How to Launch a Campaign Around a Community You've Never Worked With
Imagine feeling invisible in your own country.
That’s how Pamela Young-Jacobs, former Chairwoman of the Waccamaw Siouan Tribe in North Carolina described the sentiment of her tribe because many local officials and organizations were unaware of their existence.
This is nothing new in Native American communities.
As a member of the Tuscarora tribal community in North Carolina, I share the frustration and pain that comes with feeling invisible.
I’ve sat in rooms with people I’ve known for years that, when asked which tribes are in North Carolina, their response was that there was only one. That’s all they knew. There are nine tribes in our state.
Time and again I’ve worked with people who know me by name — yet they don’t know (or can't spell or pronounce) the name of my tribe.
I bring this up because I often hear from organizations that want to center communities of color in their communications, but don’t know where to start.
Their struggle typically stems from not having the right support on their board and staff, or simply not being aware of all the communities of color that exist in their local community or their broader network.
It's not hard to change these conditions. But it takes more than going through the motions of reaching out for an interview request or finding a diverse photo to plug into a blog post.
It takes an ongoing commitment to these communities for many of them to trust you — and that trust isn’t built overnight.
Many nonprofit leaders or communicators that I talk to lament, “but why won’t they call or email me back?”
In most cases, they're not calling back because you haven't taken time to build trust. Until you build credibility, you are the outsider.
It’s the same reason our people don’t contact back academics doing research, because they invariably extract what they need and then are gone forever.
So how does your organization spotlight communities of color and actually gets it right the first time? Here are three ways you can get started:
1. Hire an expert from that community
My organization hires consultants for many projects who are from communities of color or communities we don’t represent.
For example, we’re a small and mighty team of two staff members, neither of us is LGBTQIA+.
To help run impactful content around issues in the LGBTQIA+ community in North Carolina, we hire a person from that community, and we take direction from them.
Remember, we’re not the experts on the LBGTQIA+ community – they are. Not only do they guide us in what we should be doing and what content we should be running, but they also procure writers for our blog from their demographic.
2. Do your homework
Understand that just because you hired one person from a community, that person doesn’t represent every voice or every issue in that demographic.
It’s still important for you to do your homework and learn more about the many issues that community or communities are facing.
3. Uplift voices from other community groups or organizations
If a heritage month like Native American Heritage Month or holiday like Juneteenth is quickly approaching and you’re not ready to launch your own campaign, learn more about local organizations or community groups in that demographic.
We wanted to launch a successful communications campaign for AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) Heritage Month in May but were unable to find a contractor to work with us.
Instead of trying to flounder around launching a subpar campaign, we found out that a local organization North Carolina Asian Americans Together (NCAAT) had their own website and blog!
We were able to share content from their blog to our followers, which uplifted that organization and spread the word on issues facing that demographic.
Your organization can center communities you’ve never worked with before, follow our advice and you’ll be one step ahead of your peers.
Many organizations struggle to spotlight communities of color in their communications. Nonprofit communications teams may try their best – but miss out on highlighting important cultural events or heritage months because they’re unaware of them or afraid of getting it wrong.
If this sounds like your organization, this upcoming webinar on June 30 at 1 p.m. ET, might be the right fit for you.
Antionette Kerr and Nicki Faircloth, co-directors, and longtime board members of North Carolina nonprofit Women AdvaNCe will pull from their personal experiences and walk you through:
How you can appropriately center diverse communities in your communications.
How to cover intersectional issues.
How a reparations line item can help you dedicate more funds to cultural conversations.
How to quickly audit your organization’s race equity statement.
How to process communications during fast-moving events, tragedies, and harmful incidents that impact communities of color.
When and how to engage with an expert in a community you want to work with.
Register now and tackle race equity in your communications head on.
