Some myths and traditions become so much a part of our routine that, at some point, we stop questioning them. In the US, for example, there are some facts about our Thanksgiving holiday that might surprise you:
- Pilgrims didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving annually; it was a one-time event.
- Thanksgiving was intended as a holiday to give thanks to God, not to the Native Americans.
- Current Thanksgiving staples such as pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes, or cranberry sauce were absent from the first feast.
Thankfully, debunking these misconceptions won’t have an impact on our ability to enjoy the holiday. But, we’d like to put an end to some common communication traditions that do affect your nonprofit’s ability to relate to your stakeholders. Here are a couple of nonprofit communication myths we’d like to set straight:
- All of our communications should have a donation appeal: Donors will start dreading hearing from you if they know that they’ll be solicited for money every time they do. Check out ConceptLink’s earlier post for tips on engaging donors beyond requests for money.
- It will take weeks for us to hash out a communication strategy: You can develop a functioning communication strategy in an afternoon. Focus on the most important questions that will give you the baseline for your communications: who are our stakeholders? where are they? what messages do we want to send them? How often can/should we communicate through each channel?
What other communication or Thanksgiving myths would you like to debunk?
For those of you in the US, we wish you a healthy, happy holiday this week!
Photo credit: hotelchatter.com
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