2025 Pulse Polls
Shifts from the New Administration
Comms Priorities and Challenges
External Communications
Insights: At a Glance
Doubling Down on Mission
Reaffirming or strengthening communications about their core mission is the single biggest way communicators are adapting.
They are also taking a more reserved or cautious approach, with quite a few removing DEI and/or climate language
from communications.
Confronting New Realities
Fear of government retaliation or loss
of advocacy funding is a top communications challenge related to policy shifts.There is also fairly widespread concern about potential backlash for addressing sensitive issues.
External Communications Limited
Just over a third issued public statements in response to activities and actions taken by the new Presidential administration.
Nonprofits are twice as likely as private foundations to have made public statements.
Reliance on Owned Media
Communications are primarily being distributed across owned media channels, such as newsletters, and LinkedIn. Use of other social media channels has been less common.
Only 1 in 4 report using earned media to issue public statements.
Nearly all say communications have shifted since the start of the new Presidential administration
Most social sector orgs HAVE NOT issued any public statements
2024 Pulse Polls
Storytelling in the Social Good Sector
2025 Planning
Communication Channel Priorities
Gen AI
Insights: At a Glance
In Focus: Storytelling
Nearly all communicators report using storytelling in their external communications.
While storytelling is widely used and important to organizations across the sector, there are barriers to its use. This includes lack of staff time, which is a common barrier.
Definitions of storytelling vary quite a bit, with most either describing the process or approach it enables or the intended goals when this tactic is used.
Social media, e-newsletters, and owned properties are most commonly used for storytelling. This is consistent with the channels and platforms communicators have consistently said were priorities for them this year (LinkedIn, e-newsletters, e-mail, Instagram, and Facebook).
2025 Trends to Watch
Storytelling should prove more common in 2025, with 57% of communicators across the sector saying they plan to use this tactic more often as compared to this year.
There is a widespread commitment to communications research, too, with three-quarters indicating they plan to conduct some type of research next year. Right now, much of the planned research is described as strategic or planning in nature, though this may come into clearer focus as communicators begin scoping out this work.
Additionally, staff training is a top priority for the coming year, with just over half saying they plan to invest in this in 2025. Many communicators will also be adding specific tools to their toolkits. This includes AI, video or audio, and content creation tools.
Storytelling in the Social Good Sector
2025 Planning
Internal Communications
Comms for Good Events
Communication Channel Priorities
2024 Presidential Election
Insights: At a Glance
Resources and planning associated with internal communications are uneven.
Most say their organizations have at least one person working on internal communications. Still, fewer work at places with an internal communications strategy. Additionally, many report their organizations have not conducted an assessment of their internal communications needs and gaps in the past year.
Most communications teams play a significant but not primary role in conference and event planning.
COVID has had a lasting effect on events within the sector, too, with over half saying events are more important now than they were prior to the pandemic. It has also meant that many organizations are committed to making events more accessible, whether it be through virtual attendance options or making recordings available.
There’s been an uptick in use of the most common communications channels, as well as an increase in the proportion using YouTube and X.
LinkedIn remains the top channel within the sector, but there has been a jump in both e-newsletters and email. While still lower priorities, communicators are currently more likely to be looking to YouTube, podcasting, and X, too.
Shifts in the U.S. presidential election since the summer do not seem to be changing day-to-day or longer-term communications work.
In particular, shifts in the presidential election have not impacted how most are choosing to communicate. Further, few have done formal scenario planning related to the outcome of the election. The election is, however, making it more difficult for about half of organizations to advance their issues.
Comms for Good Events
2024 Presidential Election
Culture of Comms
Comms Channel Priorities
Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Generative AI in the Social Sector
Insights: At a Glance
A culture of communications and the supports and resources required for a strong communications function are less prevalent at nonprofit organizations. This presents an opportunity to continue building a stronger field.
Communicators at private foundations are more likely than their nonprofit counterparts to strongly agree their organizations have a strong culture of communications.
Foundation communicators are also more likely to report being satisfied with
the supports to execute their work successfully compared to nonprofit communicators.
Communicators across the social good sector have identified tactical and strategic applications of Gen AI. They also express concerns about its use.
A vanguard group of regular Gen AI users seems to be emerging, with one third of respondents saying they use Gen AI tools at least weekly.
Still, few organizations have policies or guidelines in place for Gen AI, and a sizeable number of respondents express concerns about Gen AI including: accuracy and authenticity, ethical considerations, protecting proprietary information and data, and lack of training.
Culture of Communications
Communication Channel Priorities
2024 Presidential Election
Mis/disinformation & False Narratives
Channel Priorities
Artificial Intelligence
Insights: At a Glance
THE ECOSYSTEM
The information environment is crowded, loud, and is being disrupted by new technologies.
Foundation and nonprofit communicators are worried about morale across their organization and among partners as the presidential cycle heats up. They expect the election outcome will affect how communicators work, too.
On average, seven in 10 express concern about misinformation, disinformation, and false or incorrect causal narratives.
COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGIES AND TOOLS
AI has been adopted by nearly two thirds of the field.
Discourse on social media is impacting how and where communicators focus their time.
By a wide margin, LinkedIn emerges as the primary comms channel in the field/sector right now.
Limiting use of specific social media channels or opting out of others is a common strategy.
Fewer than 10 percent are using X/Twitter.
AI & Social Media
Presidential Election
About Network Research
Communications work is strategic. It’s also fluid. Communicators are always among the most agile individuals within an organization.
Why?
Because disruption, change and ambiguity are hallmarks of the field. There are new tools to support communicators in their work. There are thorny and persistent challenges to creating and sustaining conversations with key audiences. And, this year, there’s a presidential election, making the communications ecosystem noisier than ever before.
Recognizing that many internal and external factors impact communications across the social good sector, The Communications Network is experimenting with a new initiative: several times this year, The Network will be distributing a short pulse poll to its community.
The surveys will explore pressing communications challenges, emerging trends, and longer-term questions facing the field.
There are also a couple questions that will be included on all of the surveys, allowing The Network to specifically track how owned media/channel strategies shift and adoption of AI.
