Promote the SDGs and You’ll Promote Your NGO

One of the hottest global buzzwords nowadays is “SDG” and civil society should position itself to capitalize on it.

SDG stands for Sustainable Development Goals, which were developed and adopted a year ago in the hallowed halls of the United Nations by a partnership of 193 member-states, including the United States, and non-governmental organizations – also known as civil society or nonprofits – that regularly participate in the UN system.

By getting behind this campaign, your NGO will not only promote the universal benefits of these goals but you will raise awareness about your organization’s objectives, issues and work. Promoting the SDGs even on a local level will effectively contribute to your group’s outreach. Consequently, this will enhance your position vis-à-vis potential sponsors.

The SDGs evolved from the Millennium Development Goals, a set of eight targets that were composed in time for the millennium 16 years ago but ultimately deemed insufficient to improve life as we know it on this planet.

As a result, they were expanded to include 17 goals and 169 targets that address critical issues facing the world and cities, even your hometown, such as the eradication of extreme poverty, tackling global inequality and climate change, promoting sustainable urbanization and industrial development, protecting natural ecosystems, and fostering growth of peaceful and inclusive communities and governing institutions. Hopefully these goals and targets will be attained within 15 years, by 2030 thus their secondary moniker – 2030 Agenda. (Click to see all of them: http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/).

Regardless of your NGO’s objectives or your beliefs, the SDGs offer a goal for everyone. Furthermore, the SDG agenda has been crafted with input from millions of stakeholders, making the SDGs a “people’s agenda.” They’re not only about climate change, global warming or ecology; they’re also about education, health and urban life.

The SDG framework responds to what local residents and civil activists like you want everywhere on earth. The pursuit of sustainable development is considered to have the potential to improve the quality of life for you and your neighbors, and promote new economic opportunities for green growth. As the world turns toward more sustainable modes of living and development, which you can readily observe, cities and communities that invest in sustainability today will be ahead of the curve and accrue a competitive edge over other regions for development and investment.

Therefore, your NGO should plan to promote aggressively this global initiative in your hometown not by jumping on the bandwagon but by leading it; not by yourselves but in partnership with other similar or disparate groups. Incidentally, building partnerships with stakeholders or networking is also a part of the SDGs.

Call your mayor’s office and ask for an appointment to discuss how your hometown can begin an SDG program. Tell your hometown officials about the SDG roadmap that will help them commit to pursuing sustainable urban development. The SDGs provide guidelines with concrete goals and targets that can help cities become more sustainable.

Convene a local 2030 Agenda commission that will include representatives of your hometown administration, civil society and clergy, and begin raising awareness among residents, schools, children, businesses and visitors about the value of the SDGs. As you lead this initiative, you will see how others near and far will join your cause or create their own commissions.

It’s not a difficult task.

At a recent UN panel discussion on the SDGs, Dr. Martin Edwards, director of the Center for United Nations and Global Governance Studies, Seton Hall University, observed that if “we can explain the Sustainable Development Goals to elementary school kids, we can surely explain it to adults.” He then emphasized that “if we empower citizens, we can help the world become better.”

At the same event, Lauren Barredo, manager of the Thematic Groups on Health, Agriculture, and Extractive Industries, Sustainable Development Solutions Network, highlighted the importance that youth play in the SDG campaign.

“We have found that young people are really good communicators for sustainable development” and identified this as the reason why civil society should “engage them in the creation of innovative and sustainable solutions to global development challenges.”

Helen Clark, administrator of the UN Development Program and candidate for the post of UN secretary-general, observed that “when we speak of equity and justice, we are asked to think not only of the present, but also about the future – the world we will leave to our children. 2030 Agenda commits to achieve these goals by the year 2030 and to do so for everyone, everywhere, with no one left behind.”

