Collaborate for Greater Impact – Cause Communications

At Cause Communications, we live by the African proverb “To go fast, go alone. To go far, go together.” In other words, collaborate for the greatest impact. While “working together” is often a rallying cry, a study revealed fewer than one-third of surveyed nonprofits said they had a plan for partnering with other organizations. So what does it take to put this aspiration into practice? The key to reaping the rewards of collaboration lies in applying communications best practices. That’s exactly what we relied on here at Cause when presented with a huge opportunity this Spring.

For the last four years in May, during Mental Health Awareness Month, Cause Communications has helped the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health (LACDMH) produce WE RISE. This month-long initiative encourages wellbeing and healing through art, connection, community engagement and creative expression. WE RISE 2021 was the most expansive and collaborative yet, reaching tens of thousands of Los Angeles County residents and engaging over 500 partners who, together, affirmed mental health as a community priority.

In the words of LACDMH Director Jonathan E. Sherin, “Our WE RISE campaign is designed as a heart-forward opportunity and movement built to empower our diverse communities to come together for strength and healing.” This year, more so than ever, collaboration was at the heart of bringing that diverse strength together. Thanks to our partnerships – which included more than 300 LA County artists – WE RISE featured more than 125 community programs and 21 art installations all across the county.

Here are four communications best practices instrumental to WE RISE’s success, and that you can use to work with others to create greater impact on behalf of a shared cause.

Lead with listening: Good partners trust each other and the process. To build trust and benefit from the wisdom, experience, and perspective of each partner, prioritize listening. For WE RISE, we started by making sure the right people were in the room and then developed ways of working together that ensured these key voices – experts in the field, members of our target audience, and dynamic artists and curators – were heard at every step of the planning process. One of the ways we solidified this practice was by establishing regular team check-ins. This simple act of meeting before, during, and after the initiative had tremendous benefits: We were able to spot connections and new opportunities across team members’ work, streamline planning, be more efficient with resources, continually learn from each other, and ultimately, provide a better experience for participants. These check-ins also made it easy to celebrate each other’s wins and milestones – a key to staying positive and motivated through a complex project.
Put audiences first: Understanding your audience’s challenges, interests, and behaviors is key to creating an experience that is meaningful and effective – from the substance of the programs to the ways you communicate about those offerings. That’s especially helpful in the context of collaboration: Our WE RISE partners, the majority of whom were community groups that already represented and engaged the residents we were trying to reach, provided insights about our audiences that we would not have known working on our own. Additionally, keeping our audiences at the center of every WE RISE conversation made it easier to establish cohesive, shared goals that all our partners could rally around.
Amplify your voice: One of the many benefits of collaboration is that partners can offer “power in numbers” – especially when it comes to getting your message out there. Each organization involved in WE RISE exponentially multiplied the number of megaphones available to get the word out. Even more importantly, we had messengers who were already known and trusted by our audiences, enabling us to build on these relationships in ways that were authentic, relevant, and culturally and linguistically appropriate. In this way, collaboration and partnerships strengthened our ability to attract and engage audiences who would benefit most from the WE RISE experience.
Set partners up for success: It’s not enough to simply ask your partners to help spread the word. Make it easy for them to contribute to your shared goals and tap into their own unique strengths and networks. WE RISE partners were equipped with toolkits filled with graphic assets, branding guidelines, and unified messaging. In addition to saving our partners time, this support also enhanced the effectiveness of the outreach campaign overall. To participants, everything felt like one, single initiative that was easy to recognize and navigate all across the county.

Effective collaboration made it possible for WE RISE to truly be an initiative “by the community, for the community.” Together, WE RISE delivered resources, hope, and connection at a time when they were needed most. And this year’s experience underscored just how much we all need each other to make lasting, positive social change.

Looking for more tips and tools on building networks and partnerships? Check out our free Communications Toolkit.