When it Comes to Alternative Christmas Giving, it Might Just Get Your Goat

It's Christmastime! That means it's also time for many NGOs to "sell" alternative gifts to help people in the developing world--gifts like goats.

And who wouldn't want to buy a goal to help someone in the developing world escape poverty?

Animal rights activists, that's who.

That's why I discovered recently when a post from Plan Canada about buying goats for Christmas came up in my Facebook feed.

According to Plan Canada, a goat "just might be the most unique gift you’ll give this year." 

Goat’s milk provides important protein for growing children, it adds, and the sale of offspring helps the family pay for essentials. 

"Hoofs down, we’re m-a-a-a-d about this gift!” they exclaim.

They are the only ones who are mad: So are animal rights activists—mad at Plan Canada.

“No animals to be used for human consumption PLEASE!!! This is not compassionate!” posted one person.

“I disagree with making animals suffer and would never gift an animal for this purpose,” posted a another.

The anti-goat posts attracted responses.

“Omgoodness, the comments are making my brain bleed," replied another person. 

"You're not buying a goat for someone in downtown Toronto. You're paying for a goat to be given to a family in a developing country on behalf of your friend in downtown Toronto.”

Soon the thread was no longer about ways to help people escape poverty. 

Instead, it devolved into arguments pro and con about eating meat versus not eating meat, with a bit of religious dogma and a racist troll thrown in.

Smartly, Plan Canada stayed out to the debate; this isn't their issue. They were content to let others come to their defense.

But a check back later that evening revealed the original post was gone, taken down by administrators.

The experience is a reminder to NGO communicators of the need to stay on top of social media feeds at all times of the day.

A post may seem innocuous to NGO staff and supporters—who can be against helping people get goats?—but can end up attracting all sorts of negative responses in a public forum like Facebook.

It’s also a reminder that not everyone sees the world the way NGOs do. 

To put it another way, sometimes the best of intentions can—bad pun coming—get your goat.

P.S. Another Plan Canada thread about goats appeared in my Facebook feed, and it happened again. See below.

Why International Development Studies Students Should Study Communications & Marketing

Menno Simons College IDS grads

I’ve been asked to create a communications and marketing course for communications majors by a local university.

The goal of the course is to help prepare them for careers in the non-profit sector—to acquire some of the skills they'll need to be successful communicators and marketers.

This would include things like writing appeal and thank-you letters; creating communications and marketing plans; promoting and organizing events; media relations; internal communications; and crisis communications, among other things.

As part of course development, the department chair wanted to know: What other majors could benefit from this course?

It wasn’t hard for me to quickly identify a group: Those enrolled in International Development Studies (IDS).

In my experience, it is rare to meet anyone studying IDS who wants to do anything but actual development on the ground in the developing world. 

Communications and marketing is the last thing on their mind.

But it should be higher up in the list of priorities, in my opinion, for the following reasons.

First, it is rare that someone studying IDS will actually be hired to do development work overseas.

This isn’t because they might not be stellar students. 

Rather, it’s because most NGOs today increasingly require people with specialized education and training in things like agriculture, engineering, agro-ecology, hydrology, nutrition, etc.

In other words, an IDS degree is more like a general BA—after getting it, students need to specialize in something else to be marketable to an NGO.

At the same time, most NGOs today are increasingly hiring local people to do the work.

Everyone knows this is important; it's what good development is all about. But it means fewer opportunities for Canadians.

So if IDS students are going to catch on with an NGO, it is likely in the home office doing things like communications, marketing, fundraising, finance, HR and management—the important behind-the-scenes work that makes the work overseas possible.

And if that’s the case, what better way to prepare than studying things that will make them employable? 

Things like communications and marketing.

Second, if IDS grads do catch on with an NGO overseas, they will need to help the organization tell its stories in order to raise support from the public.

Even just one course in communications and marketing will help IDS students better understand the challenges of communications, marketing and fundraising today so they can help their colleagues achieve their important goals—such as raising enough money to ensure workers in the fields can keep their jobs.

A working knowledge of that area will help them be better co-workers, and ensure greater success for the overall goals of the NGO.

Third, IDS grads could end up working for a small NGO where staff have multiple roles—including communications, marketing and fundraising.

Knowing how to write an appeal letter or press release, solicit media attention, or do effective social media will be an asset—and make them more desirable at job interview time.

Plus, if they should rise to become the executive director of a small NGO, they will find that as much as 50% of their time is spent in communications, fundraising and donor relations—the sector average, these days.

