by Adam Fuss

On giving communication

The holidays are upon us, which means a rush to buy gifts for friends and loved ones, finalize travel plans, and attend one holiday party after another. For many communication professionals, this time of year also means several intense weeks of wrapping up projects, spending budgets, and finalizing plans for next year – all on top of our normal day-to-day responsibilities.

It’s easy to see how giving back professionally can slip through the cracks with everything else vying for our attention.

But as we start to look back on the past year and look forward to 2020, today – Giving Tuesday – offers us a perfect opportunity to think about how we can use our professional skills and experience to make a real difference in the world.

The gift of communication

For the better part of the last decade, the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) has brought volunteers together to help countless resource-strapped organizations through a semi-structured program called the Gift of Communication. The format can be adapted based on the organization(s) needing help and what volunteers bring to the table. Essentially, it involves volunteers meeting in small groups with a target organization for several hours to offer advice and develop solutions on anything from communications strategies to messaging to team building and recruiting. These events can involve a single organization, but they are often structured as breakout sessions (one organization per breakout). For the setup, envision a hotel banquet room with a large round table for each organization and group of volunteers.

During IABC’s World Conference this past June in Vancouver, I had the privilege of taking part in a Gift of Communication event for the first time. My target organization was a local nonprofit organization that provides a variety of services to families in need across British Columbia. Our ‘client’, if you will, was the director of communications who had to make the best with her a very lean communication team. My group of volunteers discussed a number of issues she’s facing, but ultimately focused our ‘gift’ on developing a strategy that would deliver the greatest return on investment in communication tools and additional headcount, given her limited resources and the overall organizational priorities she was committed to supporting.

Despite the excellent content and loads of fun that World Conference offered over nearly four days, I left Vancouver feeling that the Gift event was the highlight. This was due in no small part to the amazing things that inevitably happen when you bring together a talented and diverse group of volunteers from around the world who genuinely care about making a difference. There’s not a doubt in my mind that I’m a better person and a better communication professional today because of those few hours I spent at the Gift of Communication.

A call to action

What would an article about giving communication be without some kind of call to action? If you’ve made it this far, your call to action is to:

  1. Think about how you and your team can give back professionally next year – above and beyond the work you do to support your organization’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) program.
  2. Offer pro bono services like writing, editing, graphic design, or translation to organizations that are highly strapped for resources. Have a skill? Commit to donating it at some point over the coming year.
  3. Engage your local IABC chapter (if you have one) to host a formal Gift of Communication event. Why reinvent the wheel if you don’t have to? Moreover, consider joining IABC to be more connected with all the other great things it offers (apologies in advance for what may seem like a shameless plug).
  4. Think about how you can engage internal and external business partners in a given effort. Two or more minds are always better than one.

Whatever path you choose, remember that the need for good communication extends the whole year. While you may be too busy to do much now, at the very least, spend a few minutes on this Giving Tuesday thinking about the difference you can make when the time comes. 

This article was originally published on LinkedIn on December 3, 2019.