Building a great reputation

How do you create a great reputation? Is it simply the case that great reputations follow from great work? Hardly, Bernie Madoff and Icelandic banks had great reputations until a few years ago. Such reputations are a product of effective communication, but they quickly fall apart under scrutiny. To build a reputation on a solid foundation takes more than effective communication. It takes a clear understanding that communicating the difference that your organisation makes generates long-term trust and confidence.

There are three stages to building and maintaining a great reputation. Firstly, you must engage your stakeholders and find out what they want to know about your organisation. Secondly, you must be proactive and transparent about demonstrating the difference your organisation makes. And thirdly, you need to posses an understanding of how people receive information about your organisation. Let’s explore each stage in more detail.

All your stakeholders will have questions about your organisation, but they won’t necessarily ask them. And questions that remain unanswered will be filled by assumptions, colouring the perception of your organisation, and therefore your reputation. A good example is direct mail. Many charities use this fundraising method to generate income, yet only 9% of the public believe that it works. The discrepancy is due our failure to communicate how effective this direct mail is at generating income. It seems that when most people receive direct mail they assume it’s a waste of money, and the logical conclusion is that ‘this charity wastes money, so I won’t give to them’.

We must address stakeholder concerns wherever possible. We tend to get pre-occupied tinkering with the tone and structure of key messages while neglecting to engage stakeholders on issues that, while seemingly minor, can fundamentally effect how they see our organisations. It’s simple: ask them what they want to know and answer them.

Equally important for building a great reputation is to communicate the difference you make, and do so with openness and honesty. New Philanthropy Capital recently released a study, Talking About Results, in which they compared how well charities communicate the difference they make. The paper found that charities still struggle to communicate the most important information.

Slogans, logos and branding can create a great reputation, but relying on these techniques alone leaves your reputation vulnerable. Talking about your impact is the difference between saying your organisation’s great and proving your organisation’s great. Subsequently, it’s the difference between building fragile good will and building trust and confidence. As charities, we possess the former, but we desperately need the latter.

Once you have addressed your stakeholders’ questions and concerns, and communicated the difference your organisation makes with openness and honesty, the final stage of creating a great reputation is to understand how information is delivered.

Information about your organisation will reach people in one or more of four ways: by direct experience of your organisation, through your communications, through the media, or by talking to friends and family. The media and the public (friends and family) are the most powerful drivers of opinion and reputation, and we have the power to harness them by taking a big picture look at the purpose of our communications. Actively targeting the local media and the public with messages about your effectiveness will build your reputation over time, while limiting your communications to service users and funders will also limit the number of potential advocates of your work.

Sadly, when charities begin tightening their purse strings the communications budget is often an early casualty. We need to resist this temptation. Now more than ever we need to shout about our success; we need to demonstrate the difference we make with openness and honesty.