give online so staff wouldn't have to come into the office to handle the mail. That and delays in the postal systems, which means they don't get money fast enough.

Of course, noting the impact of the pandemic here in Canada would not change things. There’s nothing they can do about it; none of us can.

But not acknowledging how it is affecting donors is a huge mistake.

It suggests they don't care about me, my employment, my business (if I own one), my health, or my ability to even give at a time of such great uncertainty.

It was tone-deaf, in other words.

To be clear I’m not suggesting groups stop fundraising; important programs still need to be supported.

And I realize fundraising appeals are planned months in advance. It can be hard to stop the machinery once it is set in motion. (But it’s not impossible.)

So if I'm so smart, what would I have done? Thanks for asking! Here's my suggestions.

First, right at the top ask about me: How I'm doing. Acknowledge these are strange and difficult times for everyone.

Second, be vulnerable. Acknowledge your own fears and uncertainties personally, and for the vulnerable people your organization supports.

After that, tell me about people like Rachel and the challenges facing her and others like her in the developing world—challenges far beyond what I am facing here in Canada.

                                                                                            

Then invite me to continue to stand with Rachel, even if I can't give as much as I ordinarily do. (Acknowledge my income and finances have been affected the pandemic.) I am still part of the solution, even I can’t give as much as I used to.

That's what I would do. How about you? What fundraising approaches are you using these days?