Last month we brought together 25 activists from over 15 countries to discuss and learn all about communicating in times of crisis. With Pride season upon us, and the challenges Pride events can bring for queer activists and organisers, this blog presents the key takeaways.

Pride season is here, and the LGBTI community is busy getting ready to both celebrate and assert visibility across Europe. But we are living through a time in many countries when LGBTI people are being scapegoated, which brings challenges amid the celebrations for many Pride organisers.

In May, ILGA-Europe hosted a two-day learning event on crisis communication for LGBTI organisations from across Europe and Central Asia, which we entitled ‘Get Ready!’. This gathering was an opportunity for 25 activists from over 15 countries to come together and address the complex challenges they face when communicating to their communities, the media and other stakeholders at times of crisis.

The group of passionate activists from diverse backgrounds demonstrated the power of collaboration during our time together. This created a profound sense of solidarity and mutual understanding and the room was alive with the exchange of expertise, self-care tips, and strategic ideas, leading to new collaborations and strengthened networks.

During our discussions we learned that the diversity of challenges faced by LGBTI organisations in crisis communication is vast and complex, but the participants highlighted five key issues that are similar across different countries and contexts. They are:

Balancing conflicting interests

Organisations often operate in regions with significant political and social tensions. This requires carefully navigating their messaging to address both local and international audiences without alienating either.

Fragmentation and internal conflicts

Many movements suffer from internal fragmentation, making unified communication difficult. Differing priorities and approaches within the community can lead to inconsistent messaging and weakened responses during crises.

Targeted campaigns and opposition

Advocacy campaigns frequently attract opposition from various groups, including TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists) and anti-gender movements. These groups often launch coordinated attacks, which leads to the necessity of having both proactive and reactive strategies to mitigate their impact and protect the community.

Social media and digital threats

The digital landscape presents unique challenges, from social media posts being reported and accounts being suspended to full-blown smear campaigns. Organisations must be adept at digital crisis management, swiftly countering misinformation and protecting their online presence.

Polarisation and backlash

In many regions, the rising tide of anti-gender rhetoric and the instrumentalisation of LGBTI issues by political actors create a highly polarised environment. Navigating this landscape requires not only strong messaging but also the ability to build and maintain alliances in a hostile atmosphere.

These challenges illustrate the layered nature of crisis communication within the LGBTI activism and advocacy space. Organisations are called upon develop tailored strategies to address unique circumstances in their own contexts, while drawing on shared experiences and collective wisdom. It’s also important to acknowledge that security risks, particularly around public events like Pride marches, heavily burden activists. Although these are not primarily crises, they significantly impact the overall environment in which LGBTI organisations operate.

Key Tips and Tricks for Effective Crisis Communication

During the training, activists shared a wealth of strategies for tackling these challenges, which we captured on video. We asked participants to remember the moments of stress, panic and hard times they experienced, and then to envision talking to a young activist facing a communication crisis for the first time. The result is a collection of universal and empowering tips by activists for activists to help keep your head up during a crisis.

1. Define your audience

Tailor your message to ensure it resonates with your specific target audience, such as sympathetic media outlets, supportive community groups, and potential allies within the general public.

2. Know your community

While it’s important to communicate with the broader public, never forget that your primary responsibility is to support and uplift the LGBTI community. Your people need to know you have their back.

3. Rely on your support network

The strength of the LGBTI movement lies in its solidarity. Your chosen family, friends, mentors, and colleagues are invaluable resources in times of crisis. They can mentor you, talk things through, offer help and comfort, and step in if you need to step back. Sharing the burden of these responsibilities can lighten the load significantly.

4. Stand in solidarity with other LGBTI organisations

In a crisis, consider others who are also impacted and their potential responses and strategies. Collaborating with other LGBTI organisations, showing solidarity, mutual support, and a unified response will strengthen our collective resilience.

5. Maintain a healthy distance

LGBTI activism often intertwines with personal identity, making it essential to keep a clear boundary between doing the work and living your life to avoid burnout. Remember that you are more than your work and activism, and it’s okay to step back when necessary.

6. Take It step-by-step

Crisis situations can be overwhelming, but it’s crucial to stay focused on your message. Clear, calm communication is key to navigating through the storm.

