Dear purpose-driven organisation

Dear purpose-driven organisation,

Thanks for getting in touch. I’m sorry to hear that you feel overworked. I’m sorry that pumping out so much content can feel relentless and not very sustainable. I think I can help.

Good relationships are built on mutual respect, learning and great communication. We grow together. We support each other. We strive to understand each other. We do our best to be modest, understanding and generous. To be humorous at the right moments and serious at the right moments. We appreciate sharing an outlook on the world. We offer warmth and a personal touch in a world that can be cold. Occasionally we even make each other cups of tea.

I understand that you’re having a difficult time recruiting new supporters. And that you’re fed up that there’s so much churn: that retention seems like hard work. I understand that you love big numbers, and that you yearn for the viral success of your competitor on TikTok.

From what you’ve told me, I think there may be a fundamental issue at the heart of your frustrations. I think you may be approaching your relationships with human beings (supporters, users, donors, followers, even staff) the wrong way. I’m concerned that in some ways you don’t see them as relationships at all.

Communication

Good relationships are built on open, honest, two-way communication. Constructive, rewarding conversations are as much about listening as talking.

Sometimes it looks as if you’re doing a lot of talking and not so much listening. You’re producing huge amounts of content but a lot of it is about you. Some of it doesn’t even sound like it was written by a real human.

You use an awful lot of internal language and frames of thinking. Your “tone of voice guidelines” are two lines long on p97 of a brand PDF that’s mostly about how much space to allow around your logo. This guidance doesn’t do a very good job of explaining exactly when or how you should sound “bold and ambitious”.

Growth and learning

Good relationships are continuously improving. We ask questions and we learn and we become stronger, evolving together.

I’ve seen that there are people out there who believe passionately in what you’re doing, who want to contribute, to be a part of your movement.

But too often your content seems to be broadcasting and marketing at these people rather than connecting and giving opportunities for learning and empowering. Too often it looks as if you’re talking over the tops of people’s lives rather than meaningfully contributing to them.

Mutual support

The best relationships are mutually supportive. There are good times and bad times and we need each other in both. That mutual support is emotional as well as practical. And it’s two-way: even in our most selfless, generous moments we appreciate being seen.

In the best relationships this mutual support becomes a virtuous cycle: we help each other to become the best versions of ourselves.

I can see that there are many people who would love to support you and be supported by you. People who would love to learn from you, who would love to receive the sorts of resources and help that could turn them into powerful advocates for your cause and your community.

But too often it looks as if you’re asking them for things rather than offering them things. Too often your content starts from “What do we want people to do?” not “What do people want from us?”

Shared values and goals

As humans we have a natural desire to form connections and communities with others who share our values and goals. Some of the spaces in which we did this 50 or 100 years ago (the church, trade unions, political parties) have become less prominent in modern life, our connections to them more fragile, more fluid.

At the same time, a digital revolution has given us the ability to connect and to convene and grow together in ways that were impossible 40 years ago. This is a huge opportunity for purposeful organisations like you, who can not only connect directly to people, but can convene and encourage connections between others.

But it seems as if too many of your relationships are one-dimensional and centralised, and you seem overly worried about clicks. As a result you may be neglecting the content and activities that would help create a web of deeper, more satisfying, more sustainable, values-based relationships.

Deep, human, emotional connection

In our best relationships we share sadness and happiness and pain and jealousy and loss and ecstasy and a whole jungle of other emotions and experiences. We have a need for stories that make sense of these emotions and which shape our understanding of the world. These stories connect us on many levels. They foster a sense of belonging, community and deep human connection.

You have a huge opportunity to use content to help create these connections but so much of your content is transactional. You talk about storytelling but I struggle to remember any of your stories.

You sometimes make people smile on social media. And you pull people’s heartstrings in your fundraising videos. But when you get serious you often resort to impenetrable reports over complex, multi-layered human insights. You say that you promote a multiplicity of voices but I’ve looked and these people aren’t that prominent in your content. I understand that humanness is sometimes an awkward and messy business but I think you could do more here, digging deeper into people’s lives.

Trust, generosity and modesty

The best relationships are built on mutual trust. This trust doesn’t come out of nowhere: it grows from respect, generosity, modesty and a genuine desire to serve each others’ needs.

You’re doing amazing, important work, but I suspect that the people you want to connect to care less about you as an organisation than you do.

And I understand when you say that you don’t have the budget for in-depth user research. That stuff can be expensive, and sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. But this isn’t an adequate excuse for not having conversations with the people you depend on. Talking to people more might mean you’d learn a thing or two.

Long-term commitment

I hear you when you say you’d love to have long-term supporters who continue to do everything you’d like them to: give you money, sign petitions, buy Christmas cards, like your Facebook posts.

But I wonder from what you’ve said whether you’re necessarily committed to them in the long term. Some of your content makes it seem as if you’re more interested in short-term wins.

Autonomy and independence

Autonomy is a difficult aspect of relationships for many of us. We love each other because we’re separate, independent beings and yet we strive to break down that separateness. There are contradictions of human nature here that are beyond the scope of this column.

Suffice to say, if you want to be loved, you will need to give others space to be their own people. You’ll need to respect their individuality and not try to control them. You’ll need to encourage informed choices and avoid manipulative tactics.

This means you should change that line on your website that says that the baby elephants will be sorry that I unsubscribed.

Personal touch

People like to feel connections with other people. It’s true that sometimes we form close bonds with inanimate objects and abstract entities too, but mostly the really strong, lasting relationships are a people-people thing.

So when you say that you want more, better connections I wonder whether you see yourself primarily as an organisation, or as a structure within which humans can thrive.

People care deeply about your cause, about the people you represent, and about the other people who make up the wider circle of humans you lovingly refer to as your “audiences”.

There’s a huge opportunity here, especially in the ways that you create and maintain digital content, but you may need to let go of some of your organisation-ego and concentrate more on your inner humanity.

All in all, it’s great that you want more reach. It’s fantastic that you realise that you need people outside your organisational walls in order to make progress. But it shouldn’t just be reach.

Ultimately your success depends on you forming sustainable, long-term, mutually rewarding human relationships. And if you’re serious about all of this, there are some things you should think about changing. I think it’ll make things better for everyone.