When thinking about human rights challenges, communications don’t always come to mind. So it was music to my ears to hear Samantha Power at the Innovations in International Philanthropy Symposium extol the importance of improving nonprofit communications in better illuminating the urgency of NGOs’ human rights work.

Power referred to her prior experience at USAID and the seemingly tepid reaction of the American public to it being defunded earlier this year. For her, this reinforced how important it is for donors and nonprofits to invest in communicating what they do and what they accomplish. As the VP for Development and Communications at the Fund for Global Human Rights, I was grateful for this endorsement.

Interestingly, the question of communications, following Power’s remarks and interview, arose in a conversation with a few others interested in human rights and democracy. At this roundtable conversation, a donor advisor asked why human rights language sometimes seemed technical and abstract. Participants emphasised the need to make our work as concrete as possible, showing how human rights efforts entail, among other things, exposing abuses, advocating for systems change, galvanising public support for community improvements, and providing resources to those who are fighting for a better future. With so many of us grappling with growing authoritarianism and the slashing of foreign aid, it was energizing to be in conversation with peers about how to navigate this very difficult moment.

I also found myself wondering about investing in the short-term rather than the longer-term, as both are necessary. Human rights work is necessarily long-term, and it can sometimes be hard to convey to donors and others why it’s important to plant those seeds now, plotting the kind of future they want to see and investing coherently and collectively to achieve it. Power talked about why donors should work together, which I appreciated. I hope that being at this Symposium will inspire both donors and nonprofits to consider how we might work together rather than compete with one another to achieve systemic change.

Read the full article about investing in nonprofit communications by Rona Peligal at Alliance Magazine.