NGO’s as a hidden force: how to communicate their impact

Nonprofit organizations are a present-day reality, even though their social outcome tends to appear blurred due to the fact that their impact make no news. Therefore, mass media do not give them priority in front of big companies related news -the stock market, corporate profits, productivity- or governments -the budget, regulations, public investment. Thus, NGO’s remain among the public and the private sectors. They are not ruled by market criteria, nor they have been created by public administration.The most important aspect of an NGO is its mission, which determines everything else. Moreover, in the recent years, NGOs have had to jump right into professionalization to achieve their social mission. It is necessary to recruit professional staff along with the volunteers to continuously ensure the outcome of the organization, whether offering services open to the population, attracting funding sources, creating social consciousness and/or raising awareness around a particular issue or developing lobbying against the public and private decision-makers to bring legal changes.

Job areas for a NGOs vary greatly: care for the population at social exclusion risk employment generation and social integration of the have-not, accompaniment to childhood and adolescence, creation of mutual support groups for the ill and their families, leisure education, basic social needs monitoring and care, international cooperation and development, human rights, advocacy and the like.

NGOs provide goods and services to achieve different human beings because they are architects of change in people. People is the main target of their action. They all focus significantly in individuals and groups, accompanying them in their efforts to redirect or refocus their lifetime project.

This is why the “product” of an NGOs is a patient who lives with his illness and participates in mutual support groups, a child who has had the opportunity to learn, an empowered young man that does not take the path of social exclusion, an adult who respects herself, an elderly man who take its own decisions about its daily life or an unemployed who finds a job or begins to study for a new employment. All these cases make human life different and better thanks to an NGO. In addition, involvement of professionals and volunteers is high, something to be managed.

Key factors communicating the outcome of NGOs

One of the challenges NGOs are facing is a more intense institutional effort on outcome communication, which is always rooted on the structure of the organization, its strategy, action and its ability to raise funds. These are the key pillars that allow performance. Professional staff, volunteers and executives have to work so aligned and with a proper external communication policy.

As a conclusion, in a world of resources scarcity and growing social demands, NGOs need more communication management, new models on organizational strategies and fundraising to focus on their mission and ensure impact.

U·TRANS has detected this need and we are already working on several projects to respond to these NGO’s related challenges.