Do nonprofits need to lighten up?

At the risk of getting into difficult territory in my first ever blog post, I think the answer to that is a big fat YES.

This week, I’ve been reading the first few chapters of The Cluetrain Manifesto for my social media class. One of the book’s ideas that stood out most for me was that businesses need to take themselves less seriously and get a sense of humor if they’re going to survive in the age of social media (mentioned in Thesis #21, among other places).

Behind the idea is the authors’ blindingly reasonable argument that people prefer talking to, reading about and engaging with people – not humorless, faceless corporations. If companies lighten up, get a sense of humor and allow their employees and customers to play and to talk with each other, they’ll be more human and more successful because people will actually want to do business with them.

Makes sense, right? After all, all of my favorite people have a sense of humor and are able to laugh at themselves, so why shouldn’t the same apply to corporations?

Since I’m most interested in nonprofit communication, all this got me thinking about whether the same idea applies to nonprofits too, and (as said earlier) it seems to me that the answer has to be a resounding “yes!”

Even though nonprofits may seem more human than for-profit businesses, because they’re usually talking about people not products, their communications invariably still miss the lighter, more engaging bits of human interaction. Even first-person stories in nonprofit newsletters or websites are more likely to be earnest and reflective than honest or amusing.

To a certain extent, I guess nonprofits’ earnest tone is unavoidable, since many of them deal with the world’s least amusing issues. Cancer and domestic abuse just aren’t that funny. But since the purpose of most of a nonprofit’s communication is to engage people with its cause long-term, shouldn’t nonprofits go out of their way to make their communication as engaging as possible? And doesn’t that, intuitively, involve some humor?

No-one wants to spend time with a person who only talks about how dreadful the world is, or how important the work they’re doing to change that is (or at least, very few people want to). Yes, it’s important to talk about the problems in the world and how we might fix them, but not all of the time. That would be depressing and exhausting. So it seems safe to say that people will also be reluctant to spend their limited time and attention on an organization (no matter how important) that only talks about the seriousness of the issues it’s dealing with or the importance of the work it’s doing.

If nonprofits want to successfully engage people, build their donor and volunteer base, and have the capacity to make a real difference to the world, I think they need to lighten up just a little and start communicating as organizations that people will want to share their time, thoughts, friends and money with. For me (and, I think, The Cluetrain Manifesto), that means having a sense of humor and (at least sometimes) talking about the irreverent, irrelevant and funny things that other people talk about every day.

And I think it’s possible to do that without devaluing your organization or seeming not to care. To prove it, here are some nonprofits I’ve come across over the last six months that I think are managing it pretty consistently:

• See The Difference – a small, new, UK-based nonprofit that uses video to demonstrate the difference other nonprofits are making, to engage new supporters. In particular, See the Difference uses its Facebook page to talk to supporters about jokes, biscuits and weekend plans, as well as the causes it’s working for.

• Big Duck* – not strictly a nonprofit, but a New York-based communication firm that works with nonprofits to improve their branding and communication. As the name suggests, and the website and blog show, Big Duck manages to have a sense of humor and be serious about nonprofits and their causes all at the same time.

(*Full disclosure: I’m working with Big Duck for my practicum this semester)

• Red Cross (Oregon Trail Chapter) – despite the seriousness of the work the Red Cross does, the Oregon Trail Chapter runs an entertaining blog that manages to talk about breweries, vampires and the relative costs of printer ink and human blood all in the same month.

• WNYC – New York’s main public radio station’s Monthly Sustainer ads are always tongue-in-cheek, and this fundraising video from summer 2009 is (at least in my opinion) genuinely amusing.