Photo by Mugabi Owen on Unsplash
A skill I would like to explore and develop in this upcoming project with my audit team is how to design meaningful and effect content that will be able to connect with people and make an impact. The world is always advancing when it comes to digital platforms. We see how content can shape opinions, share important information, and inspire action. By strengthening this skill in design and strategy, I hope to create content that grabs the attention of the audience while also building understanding. This skill is important to learn because it will help me in the real world to create messages that can make a difference.
3D Girls Inc.
3D Girls, Inc. is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to “educate and empower young women to be advocates for themselves by making investments in their health and families.” They do this by providing mentors, tutoring, STEM based activities, college/career guidance, and emotional regulation skills. 3D Girls, Inc. goal is to encourage girls to explore STEM and college paths while at the same time reducing rates of teen pregnancy, depression, and suicide.
Designing meaningful content for 3D Girls, Inc. can play a vital role to reinforce their mission of uplifting young women in many aspect of their lives. Strategic crafted digital content can raise awareness about the organizations initiatives and attract new supporters and volunteers. Ways 3D Girls, Inc. can do this is by
Amplify the voices of the girls the organization sets to serve
This would allow supports to connect with 3D Girls, Inc. mission on a deeper level. They will see first hand of the positive impact the organization has on the community
Content that calls on the community to action
The benefit to this would be it will motivate followers to donate, volunteer, or share the organization’s message.
Offering educational content
By creating education content for online platforms 3D Girls, Inc. has the possibility to reach other young girls in need and the chance to grow as an organization
Strategic Foundation
In chapter 10 “Align on a strategic foundation” by Meghan Casey she emphasises the importance of preparing a strategic alignment workshop. Which is used to get stakeholders on the same page about the busisnces goals, audiecne, and the role of content. As Casey stated in the chapter the point of the strategic alignment is to get decsison makers to allign to the following:
- The business goals the project should help the organization achieve and how you might measure success
- Who makes up the priority audiences and what tasks they need to complete
- How content should help audiences complete their tasks and aid the organization in achieving its goals
To create a successful workshop Casey suggests the exercise of Levels of Why, Look of Success, Audience Characteristics, and The MadLib that she has found to be the most productive. After reading this chapter I am confident that a strategic workshop would greatly benefit 3D Girls, Inc.
To achieve this 3D Girls, Inc. will have to bring together stakeholders such as board members, program leads, and marketing leads. I would also recommend bringing in current or past participants of the organization, this would allow decision makers to see a different perspective from the receivers of the content. The workshop would do the exercises that Casey proposed to figure out the goals and audience of the non-profit and how content can support the goals.
A exercise I think would a good fit is the Levels of Why. This exercise has four levels: The Event Level, The Pattern Level, The Structure Level, and The Mental Model Level which purpose is to dig deeper into the issues that are driving the project. For example, it starts with a surface-level statement like “We need more social media followers”. The next step is to dig deeper to understand the “Why” by analyzing patterns, underlying structures that influence patterns, and the beliefs of the organization. The whole process will help align content to the mission of 3D Girls Inc.As a non-profit with a mission to empower girls, 3D Girls Inc. has many funders, volunteers, and participants as well as content need to raise awareness. So aligning everyone on “why” and “what” via the strategic foundation workshop ensures the content is meaningful and effective rather than scattered
Mixing Social Media and Non-Profits
“Social media-based social capital can affect public policy efforts, fundraising, and programing. This modern public square has evolved how nonprofits approach and execute advocacy”
Morgan, K., DeMasters, C., & Wiley, K.
In the journal Nonprofits, Social Media, and Mission by Morgan, K., DeMasters, C., & Wiley, K. the authors examine how non-profit organizations can use social media like Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok to fulfill their mission objectives. One of the main findings of the authors was that organizations that have a more up to date social media presence and a strong strategy tend to have high engagement and more mission oriented outcomes. But like the authors stated just having a social media presence just to have it is not enough. There needs to be planning and thought to the content being posted that also ties in the organizations mission in ways that attract new people. New engagement not only comes from potential volunteers or participants but also from potential donors. Harris, E. E., Neely, D. G., & Saxton, G. D. stated in their article Social Media, Signaling, and Donations: Testing the Financial Returns on Nonprofits’ Social Media Investment “the greater the social media presence achieved through setting up social media communication channels, the greater the appeal to current and potential donors and thus the stronger the association between social media and donations.”
3D Girls, Inc. can use this information to it’s benefit and have the possibility to become an organization who have a bigger reach to those in need. My advice would be to assign social media roles to a member(s) of the 3D Girls, Inc. team to insure that their social media presence is getting constant attention. Morgan et al. discovered that organizations with designated social media staff had better alignment and outcomes. Another suggestion that could greatly benefit 3D Girls, Inc. is instead of designing information based content rather switch to community building content. Content surrounding community has been shown to get more engagement from social media users. With a stronger and more intentional social media strategy, 3D Girls, Inc. can continue to inspire, connect, and uplift more young women across the Metro-Atlanta community.
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