(Illustration by iStock/ajijchan)
“[Men] fear each other because they don’t know each other, and they don’t know each other because they don’t communicate with each other, and they don’t communicate with each other because they are separated from each other.” These were Martin Luther King Jr.’s words to Cornell College students more than 60 years ago, at a time of great political division in the United States, and they still ring true today. They’re also a mandate for building community, something the nonprofit sector—starting with smart communications—is well-positioned to do.
In the early years of the Walton Family Foundation (WFF), the organization invested little in communications capacity or activity. However, over the past few years, we’ve seen that change led by only a few is less effective and more short-lived than change led by many. We’ve also learned that strategic communications can play a central role in bringing more voices to the change-making process.
As one example, WFF supported a 2019 effort in which the seven states in the Colorado River Basin negotiated the largest water conservation agreement in history. The foundation supported the inclusion of tribal nations in the negotiations and worked with them to agree to take part in conservation projects—a decision that helped each state meet necessary commitments and finalize the agreement. Our communications efforts throughout the process focused on why engaging this community was not only the right thing to do but also the smartest way forward.
Results like this have pushed us to evolve our communications and overall approach to increasing access to opportunities for people and communities; we now place much more focus on community-building across our three program areas: improving education for all students; protecting water resources; and bettering the quality of life in Northwest Arkansas and the Delta Region of Arkansas and Mississippi. The foundation is grounded in multiple generations of family coming together across geographies and points of view, and today, its communications strategy reflects this dynamic and the organization’s deep roots in mid-America. It recognizes that building a community that leads together is important and that when everyone who has a stake in solving social problems also has a voice, better ideas emerge.
Finding Shared Purpose
In October 2024, WFF released findings from a cross-partisan, public opinion research team showing that, during this time of polarization, Americans are united on wanting solutions to challenging social issues and trust the nonprofit sector to take the lead in finding them. The research also found that the majority of Americans believe it’s important for the sector to bring people together to solve problems (82 percent) and empower those closest to social challenges to find solutions (93 percent).
Meeting these expectations begins with communication, and effective communication strategies are clear about who they need to reach and the kind of community they want to build. Community is about more than geography, politics, or generations. It’s also about groups of people with a shared purpose. The current discourse in the United States tends to concentrate on divisions: Republican or Democrat, urban or rural, coastal or Heartland, college-educated or not, Gen X or Gen Z. Yet most Americans agree on the importance of ensuring access to things like clean water (78 percent); quality, affordable health care (72 percent); and quality K-12 Education (71 percent). What if we defined community by what unites us, even when we disagree elsewhere? Communities connected by a shared purpose or experiences can transcend geographical, educational, generational, and political differences, and build connections across them.
Leveraging points of consensus to help build these groups requires that organizations think differently about who participates in decision-making. For example, a community focused on water access could include municipal water providers, city and state governments, farmers, businesses, and tribal nations. A community focused on access to quality education could include students, teachers, parents, government leaders, and employers.
At WFF, we’ve found that a combination of three approaches helps foster collaboration among communities with diverse perspectives but shared purpose.
1. Telling
Telling is the most traditional form of communication for foundations. For years, it meant publishing a glossy annual report with long-form narrative and beautiful photography. Today, we tell our stories in real-time with shorter, more engaging content and deliver it via a website, email database, or webinar. Telling still plays an important role, especially when it increases transparency and provides vital information, but if we aren’t careful or rely solely on this approach, we can end up talking to ourselves. Foundations are storehouses of expertise and information, but not always the best at conveying that information in ways that grantees, partners, and other communities can digest quickly and put into action. Some principles to consider:
- Make it accessible. We don’t all speak the same language, sometimes literally, but also because of jargon, geography, educational attainment, or information overload. WFF strives to keep its external communication between the eighth- and tenth-grade levels, not because community members aren’t smart but because they come from different backgrounds and have different experiences and perspectives. They’re also terribly busy.
