Change, a guaranteed constant in our lives, remains deeply difficult to achieve. And without clear communication, it is that much harder to convince people to shift their mindsets and take up new habits or ideas.
It is with this basis that communication professionals need to study the gap between activism, behaviour change and the employment of sustained communication campaigns.
Research shows that activists and civil society organisations achieve only a tiny fraction of their potential for various reasons. One major reason is that they do not integrate communication into their campaigning or programme development.
In so doing they fail, consistently, to achieve three objectives of communication; to inform, to change behaviour and to change attitudes.
As fish rots from the head, it ought to be understood that when communication is not represented at the decision-making table, rot is inevitable. Without a clear, first-hand understanding of an organisation or campaign’s goal, underlying factors, audience and available resources, there is only so much impact that can be achieved.
So who can handle strategic communication? What are the ingredients of strategic communication? This is a leadership function that requires a well-resourced team, just like resources are designated for administration, bills and day-to-day programme activities.
A strategic communication professional in a team reads the situation or room and finds the right tools and messages to persuade audiences to support a cause or an organisation. Strategic communication, therefore, should never be an afterthought.
As organisations strive to hire the best of the best within each profession, it is imperative to give the same weight to strategic communication personnel as this is a unique skill.
While technology has allowed us all to become ‘communicators’, it ought to be recognised that communication is a science and art, studied extensively by professionals. The profession should not be minimised into social media posting or ‘trending’, or booking sporadic media interviews.
Even where communication professionals are hired, management is usually quick to slash related budgets, deeming communications as a non-essential function in the organisation.
In effect, the crippled communication professionals are only left with social media as a tool for persuasion, attempting to compensate for the inadequate budgetary allocation.
The consequence of ignoring strategic communication as a function in an organisation leads to endless struggles with credibility, resulting in terminal reputational diseases.
The business cost of lack of credibility is immense, ask the many seemingly prominent brands who continually flounder with their messaging, receiving sharp backlash from audiences who refuse to buy tone-deaf press statements and marketing gimmicks.
Our political leaders heavily invest in communication as we see them pushing different narratives every day. Sometimes, their intentions are to serve us, but many times, we are left out – with a few activists fighting a lonely war on behalf of millions of Kenyans.
One wonders what the nation might have achieved, if a communication strategy was followed to ensure that public participation in all political decision-making is a real, genuine process that supports people on the ground.
Thus, my call for a rethink among activists and civil society organisations. Many times, CSOs push for social issues that affect most, if not all of us equally. Our future depends heavily on the selfless work they do through campaigns, litigation and even protests.
With clear, concise messaging that is achieved by strategic communication, common sense concludes that more Kenyans would quickly buy into different movements to change their society.
So what can be done to support activists and CSOs to reach and convince more audiences? The answer lies in the collaboration with the many respectable strategic communication firms that have a treasure trove in expertise in this regard.
However, let our heads not remain in the clouds. Strategic communication firms are businesses, battling to meet the bottom line. In which case, could there be some opportunities for communication firms to ‘give back’ by working with activists and CSOs, by charging them lower rates for their campaigns?
Like any other responsible business, strategic communication firms are encouraged to offer corporate social investment by collaborating with community groups who would not otherwise afford their services.
My reflections are sparked by a report published in April by Luminate dubbed Winning Hearts and Minds that studied the barriers between strategic communication firms, CSOs and activists. The study hypothesises that if these groups collaborated, there might be greater impact achieved on campaigns for social issues.
In a nutshell, incorporating strategic communication into programmatic work is the surest way to improve outcomes through long-term behaviour and attitude modification. That means unrestricted funding, sufficient funding and elevation of communication to a strategic function.