Some grads may even end up working for agencies where they have to raise their own support—in which case knowing how effective storytelling and writing of appeal letters will be critical.

Fourth, at some point they may need to support efforts to secure government funding.

Getting a government grant is the holy grail for many NGOs—such support is critical for their success.

In addition to writing effective funding proposals, successful NGOs also know that visibility and recognition is an important part of government funding—it is usually written into the grant agreement.

Being able to effectively tell the story of how government funding is making a difference through an NGO is key to getting future grants. No publicity can mean no money.

Fifth, it will help them communicate better with the public.

Public support is key to not only fundraising success for individual NGOs, but also for ensuring the government feels it has enough support to continue increasing aid.

If the public doesn’t know what their tax dollars are accomplishing through aid, why should they want Canada to spend their money that way?

There are lots of important needs in Canada that the money could also be used for, as we all know.

The fact is nobody reads 50-page technical reports about project effectiveness (unless they have to because of their job.)

If we want more Canadians to support the aid enterprise, we need to share stories in the ways they are accustomed to receiving them—short, and about people.

Always about people.

Sixth, communications and marketing is a growth area for non-profits of all kinds.

More and more groups realize they need to be better at telling the story of their work, and of the people they serve. 

For too long they have starved their communications, marketing and fundraising departments, choosing to spend most of their funds on program.

But as fundraising challenges increase, they realize they need to spend more on storytelling if they are to have a future.

Someone who knows how to write a press release and appeal letter, do donor relations, attract media attention and fundraise will not lack for employment opportunities, in other words.

To put it another way, if an IDS student wants to be employable; see their organizations succeed; get government funding; and build public support for aid; they should learn how to communicate and do marketing and fundraising.

Then again, I'm a communicator and marketer; what would you expect me to say?

Fake News and Facebook, or What can we Learn From the Russians During the Cold War?

In the 1980s, during the Cold War, I read an article the state of news coverage in Russia.

Back then, the media in Russia was state-controlled. 

Bad news about the state was suppressed, and negative news about the West was highlighted.

As a result, you might think that Russians were poorly informed about the world.

Of course, many were. But the researchers also found something surprising.

Because they knew their media was state-controlled, many Russians assumed whatever it published or broadcast was slanted or untrue.

This made many of them diligent about seeking out alternative sources of information, like the BBC or underground newspapers.

In this way, they could either confirm or debunk what they were getting from their media.

It was different in the West. Since we had a free press, we assumed everything we read, heard or saw was the truth.

Much of it was. But some of it wasn’t.

Governments and corporations in the West also lied or bent the truth—like about progress in the war in Vietnam, about the march of Communism around the world, the size and danger posed by the Russian military, or the lack of danger from certain kinds of chemicals or pollutants.

Even cigarettes were safe; all those doctors said so. It was in the newspaper! 

By assuming what we got from the media was always true, we let our guards down.

(We didn’t know, back then, that the CIA used to plant negative stories about governments the U.S. disliked in newspapers in other countries, then get them picked up and republished by American newspapers, from where they would travel to other western nations. Voila! Instant credibility.)

It took the diligent work of activists, or whistle-blowers like Daniel Ellsberg releasing the Pentagon Papers, to help us see the truth about various situations.

That old article about the Russians, the media and the Cold War came back to me recently during the huge debate taking place about Facebook.

In an article on the CBC website, reporter Michael Braga wrote about how people are stealing photos of children off Facebook and passing them off as their own.

In addition to all the other fake news, posts, free offers and such on Facebook, it is “a good reminder of how easy it has become online to pass misinformation off as authentic," he wrote.

And because it is so difficult to police or control, it's also a good reminder of "how the onus has largely shifted, unfairly or not, onto users to sort out what's real and what's not.”

In other words, we can be critical of Mark Zuckerberg all we want, but at the end of the day it’s up to us to be smart about what we like and share.

Of course, this is just simple media literacy: Assume what we read on Facebook, or any other media platform, isn’t true until we can be satisfied that it is.

We need to ask: Does it come from a credible source? Can it be corroborated by a second source? Does it sound too good to be true? (Is WestJet really giving away free airline tickets?)

My own worry is that Facebook has become too big and too successful to ever reform itself.

Maybe governments around the world will impose regulations on it. But until then it’s up to every user to screen out the fake from the true.

Maybe those Russians during the Cold War can be our guide. 