- Avoid alienating language. Understand that certain words and phrases can be non-starters or even triggers. Using alternative terms can help engage people with different points of view. The Civic Language Perceptions Project, produced by Philanthropy for Active Civil Engagement, is an excellent resource for understanding the potentially negative perceptions of specific words and finding more positive ones. AI is also useful; ask ChatGPT how someone with an opposing viewpoint might receive your message.
- Focus on values. In philanthropy, we tend to jump into “the how” of fixing a problem. Sometimes, the proposed solutions can be confusing and divisive. Talking about “the why” instead—why we are committed to solving a problem—can help people start from a place of agreement. Most everyone wants a good education for students and enough water to go around. Let’s start there.
2. Showing
Showing conveys a message by illustrating actions—in short, it’s storytelling. Communicating solely through data can be distracting and uninspiring. In his book, Thinking Fast and Slow, Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman explains that our intuitive brain is responsible for 95 percent of what we believe. Our analytical brain oversees the remaining 5 percent. The intuitive brain responds to stories, while the analytical responds to data. WFF has volumes of data supporting its approach to social change, but we also have a mantra: “No stories without data, no data without stories.” Of course, storytelling continues to change as new platforms emerge and attention spans shrink, but we follow a few principles when illustrating both the challenges communities face and the people finding solutions.
- Focus on potential, not problems. The Arkansas-Mississippi Delta is one of the most impoverished regions in our country, but it’s also full of cultural significance and potential. Our film series by Delta resident and filmmaker Nolan Dean tells the stories of exceptional people working to change their communities for the better.
- Be transparent. WFF is working on this, particularly as it relates to program strategies. To help grantees and partners see how our collective work fits together, for example, we created a series of graphics that illustrates our Home Region program’s theory of change, including the “what, who, where, and why.” We amplified the content through interpersonal communications between program staff and grantees, social media, and email communications. This resulted in some of the highest audience engagement on our channels in the past year, confirming that our partners want to understand our strategies.
- “Tell me without telling me.” This social media trend of a few years ago is a great frame to keep in mind. Don’t just say you are committed to hearing all perspectives. Show it by who you include in decision-making processes.
3. Asking
This is one of the most powerful forms of communication when building a community. The people who are the most impacted by a given challenge often have the most insight on how to solve it. With its steady resources and mission-driven perspective, philanthropy is well-positioned to ensure that these individuals take part in finding solutions.
To inform our support for education, we recently started asking young people for their opinions. Our partnership with Gallup on “The Voices of Gen Z Study” has helped us get closer to the challenges they face, what inspires them, and their hopes for the future. A standout finding was that 50 percent of young people felt hands-on learning was the most engaging, yet only 23 percent felt there were opportunities to work on projects related to the jobs they desired. Part of our response to this has been increased support for school models that expose students to potential careers. Alabama Aviation and Aerospace High School, for example, focuses on training students for potential leadership positions in the aviation and aerospace industries.
We’ve also engaged individuals and organizations from the communities we support to work with us directly. Our program staff first met Heather Tanana, who was born on the Navajo reservation and an adjunct professor at the University of Utah at the time, at a conference just before the COVID-19 pandemic. They invited Tanana to join WFF leaders on several site visits, and when the pandemic hit, her experience and expertise were instrumental in collaborating with tribal interests. She now heads the Universal Access to Clean Water for Tribal Communities Project, a WFF grantee that focuses on securing access to water for tribal communities in the Colorado River basin. “There's a big opportunity for philanthropic groups to not only partner and help tribes access funding and close the water gap,” she says. “But also help them get a greater voice in the discussions about ensuring safe and secure water supply in the Colorado River.”
At this moment of deep societal division, many people are looking to the nonprofit sector to drive change and expect it to bring people together to do so. While not comprehensive, these communications strategies have proved credible places to start building unique and powerful communities capable of innovating, problem-solving, and transforming lives.
Read more stories by Stephanie Cornell & Daphne Moore.