7. Practice in private, be prepared in public

Doing a roleplay of a likely communications crisis situation can help you practice and take some stress out of a real situation. The Get Ready! participants took part in an exercise which tested their preparation, monitoring, diagnosis, and response to a hypothetical crisis. ILGA-Europe is developing this exercise to provide a resource to more LGBTI groups who want to prepare for communications crises. Join our Facebook group Communications support group for LGBTI activists to be up to date with any upcoming opportunities.

Join us on June 12 and June 26 for our Skills Boost sessions designed for LGBTI activists who want to learn more about digital ads and how to use them more strategically. We have invited a digital marketing expert who specialises in nonprofits and activism, to cover:

• Various channels for paid digital ads – what are their strengths and weaknesses and how to decide where to go.  
• Focus on Meta ads (Facebook & Instagram): how they work, and how to get the best out of them.  
• The best low-budget campaigns. What to do and where to start.  
• What are the zero budget options? 
• What to do if your ads are constantly rejected (for example for being ‘political’).

At the end of the first session, the participants will receive an assignment. Everyone who completes the assignment will get individual feedback at the second session, on June 26 at 12:00 CEST. 

• Register here to join the session on June 26th (the session lasts 90 minutes): https://ilga-europe-org.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwkdO6pqzsvG9NfbWZ1Osans_oxHAxQakUD  

Assignment for the second session

Fill out this template one-page plan for a Lead Campaign (which includes an example to give you an idea that it does not have to be super detailed or take you too much time!) and send to sho@ilga-europe.org before 10am Monday 24th June. There will be more time for questions, discussions and peer-learning, so join us even if you are not doing “homework”.

Register here to join us at 12:00 CEST (noon), Wednesday 3 April for a Skills Boost session designed for LGBTI activists who want your organisational communications to get a bit more strategic. The session will last 90 minutes.

We will cover:

• What is a communications strategy? (and how is it different from ‘strategic communications’?) What is the point of it?
• What is the minimum that any communications strategy should cover, and what is the menu of options if we want to be a bit more ambitious?
• Hearing from two LGBTI organisations who have gone through a communications strategy process recently – and what they learned from their experience.
• A small assignment to help you get started – if you complete it then you will be invited to the follow-up session at 12:00 CEST (noon), Wednesday 17 April where you can get individual feedback from our experts and each other and go deeper.

Register here to join the session on April 3rd. 

Register here to join the session on April 17th.

About Get Ready!

Get Ready! is a 2-day ILGA-Europe learning event on crisis communications for LGBTI organisations in Europe and Central Asia. It will take place on 3-6 May, 2024.

By working with LGBTI movements in Europe and Central Asia, we learned that crisis communications support is a priority for many LGBTI organisations and groups in the region. We know that this year might bring new challenges for the movement. And we know that many of you are already strategising and looking into ways to stay resilient.

This learning event on crisis communications will support your organisation in preparing for specific challenges or potential disruptions related to the activities you’ve planned or foresee this year.

What you will get from the training:

• Deeper understanding on what is a communications crisis, and how your team can prepare for one.
• Experience: solidarity scenario-based exercise that will help to learn by doing.
• Deeper understanding of the challenges other organisations face and ways to deal with them.

The programme will be shared with selected participants closer to the event. Here is what you can expect it to cover:

• A chance to share the communications threats that worry you in a supportive and private environment with your peers, to be listened to, and to have supportive advice and coaching on ideas for you to implement.
• A scenario-based exercise on crisis comms that ILGA-Europe designed and piloted with a group of grantee partner organisations in 2023. In this safe, supportive scenario exercise we will roleplay together a response to a developing communications crisis based on the experiences of LGBTI activists. We will facilitate and give tips about Preparation, Monitoring, Escalation, Diagnosis, and Response, but what you choose to do is up to you. Because it is better to practise in private than be unprepared in public.
• Discussions on solidarity in crisis communications. We believe that in crisis communications solidarity and connectedness are especially important: we are often affected by each other’s communications, and peer solidarity and amplification can make our individual crisis responses more impactful.
• Signposting to further resources and the potential of more follow-up coaching after the gathering.
• Networking and mutual learning with a group of 25 LGBTI activists from across Europe and Central Asia.

At the event, we will focus on the external communications aspects of crisis situations or disruptions to our activism. Please note that working through security aspects (safety, cybersecurity, internal communications, etc) won’t be prominently featured in this event’s programme. 

