As part of ILGA-Europe’s programme in response to anti-LGBTI forces, we supported a number of LGBTI organisations in Europe to deepen the skills needed towards achieving change in the current landscape of rising anti-LGBTI and anti-gender forces. Most LGBTI organisations we worked with have small teams (1-5 staff members), with some fully being a team of volunteers with other day jobs, and a workload heavily driven by reactive campaigning and communication.
The Pressure Of Reactive Work
Reactive work creates an insistent pressure to respond to political developments, adding to an already overwhelming body of work handled only by a few members of organisations. Planning and strategising becomes difficult in this context, as days are overtaken by interviews, enquiries for statements by the press and the feeling that “no one else will say something if we don’t”.
Lack of Time and Human Power
This lack of resources and funding has an incredible impact on the way that LGBTI organisations deliver communication and campaigning work. Organisations tend to organically and intuitively do communication work wherever they can with the time they have, delaying the deeper development of an overall strategy and organisational vision that guides them and helps them navigate unplanned peaks of work.
Lack of funding
Even though the most appropriate solution to this problem might be increased funding and support, we are also aware that the issue of lack of funding affects LGBTI organisations of all sizes and it’s not an easy and quick fix to achieve.
With this in mind, we explored short-term tools that could instil strategic approaches no matter the organisational capacity. Here are some of the steps organisations took to integrate strategic communication whilst on limited capacity.
Step 1: Set Your Visions & Smart Goals
An overall vision and SMART goals are the basis of any strategic communication and campaign foundation. They guide and give direction to your work, and help you focus and prioritise based on what’s more important for the organisation and the project you are working on.
You don’t necessarily need to invest into a full-fleshed strategy, as long as you are confident you are all working towards the same goals and priorities. Your vision and goals can be simple and to the point, and more importantly they can (and should) be SMART.
In the words of Germany’s European Forum of LGBTI Christian Groups, having clear goals means:
“We have a better understanding of what we need to do, and a clearer communication strategy which is more focused and has a direction. There is a plan now! I feel a lot less stressed, more informed and equipped.”
Check out our Framing Equality Toolkit (page 27-33) for a simple exercise to get clear on your purpose.
Step 2: Focus and Reprioritise
Focusing and re-prioritising is another simple but effective approach to release some of the overwhelm and pressure. This means making the difficult decision of choosing what is or isn’t a priority.
Having your goals and vision to guide you will make this a much easier process. If you are struggling to pick your focus, remember that you can have increased impact when your efforts are directed towards organisational priorities, rather than attempting to respond to all issues. This allows you to craft messaging that is specific and resonant with the audiences you need to make change happen.
It can also support you in taking more ownership of your communication work, as well as collectively decide on strategic direction.
For Italy’s Gaynet, prioritising meant they focused their efforts on one campaign at a time, planning adequate dissemination and rescheduling when necessary. They postponed their campaign launch as well so that they had enough time to test their communication and reframe the messaging in a way that resonated with their target audience.
For Spektra in Montenegro, having more structure and prioritisation meant they got to be more creative with their communication and felt more confident in what they were delivering.
“Our social media is functioning better, because it now has a direction. With a concrete path, we feel more relaxed, less overwhelmed, and more focused. The coaching sessions made us feel understood and valued with our ideas, which made us feel more confident in what we were doing.”
Step 3: Define Your Core Messages and Target Audience
Knowing who your message is speaking to is another fundamental strategic tool to keep you focused on the tasks that matter. When your message is directed at a specific group of people, it will make a bigger difference.
Your most important audience is the movable middle – those who can be encouraged to take supportive action for the first time and join your base of supporters, or those that could be more active and engaged with your communication.
Knowing and segmenting your movable middle will give you insight into the beliefs that are holding them back from supporting your cause, or the beliefs that might bring them closer to it.
Here are two very simple ways you can try out to define your audience and what they might be thinking:
Think about your target audience when you frame your communication work: what words and examples would you use if you were to tell them about your campaign over a cup of coffee?
Create a set of core messages: these are the messages that you want to come across no matter what activity or communication output you share with the world. This is the information that you want to stick.
Read more about key ways that people think about LGBTI equality and how to set your target audiences in the Framing Equality toolkit (page 35 – 49).
Step 4: Make A Plan To Strengthen Your Members’ Engagement
If you are still finding yourself with way more work to do than your organisational capacity allows for, it might be time to strengthen your members engagement strategy.This is not only useful in order to tackle some of the workload but, even more importantly, to build lasting support from your members.
Let’s take a look at how this worked in practice for Queer Intersections, an organisation based in France that aims to co-create resilience and support systems among marginalised communities through creative QBIPOC residency and events.
During our work together we focused on developing a members engagement strategy for their upcoming festival. We looked at how to recruit volunteers and new members to support them achieve their goals.
In particular, we worked on framing their communication in a way that clearly showed to potential members the benefits of joining and contributing.Whether it was learning a new skill or supporting something they deeply cared about, it was aimed at building meaningful participation as the basis of community support that goes beyond a one-event exercise into relevant long-term efforts.
Queer Intersections in France assert that: “More structure around our membership strategy means we now have more energy and time for other tasks that need attention. Knowing that the ideas we wanted to put into action are now actually happening brings us peace. If I had to give advice to other activists thinking about doing this work I would say to focus on creating partnerships with people doing similar work and to think about your values, remembering why you do what you do”.
Step 5 Don’t Forget About Your Wellbeing: Selfcare Is Welfare
Overwhelming workloads and lack of funding impact more than the capacity to develop and implement strategic communication. It also affects the overall well-being of staff and volunteers, who feel heavy responsibilities and a strong commitment to the cause.
That’s why it is so important that we look after each other in our teams and that we feel supported within the organisation.
Activists’ wellbeing is not only about what you can do for yourself to feel supported, but also what your colleagues and what your organisation can do to make you feel supported.
Some ideas you could introduce include self-care check-ins at the beginning of your meetings and catch-ups, talking about each other’s boundaries, and what kind of communication style or changes you need to feel valued and included at work.
These can be helpful to find a common vision around well-being as well as anchoring yourself during stressful times.
According to Spektra, Montenegro: “Personal boundaries and planning our work ahead, meant giving space to everyone in the team to give their opinions but limiting it in a way that saves us time and energy.”
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