As you launch your SDG campaign, don’t forget to promote your work horizontally across the civil society bandwidth and vertically with hometown, county, state and federal officials, schools, news media, corporations and other potential partners. Distribute press releases – yes, the old-fashioned media are still productive. Take photos and post them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and elsewhere. Share them and retweet others’ photos and posts. Don’t forget to use the appropriate Twitter handles, which are easy to find on the Internet and don’t forget to use hashtags such as #UN, #SDGs, #NGO, #2030Agenda, #UNDPINGO, #NGODPI, #civilsociety, #globalgoals, and others.

This will help you throw your informational net across a wide spectrum of potential followers that will be attracted to your NGO and the SDGs.

In the next post, I will show how small businesses can benefit from this campaign.

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Join the Conversation, the Potential is Great

As I have written earlier, Twitter is too powerful of a tool to be left to adolescents for sharing gossip and music. Used properly and strategically, it is an awesome medium for establishing your organization and chief executive as global leaders in your field of choice.

Used regularly, Twitter and other social media can dramatically help your NGO’s or company’s leadership to evolve into thought leaders – those who are trailblazers in humanitarian affairs or a marketplace.

However, I can’t believe how many people since March 21, 2006, when Twitter was launched, still admit they don't understand how tweeting works. And this covers many age groups but realistically mostly those that are edging closer to senior citizenship.

Twitter’s chief financial officer Anthony Noto recently observed: “Nonusers can continue to ask: ‘Why should I use Twitter?’” Noto then added that for those who don’t regularly use Twitter it remains “too difficult to use.”

In the life of an organization that is committed to thriving and flourishing, nothing should be difficult. Everything that contributes to your success must have a practical place in your action place, to do list and business plan. Twitter’s success requires a serious discussion just like research and development, marketing, sales and sustainability campaigns. You must learn how to use it.

Twitter is a fairly simple concept. Once you try it, you should be able to get the hang of it quite easily. I'm writing this in hopes of helping civil society and small businessmen understand how tweeting works and to get them to tweet more effectively for the benefit of their NGOs and businesses.

“I just don’t get Twitter!”

“Why do I need to be there?”

“Who really cares what you do?”

“I’m not ready for it.”

“Don’t push me into it.”

“I need to prepare other things before I use Twitter.”

In reality, the upshot is that Twitter is not just a passing fad. It and its subsequent iterations are here to stay and benefit skilled users. Those that use it effectively will leave you in the dust. Without a doubt it can help your non-profit organization boost global awareness of your issues. It can also help your small business become a leader in your market and industry.

Consequently, Twitter should be an integral part of your broad marketing and outreach plan. In order to survive, you must grow your brand awareness, build a following, generate leads, spread your information and ultimately attract more sales and sponsors. Your active presence on Twitter will contribute to this achievement. But the operative phrase here is “active presence.”

Many Twitter gurus have noted that Twitter made history with its social networking service. It was the first social network to spread news faster than any other medium, and it still stands as a record holder when it comes to that.

Twitter is great when it comes to speed because we can choose the speed ourselves. You never have to get your message approved on Twitter (unless the user you are trying to follow has a private profile of course).

That means you can instantly start picking up on what people are doing, saying and sharing, and also offer, say and share quickly what you are doing – or thinking – or proposing – or building – or organizing. It’s not all about celebrity power and their influence on our lives. Without offering anecdotes from ancient history, we’ve already seen some pretty historical tweets in the past decade, starting with Michael Jackson’s death and other events. News events, like this weekend’s midtown Manhattan bombing and Emmy awards, are tweeted immediately by everyone before broadcast media and newspapers report them. And followers are the first to learn about them.

Tweets can be about historical events such as those happening all around the world. People everywhere are using Twitter to share events in their countries, spark a new idea, request help, denounce a tyrant, announce a helpful discovery, or plant a new thought.

Those on Twitter also use the network heavily. About two-thirds of Twitter users, 71%, say they use the network several times a day, another 12% daily and 12% several times a week.

Once you get the hang of it, you can promote your issues, causes and solutions numerous times a day to catch the attention of as many people as possible in all global time zones. Intermittent and spontaneous usage will not satisfy your needs.

So join the conversation or start one. You may be surprised by the number of people you will quickly attract as followers.