Practical details

Dates: 3-6 May, 2024

• 3 May: arrival
• 4-5 May: full-day event programme, with joint dinner on 4 May
• 6 May: departure. Please note that departure in the evening of 5 May is also possible provided that you attend the whole event.

Language: English

Number of participants: 25

Location: Location will be shared with selected participants^[1]. In choosing the location, we were guided by visa regime, availability of decent travel itineraries for participants from across Europe and Central Asia, past experience of ILGA-Europe and our members in organising events there, as well as consultation with local activists.

Costs:

• ILGA-Europe will arrange accommodation in shared rooms with breakfast with arrival on 3 May and departure on 6 May for all participants;
• The programme will include joint lunches on 4-5 May, organised by ILGA-Europe, as well as a joint dinner;
• Per diem offered in cash at the event will cover the rest of the meals and subsistence on 3-6 May;
• Travel costs will be reimbursed by ILGA-Europe after the event, upon full attendance. Once your participation is confirmed, you will need to arrange your travel within the budget parameters of the event. Participants coming from organisations working without any funding and therefore unable to pre-book tickets for their delegates can be exempt from this requirement. More information will be shared with participants once the selection is made.

Accessibility:

• We aim at ensuring that this event is accessible for everyone in attendance. Please share your accessibility needs in the application form so that we can take them on board.

Trainers and facilitators

• Svetlana Zakharova, Senior Programmes Officer, ILGA-Europe

Before joining ILGA-Europe, Svetlana Zakharova worked with the Charitable Foundation Sphere and the Russian LGBT Network as a communications officer. Within ILGA-Europe, Svetlana coordinates the Strategic Communications programme.

• Sho Walker Konno, Strategic Communications Consultant for ILGA-Europe

Sho Walker-Konno is a communications coach for activists. He has coached activists in 70+ countries, for the past four years specialising in advising reproductive justice and LGBTI groups dealing with the ‘anti-gender’ opposition.  

Who is invited to apply

LGBTI organisations and groups from across Europe and Central Asia are invited to join by delegating a participant to apply for this event.

Get Ready! is meant for your organisation if:

• Your organisation/group is based and works in Europe and Central Asia^[2] and needs to build its capacity to run crisis comms in connection to specific planned activities and/ or foreseen external challenges in 2024;
• The foreseen challenge and case that you are coming to the event with is concrete and real: it can be anything from a challenging first Pride festival in a non-capital city that you or another organisation is hosting later this year, to national elections that are expected to stir anti-LGBTI sentiments;
• You can explain why your organisation expects these challenges to emerge and how new knowledge and skills can mitigate the risks;
• Your organisation and you already have some experience in or exposure to crisis communications. We do not expect any extensive expertise but rather some past experience where your organisation needed to engage in crisis comms, whether successfully or not (it can be as simple as experience of working with negative comments online);
• Your organisation has the capacity to follow up on the event and integrate new knowledge in its work; you, as the delegated participant, are supported by your organisation to dedicate time to the event, attending it in full, and to bring the knowledge back to the team.

For Get Ready! to be a truly enriching experience, we aim at bringing together a pool of diverse participating organisations and activists in terms of profiles, identities, experiences, and geography. To make sure that there is a diversity of experiences, we invite a maximum of one person from an organisation or group to apply.

How to apply

To apply, you need to complete and submit the application form to Svetlana Zakharova at svetlana@ilga-europe.org by March 10, 2024, midnight (CET). Please indicate the title of the event (Get Ready!) in the subject line.

All applicants will be informed about the outcomes of the selection process on March 20 the latest.

If you have any questions about Get Ready!, do not hesitate to reach out to Svetlana via svetlana@ilga-europe.org

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^[1] If the location affects your decision to apply, please contact Svetlana Zakharova (svetlana@ilga-europe.org), and we will let you know privately the location.

^[2] For this call Europe and Central Asia is considered to include the following countries: Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russian Federation, San Marino, Serbia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Kingdom and Uzbekistan.

All over Europe and Central Asia, LGBTI people are used by different political payers to gain the power. Our opponents create and feed harmful and dangerous narratives about us and our struggles. Is it possible to communicate with our target audiences without playing their rules and not feeding into their narratives?

