The Decline of the Media and Denominational NGOs

Two institutions I appreciate and respect—and work for—are in trouble: The mainstream media, and denominational NGOs.

The mainstream media’s woes are well-known, especially newspapers.

In the 1950s, more newspapers were sold each day than there were households. Today, fewer than one in five households pays for a paper.

Meanwhile, ad revenue has dropped from $3.8 billion to $2.3 billion in a decade.

The result? Since 2010, 225 weekly and 27 daily newspapers in Canada have shut their doors or merged with other papers, and about a third of journalism jobs have been lost in the past six years.

In late January the Canadian government released a report on the Canadian media landscape. Titled “The Shattered Mirror: News, Democracy and Trust in the Digital Age,” it offered a grim assessment for the future of the mainstream media in Canada.

Canada’s news industry is on the precipice, it stated, battered by a digital revolution, falling circulation and plummeting ad sales.

Things are not only getting worse, it said—they’re getting worse faster.

Something similar is happening to denominational NGOs.

Like the mainstream media, they once were dominant in their sectors.

What made the media successful was their monopoly on advertising. What made denominational NGOs successful was denominational loyalty.

For the media, things worked well until the digital revolution came around.

Until then, the media were pretty much the only game in town for advertisers—there was almost no place else to go.

But then came Craigslist, E-Bay, Kijiji, Google and Facebook. Suddenly, advertisers had options—and they took them.

Ditto for media consumers; no longer did they have to rely only on the local newspaper, TV or radio stations. They could get news from anywhere—and for free.

For denominational NGOs, things also worked well as long as members were loyal to their denominations and their ministries.

For a very long time, they had a monopoly on giving from members of their denominations.

For an older generation, it was understood that Anglicans supported Anglican ministries, Presbyterians supported programs of the Presbyterian Church, and so on.

Like for the media and advertising, the denominational loyalty system worked great—until it didn’t.

It didn’t stop working overnight; it has been going on for about 15-20 years.

(A survey by Ellison Research in 2009 in the U.S. found that Protestants in that country were less loyal to their denomination than to their brand of toothpaste—16% said they were loyal to their denomination, while 22% said they would only use one brand of toothpaste.)

But once people realized they had other options for doing good in the world, the bottom started to drop out for denominational NGOs.

Like with the media, which saw the digital revolution coming but didn’t react in time, most denominational NGOs sensed the changes, too, but failed to adjust.

Instead of investing in fundraising, marketing and communications, they kept those departments small (one to three overworked people). Got to keep that overhead low, don’t you know!

When they did hire, they tended not to go after trained marketing, fundraising and communication professionals—or offered salaries which would be sure to prevent them from applying.

And so they continued to send the same old fundraising letters to churches, based mainly on the old premise that “since we belong to you, you have to give us money.”

(Or, in the case of denominational schools, "since we belong to you, send us your students.")

In the meantime, parachurch competitors had seriously upped their game.

They invested heavily in marketing, fundraising and communications. They hired skilled and creative people. They developed imaginative offers that captivated and attracted donors. They watched for changes in how people got information and adjusted accordingly.

Denominational NGOs, however, were slow to change—or didn’t change at all.

They kept on as before, sending out the same materials to the same people in the same way—with ever-diminishing results.

It’s got to the point that one denominational NGO leader recently told me he expects his organization has about 10 years left.

Why that time span? That’s when the older donors, who still operate out of a sense of denominational loyalty, will be dead.

(His comments echoed that of an editor of a major Canadian daily newspaper in his 50s who, when I asked how long he hoped the paper would last, said: “Until I retire.”)

Another denominational NGO leader told me he has given up wanting to be the number one charity for members of his denomination.

“All I hope for is to be in the top three,” he said.

And so, here they are—the media and denominational NGOs. Both are standing at the precipice, both uncertain for their futures, both wondering what happens next.

For both, I fear the worst.