“[Men] fear each other because they don’t know each other, and they don’t know each other because they don’t communicate with each other, and they don’t communicate with each other because they are separated from each other.” These were Martin Luther King Jr.’s words to Cornell College students more than 60 years ago, at a time of great political division in the United States, and they still ring true today. They’re also a mandate for building community, something the nonprofit sector—starting with effective communications strategies—is well-positioned to do.

In the early years of the Walton Family Foundation (WFF), the organization invested little in communications capacity or activity. However, over the past few years, we’ve seen that change led by only a few is less effective and more short-lived than change led by many. We’ve also learned that effective communications strategies can play a central role in bringing more voices to the change-making process.

As one example, WFF supported a 2019 effort in which the seven states in the Colorado River Basin negotiated the largest water conservation agreement in history. The foundation supported the inclusion of tribal nations in the negotiations and worked with them to agree to take part in conservation projects—a decision that helped each state meet necessary commitments and finalize the agreement. Our effective communications strategies throughout the process focused on why engaging this community was not only the right thing to do but also the smartest way forward.

Results like this have pushed us to evolve our effective communications strategies and overall approach to increasing access to opportunities for people and communities; we now place much more focus on community-building across our three program areas: improving education for all students; protecting water resources; and bettering the quality of life in Northwest Arkansas and the Delta Region of Arkansas and Mississippi. The foundation is grounded in multiple generations of family coming together across geographies and points of view, and today, its effective communications strategies reflects this dynamic and the organization’s deep roots in mid-America. It recognizes that building a community that leads together is important and that when everyone who has a stake in solving social problems also has a voice, better ideas emerge.

Read the full article about effective communications strategies by Stephanie Cornell and Daphne Moore at Stanford Social Innovation Review.