Join this online session to learn how to proactively and effectively communicate while not playing into populist narratives that feed polarisation. You will get the first-hand insights about the strategies used in Hungary, where Háttér Society used the so-called “anti-LGBT Referendum” to talk to their allies and in Spain, where La Intersession successfully campaigned for the rights of trans people and even prepared a guide: How we can change trans narratives collectively.

Speakers: 

• Alberto Abellán, La intersección, Spain 
• Javier Vaquero, La intersección, Spain 
• Luca Dudits, Háttér Society, Hungary

The session will take place online on 13 December at 13:00 CET. You can register to join the event here.

In our last Skills Boost session, over 70 LGBTI activists learnt how to find and tell a story from the data that speaks about their own work. Take a look at the impressive charts developed as part of the session and learn more about how to use data visualisation in your daily communications.

In today’s visually-driven world, communicating with images is more important than ever. That’s why LGBTI activists are seeking ways to transform complex figures and dry data into visual representations that tell a captivating story.

To support them in their mission, in May we hosted a Skills Boost session focused on data visualisation. The response was enthusiastic, with over 70 LGBTI activists from across Europe participating in the workshop. Using data from our Rainbow Map & Index and with no previous design skills, the participants unleashed their creativity and harnessed the power of visualisation to craft their own compelling charts.

The first half of the session opened with our facilitators sharing some advice from Minami Funakoshi, a non-binary awarded graphics journalist for Reuters:

“Instead of starting with the data and trying to find the story in it, you treat data as something that can help explain a question”.

Funakoshi’s visual story on Gender and Language has received several prize nominations and awards, and it served as an inspiration for ways of thinking of data beyond numbers.

During the rest of session, participants generously shared these important tips with one another:

• Finding the data – Participants shared ways of extracting data from owned sources but also from open sources like Our World in Data, the FRA LGBTI survey , and alternatives like Google Trends.
• Finding the story – Our Senior Communications Officer, Mehmet Akin shared his experience filtering through a vast data set of criteria across 49 countries in ILGA-Europe’s 2023 Rainbow Map and Index in order to tell a coherent story in 2023, and what other stories they thought might still need to be told.
• Creating the visual – Activists examined the pros and cons of tools like Tableau, Adobe Express, and Canva. They also learnt from a live crowd-sourced demonstration of how we could make a draft graphic in ten minutes using the Rainbow Map data for graphics showing either comparisons, or trends. Check out the templates provided during the session here and here.

Using our Rainbow Map & Index to learn data visualisation

Our Rainbow Map is a benchmarking tool of the laws and policies that have a direct impact on LGBTI people’s human rights. From the collected data we show the situation in 49 countries under 74 and in seven categories. However, the data can be presented in many other ways. We asked the Skills Boost participants to find and tell the following stories:

Our Skills Boost participants delivered wonderful visualisations

At the end of the first half of the Skills Boost session, we invited the participants to work on their own graphics and send them to us, and three people took the challenge! Two used data from ILGA-Europe’s Rainbow Map and one used the EU Fundamental Rights Agency’s LGBTI Survey results. 

Jae, whose association collaborates with a shelter house for trans people, wanted to explore the experience of having housing difficulties across the LGBTQIA+ community in Europe. This is what Jae said:

“I used the data from the EU LGBTI Survey II and I found lots of interesting things. I focused on the broad concept of having experienced housing difficulties, without differentiating right now between more mild events (having to sleep at a friend’s place) and more extreme cases (sleeping in a public space). I could have stopped there, but I also thought to underline a worst-case scenario, in this instance Sweden, the worst country for LGBTI people and for some of the surveyed categories when it comes to this problem”.

Jochem Verdonk from Principle 17 (a collective of activists from the Netherlands that promotes customised trans* health care) designed four graphics to illustrate the Human Rights Situation of LGBTI People in the Netherlands.

He started with a data graphic with all seven categories in one graphic, but “that turned out to be quite chaotic”. 

So he decided it’s better to make three separate data graphics with similar tendencies. 

After ILGA-Europe’s team and guests’ feedback in the second half of the session, Jochem tried several alternatives but decided to keep the graphics the way they were. However, he did make the lay-outs of the several images more equal by using the same fonts, sizes and lay-out. He also decided to separate the Intersex Bodily Integrity into another graphic, to emphasize the complete lack of rights. He even published an article about the deterioration of LGBTI people’s rights in the Netherlands attaching all the graphics. Have a look!

