Why is nonprofit communications decision making so hard? Let’s see . . .
- We often have incomplete information.
- We can’t guarantee the results.
- We aren’t comfortable with taking risks.
- We get overwhelmed by too many choices.
- We may lack knowledge of and experience with the best practices.
- We might be waiting for perfection.
- We may be uncertain about who should be making the decision.
- We might think we need to make the decision when we should really be delegating it.
- We might be exhausted by the sheer number of decisions in front of us.
No wonder it’s so challenging!
Add in questions like: Who should be making which decisions? What communications decisions should be made by the board? By the executive director? By program staff? By the communicator director and other communications staff?
In nonprofits (and most organizations), you can simplify the decision-making organizational chart to three levels:
Executive Decisionmakers
These people are most often board members, executive directors and C-suite managers. (C-suite means the people with “Chief” in their titles, like Chief Operations Officer, Chief Financial Officer, etc. or people who fill those roles, but might have Vice President or even Director or Manager titles, as long as they sit at the top of the organizational chart.)
Their communications decisionmaking should be strategic in nature, with long-term thinking. They should only get involved in tactics under special circumstances or when there is no operating structure in place for a particular situation.
Management Decisionmakers
These people are often middle managers or in smaller organizations, the directors or team leaders who report to the executives. They direct the operational implementation of the strategic decisions, looking weeks and months at a time.
Operational Decisionmakers
These people are the staff making all of the little decisions required to implement the communications tactics day-to-day, following the guidance of the management decisionmakers.
How this actually matches up with a nonprofit’s organizational chart depends on the size of the organization and its management culture.
For example, in very small nonprofits without paid comms staff, the executive director would do all three levels.
If that executive director gets a communications intern, she might delegate operational decisions to that person, but would likely retain the executive and management decisionmaking. If she hires a full-time communications director, she may split the management decisionmaking or delegate it entirely.
Ideally, your organization delegates decisions down as low as possible, but in most nonprofits, you’ll see some overlap.
Let’s look at social media management as an illustration. Say you have one person in each of these positions:
- An Executive Director should make executive decisions.
- A Communications Director should make management decisions.
- A Communications Associate should make operational decisions.
The executive director should be involved in strategic decisions about how to use social media. What target audience will we be reaching through each social media channel with what type of messaging and brand personality?
The communications director should be involved in setting the editorial calendar for those channels including the timing and frequency of specific messages and calls to action to ensure the right people get the right messages at the right time.
The communications associate should be writing the copy and designing the graphics for the posts, often with the communications director picking up the slack as needed.
If your executive director is editing social posts written by the communications associate, you have a problem.
Decision making requires space and time – but not too much! Give yourself enough time to weigh options and risks without paralyzing yourself.