P.S. The rise of "deepfakes"—videos that overlay celebrity faces on to porn stars or make Barack Obama say anything you want him to say—make separating true from false harder all the time. It's a scary world out there.

Mennonite Central Committee and the End of Famine Pornography

It’s Christmas, a time for giving—and also a time for Christmas appeals.

Over the next few weeks you will see lots of ads and appeal letters asking you for money, including from aid groups.

While you will see lots of photos of people who need assistance, one thing you won’t see is famine pornography.

Famine pornography—the use of terrible images of dying children, with flies in their eyes and distended bellies, in order to raise funds—was very common in the 1980s and 1990s.

Use of the images was widely criticized by many for the way they promoted a negative stereotype of people in the developing world as always being needy, starving, desperate, and helpless.

But even though academics and some NGOs denounced the practice, famine porn continued to be used on TV, and in print for one simple reason: It worked.

At that time, I was directing communications for Mennonite Central Committee Canada.

Like many other aid agencies, we were upset by the constant use of famine porn, including by some leading Canadian NGOs.

But instead of just joining the chorus and criticizing the practice, we decided on another approach.

We decided to set the bar higher.

In 1992, we created the first Canadian code of conduct for reporting about needs in the developing world.

According to the code, MCC would portray people in the developing world in ways that affirmed their dignity, promoted their skills and abilities, and revealed them as active participants in efforts to improve their lives.

At the same time, we would report honestly about urgent needs, such as for food. But we would not use language or images designed to shock donors into giving money.

We announced the new code of conduct at a press conference on November 25, 1992. It received widespread media attention.

Immediately, the bar was set higher not just for MCC, but for all Canadian NGOs.

The code was a game-changer. For the first time, the media and donors had a yardstick against which to evaluate NGO fundraising appeals.

It would be wildly simplistic for me to suggest MCC's code of conduct was solely responsible for the demise of famine pornography in Canada.

But it played a significant part.

As was reported by Esther Epp-Tiessen in her history of MCC Canada, in 1995 a leading authority in the Canadian humanitarian sector credited the agency with raising the bar for other NGOs.

Of course, it didn’t stop all at once. But over time the use of famine porn lessened.

Today, you would be hard-pressed to find any famine porn in fundraising appeals. And any reputable NGO has a code of conduct to govern how it reports about and uses images of people in the developing world.

I’m not saying images of extreme need should never be used. Sometimes we need a picture of starving children to shock us out of our complacency—as with what’s happening in Yemen, right now.

But they should never be over-used, and they should never be the only kinds of images NGOs share about the developing world.

Today, the big challenge facing the NGO sector is not famine porn, but things like short term mission and service trips and Christmas shoeboxes—both of which are very popular, but are poor ways to address the issue of global poverty.

Maybe it’s time for another NGO to step up with a new kind of code of conduct.

The fall, 2018 issue of MCC's Intersections is dedicated to the issue of how the agency represents relief and development. Find it here.

Amazon Isn't Too Big to Fail, and Neither Are Non-Profits

Amazon is not to big to fail.

That’s what owner Jeff Bezos told staff recently.

Despite the fact the company is the largest retailer on the planet, it’s future is not guaranteed.

What would cause Amazon to fail?

Not caring about its customers.

“If we start to focus on ourselves instead of focusing on our customers, that will be the beginning of the end,” Bezos said.

“We have to try and delay that day for as long as possible.”

What’s true for Amazon is true for non-profits.

When more time is spent talking about in-house things—what language, messaging, images and words to use to describe the need to be addressed—they are started on the road to trouble.

Don’t get me wrong; all those things are important.

The people non-profits want to serve be described in a way that affirms their dignity and self-respect.

But when more time is spent coming up with the perfect words that will make program staff happy about an appeal, rather than the words that will motivate people to give, an organization has begun that inward and downward spiral.

Hey—I’m not saying the concerns of program staff shouldn’t be heard. There can and should be vigorous discussions.

But there’s a reason why program people do programs, and fundraisers to fundraising: Both know best how to do their jobs.

When it comes to programs, fundraisers shouldn’t tell them how to do their jobs. And vice versa.

But that’s often not what happens. People who know nothing about fundraising—who know nothing about what motivates givers to give—insist on being involved in writing and approving appeals.  

(A former fundraising colleague called this “brilliant spillover;” people who are good at one thing think they are good at other things, like fundraising.)

When programmers start to act like they are the targets of the appeals, an organization is in trouble.

The truth is they are the worst people to approve fundraising copy. They know too much.

