Folkekirkens Nødhjælp

Yep, Maria... The journey has begun and - wow - our first meeting generated SOOO many thoughts concerning communication and travelling. How is it possible to examine new ways of communicating the great things we experience along the way? Important matters. Genuine relations...

These are truly big questions, and my first reaction would be... "HEEEY - THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE"... The world gets relevant only when you've been there, met the people, smelled the dirt and... And you really can't communicate that experience. That is why loooong travelling letters are often so exhausting and why its generally very hard for me to get inspired by personal stories from the world. Unless, of cause, they are really short and fact heavy: "Samuel Rachlin, TV2, Washington..." Or that it's me who have personally chosen to be entangled by a good book from the world - such as "The Kite Runner" (Drageløberen) by Khaled Hosseini.


The other day we talked about NGOs such as Folkekirkens Nødhjælp - and how they choose to communicate their really important work in the world. As I see it they have (at least to some extend) given up trying to really engage us. Instead they focus mainly on facts and results.

Their member magazines NØD is fact heavy with short stories about the work of Folkekirkens Nødhjælp. This is what we do. These are the obstacles. Here are the results. They use personal stories because they appeal to our feelings, but the main focus seems to be about communicating results. Not that different, actually, from the annual reports of companies such as "Lundbeck" or "Carlsberg".

I remember General Secretary Henrik Stubkær once saying that perhaps the most important argument for distributing the magazine is, that people actually use the payment form (girokort) in the back page. It generates money. And that helps the poor.

That makes sense.

However, last week an article also appeared on the front-page of "Kristeligt Dagblad" under the headline "Succes truer indsamlingsarbejdet". Here former General Secretary Peter Lodberg argues that NGOs working with aid today are operated as multinational corporate businesses, - and therefore it is of huge importance to keep their good relations to puplic. In the article, another guy - Stig Fogh - also says (in Danish...):

"Kun mellem 15 og 20 procent af befolkningen giver i dag fast til nødhjælp. Men med flere forskellige koncepter kan organisationerne få flere mennesker med. Der skal varer på hylderne, om det så er geder, gaver, genbrug eller koncerter. Men nødhjælpsorganisationerne skal bare huske at have sjælen med, for folk vil gerne spejle sig i det, de giver penge til."

People want to be able to relate to the cause...