2024 Pulse Polls
Network Research
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.
