Optimize messaging to stand out during a chaotic news cycle
For Meals on Wheels America, the leadership organization supporting more than 5,000 community-based organizations delivering vital services to vulnerable seniors, breaking through this noise isn't just a communications challenge—it's critical to our mission to ensure that every senior in America can live a nourished life with independence and dignity.
Fortunately, Meals on Wheels is a well-known and respected brand. But with that recognition comes responsibility, to communicate with clarity, purpose, and precision. We must remain relevant while creating lasting impact. Often, this means rapidly assessing how new developments or decisions affect our network as a whole, then striking a careful balance in our messaging. We need to inform without alarming—communicating clearly when actions would harm Meals on Wheels providers, without sensationalizing the message or creating unnecessary chaos across the network. We're always thinking about the seniors we serve and avoiding undue panic that could make them worry about where their next meal will come from.
The changing rules of engagement
The rules of engagement have changed in today's environment. It's not just what you say, but how, when, and where you say it that determines whether your message sticks or gets lost amid the overwhelming barrage of content. I've learned in recent months that the noise isn't going to stop, so we must become more strategic, agile, and intentional in our communication.
Here are four key lessons I've learned in our efforts to make Meals on Wheels America stand out in this media landscape:
1. Lead with authenticity
In a world fatigued by constant misinformation, people crave honesty. While urgency is often necessary, overreliance on crisis language can desensitize audiences. Instead, clearly articulating why an issue matters now—grounded in authentic, relatable experiences and stories—builds a stronger, lasting connection that will resonate with your audiences.
2. Elevate your organization's unique value
With countless causes and organizations competing for attention, differentiation is crucial. What makes your organization essential and why should people care? For us, it's not just that we deliver meals, it's that we provide a lifeline that keeps seniors healthier, connected, independent at home, and out of more costly alternatives. When I explain that for many seniors, a Meals on Wheels volunteer is the only human contact they have all week, something clicks for people and they get it.
3. Be transparent, especially when you don't have all the answers
Trust is earned and built through honesty, even when the picture is incomplete. Acknowledging what you don't yet know while sharing how you're working toward solutions builds far more credibility than pretending to have all the answers. Transparency positions you as a reliable source—someone who values truth over conjecture, choosing to gather facts before offering conclusions.
Our organization recently had to leap into action when a leaked government memo suggested our network's sources of federal funding would be frozen. We were receiving conflicting reports and couldn't get a clear answer on whether we would be impacted. When journalists started coming to us for clarity, we had to be honest: We didn't know, and that was the root of the problem! Leaked information was causing chaos, and suddenly, we were working with reporters to be a resource to one another, sharing information as we learned it.
4. Embrace creativity
In a crowded landscape, it's often bold and unconventional storytelling that yields the biggest impact. By stepping outside the bounds of traditional advocacy, organizations can capture attention and inspire action. Equally important is humanizing your message—putting real faces to the challenges you highlight. This not only contextualizes complex issues, but also makes them more relatable, urgent, and emotionally resonant with everyday audiences.
Rethink messaging
Consider our recent message highlighting the positive economic impact for U.S. tax payers of investing in Meals on Wheels. While compassion drives our mission, data matters too, especially in policy-focused environments. By framing our work in terms of cost savings to taxpayers, like reducing the need for hospital and long-term care facility stays, we're adding a pragmatic, fact-based layer to our story. It's messaging that resonates among policymakers and the media.
Additionally, we built our new creative campaign, ' On Hold ' around a universally relatable experience, to break through and drive increased awareness and urgency around senior hunger and isolation. The campaign creative brings this to life by matching all the hallmarks of being on hold—the annoying music, the impersonal prerecorded response—with growing frustration. The feeling becomes so visceral that our seniors start physically manifesting it. This unexpected approach brings cultural relevance to a serious issue while reinforcing our key message: Our seniors have been left on hold, waiting for America to care for far too long. It's time to answer the call and start prioritizing our seniors.
In this congested media environment, we also need strategic storytelling, delivered intentionally across the right channels, in the right format, to the right audience. For organizations like ours, success means staying authentic while continuously emphasizing both the emotional and practical value of our work. It's equally vital to illustrate the 'why' and to clearly show what's at stake if local providers don't receive the federal funding on which they rely.
Ultimately, the noise isn't going away, but neither will our determination to ensure that the needs of the seniors we serve are heard loud and clear. By optimizing and refining our messaging strategies, embracing creative risks, and staying attuned to what audiences truly care about, we can and will continue to make a meaningful impact, even amid the most turbulent news cycles.
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