Fundraisers need to attract the attention of people who know little, or even nothing, about the need at hand.

People who have a dozen opportunities to give.

Who are distracted by a hundred things in their day.

And fundraisers have to do it in a few hundred words.

Of course, the situations we appeal for are way more detailed, nuanced, and complex than can be described in an appeal letter.

But appeal letters aren’t educational documents. They can inform, but that’s not their main purpose.

Their main purpose is to raise money.

Anything that gets in the way of that reduces their impact.

When more time is spent discussing how to make program staff happy, rather than what will raise the most money, then the discussion has turned inward.

And that can lead to failure.

If a huge company like Amazon is worried about turning inwards, then non-profits should be, too.

The Future of Newspapers, or Can You Love a Foul Slum?

Many newspapers today are looking for ways to replace the their old business model of advertising and circulation revenue.

The thing that seems most attractive is the membership model.

It's an intriguing idea. People aren't customers any longer, but members. But what does membership mean?

Newspapers are struggling to find an answer to that question. 

From what I can tell, many are simply taking the old business-customer model and adding a few perks, things like special insider information, e-mails from the editor, access to journalists, or tote bags and mugs with the company logo. 

Nice, but I don't think that will do it. If the membership model is really going to work, newspapers (and other news platforms) are going to need to re-think their relationship with their readers.

They need to offer something else besides a newspaper, in print or digitally, or other inducements. 

And what is that?

They need to offer something that provides an emotional, or even a spiritual, payoff, something that provides a sense of having done the right thing, of being part of something bigger.

Say what? Why would anyone give money for something like that? 

Actually, it happens all the time. It's called giving to charity.

When people give money to charity, they don't expect to receive something in return.

They give because they want to help others, improve the quality of life on the planet, advance research into a disease, or some other charitable purpose.

Sure, they get a tax receipt, but research indicates that is not a prime motivator.

They may also benefit indirectly because they gave to groups that work to clean the oceans, do medical research, or help panhandlers get off the streets. 

But aside from those things, there is no direct benefit.

People give because it's the right thing to do, and because they believe, or hope, it will make the world a better place. (Or maybe make them into better people.)

Can something similar work for newspapers? I think it can.

After all, people already value something intangible made possible through journalism: Democracy.

A survey done earlier this year by Angus Reid found that 94% of Canadians believe journalism is important for the flourishing of democracy.

The New York Times seems to have figured this out.

When they send me e-mails, they don't just offer me X number of days of a subscription for Y number of dollars. 

Instead, they invite me to hold power to account.

They offer me something real, but intangible, in other words, something I cannot do myself. And that's the essence of charity. 

If I am moved by the plight of starving people in South Sudan, I give to an NGO that can use my gift to provide them with food.

I will not benefit from this gift. But others will. And I will feel better for it.

Can newspapers take a lesson or two from the philanthropic sector and apply it to their model?

I think they can. But it will require a change of perspective.

It will require editors and publishers to do what British author and philosopher G. K. Chesterton wrote about over 100 years ago to fix a foul London slum called Pimilco.

Today, Pimlico is a nice place to live. But  back at the turn of the last century it was a vile place. 

Chesterton’s solution was novel.

“The only way out of it seems to be for somebody to love Pimlico,” he said. “To love it with a transcendental tie and without any earthly reason.”

If that happened, “then Pimlico would rise into ivory towers and golden pinnacles,” he wrote.

“If men loved Pimlico as mothers love children, arbitrarily, because it is theirs, Pimlico in a year or two might be fairer than Florence.”

Some people, he noted, “will say that this is a mere fantasy.”

His answer? “This, as a fact, is how cities did grow great . . . men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.”

What does this have to do with newspapers?

If we loved our community, then we would want the best for it. And for a community to be its best, it needs a vibrant and robust local press.

That's why people should become members of a newspaper. Not because they get comics, sports and the crossword, but because it makes their community a better place to live.

In other words, what I might do for starving people a world away is something I can do for people in my hometown—and, indirectly, for myself.

In what Christians call the Old Testament, and what Jews call the Tanakh, the story is told in the book of Jeremiah about the people of Israel being taken captive to Babylon.

As it turns out, they will stay there a long time. What should they then do?

Says the prophet Jeremiah: “Pray to the Lord for it,” he said. “Because if it [Babylon] prospers, you too will prosper.”

I would say the same thing about local newspapers.

If it prospers, the city it serves prospers, and then we all prosper.

For more information about membership models for journalism, visit the Membership Puzzle Project.