Bart Andersen from Britain decided to use infographics to:

“Remind ourselves that no country should take human rights for granted, that they are all won with effort and can de-evolve, or develop quickly”

Bart also wanted to “point to countries that Britain and others perceive as not advanced on human rights but which are actually overtaking,” as well as to undermine the narrative of Britain’s Conservative party when it presents itself as an advocate of LGBTQ+ rights”.

Bart was curious if the events path would be nicer in another slide of the same project.  And if he shall remove all notes and let the reader do some independent investigation?

Want to stay in touch and learn more about communications for LGBTI activists? Join our closed Communications support group for LGBTI activists on Facebook and check our Resource Hub. There you can also find resources from our previous sessions on crisis communication, how to make home-made campaign videos, making graphics with free tools, and fundraising during crises. 

Register here to join us at 12:00 noon CEST, Tuesday 5 September for a Skills Boost session specifically designed for LGBTI activists to prepare for and be more confident in your media appearances.

The session will be beginner-friendly and focus on TV interviews (although most of the learning will be suitable for other public spokesperson scenarios), with examples and testimonies from LGBTI activists from across Europe and Central Asia, in particular:

• The strategy behind participating (or not) in TV interviews and preparing effective messaging.
• Technical tips on different types of TV interviews (live, pre-recorded, studio, online, etc) and what you might need to do differently.
• Dealing with difficult questions, and taking care of yourself/colleagues’ wellbeing.
• Those who do the preparation assignment will have a chance to face a personalised practice interview in a follow-up session on Tuesday 26 September.

The first session of media interview practice for LGBTI activists will take place at 12:00 noon CEST, Tuesday 5 September. Register at this link: https://ilga-europe-org.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYlcuqgqj0jH9ZQXzRUIJ8g8g1dtrLnxXQa 

The second session of media interview practice for LGBTI activists will take place at 12:00 noon CEST, Tuesday 26 September. Register for the second session at this link: https://ilga-europe-org.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYtce6oqDkjHdEsRtplFrRsi_hDFemq_iz4 

First session

This will be a beginner-friendly 60-minute session focusing on creating simple graphics using data from the freshly launched ILGA-Europe 2023 Rainbow Map and Index. You will:

• Get inspiration from other data visualisations and designers on LGBTI issues
• Be introduced to the new 2023 Rainbow Map & Index and how to find a story relevant to your work among the data
• Receive templates and a step-by-step demonstration of how to create a graphic using the free design tool Canva.
• Have a chance to submit your own draft graphic and get personalised feedback at a follow-up session

Join our next Skills Boost about data visualisation for LGBTI communication on Thursday 25 May, 12 noon CEST by registering here.

second session

At the second session on data visualisation, you can receive individual feedback to every exercise sent to sho@ilga-europe.org before 5 June. There will be more time for questions, discussions and peer-learning, so join us even if you are not doing “homework”.

Exercise: In the end of the previous session, we asked you to create a draft data graphic for yourself and send to sho@ilga-europe.org by Monday, 5 June. Please send high-resolution original version (if you use Canva, you can send a ‘collaboration link’ so we can directly suggest edits).

Tell us in the email (very briefly):

• What story you want to tell/point you want to make with it
• If there is more you would like to improve about it with our help
• Permission for ILGA-Europe to share it on our social media channels (when it is ready)

Join the session on Tuesday 6 June, 12 noon CEST by registering here.

Do you want to start a fundraising campaign for your LGBTI organisation but are unsure of where to begin? We got you. In today’s blog we bring you the main learnings from our latest Skills Boost session, case studies and examples of the work done by participants.

All around the world LGBTI organisations face a lack of resources, particularly funding that can be used for flexible needs. One of the ways to tackle this issue is for activists to start or boost their own fundraising campaigns.

Our latest LGBTI activism Skills Boost session looked at how to create effective fundraising campaigns targeted at individual donors, exploring some good practices and examples. Here’s what our participants learned.

Getting started

One of the most common questions we received from activists is around how to get started: what are the first steps to take if you’ve never done individual donor fundraising before? ILGA-Europe’s fundraising guide for LGBTI activists, It Shows That People Care, provides a practical list of elementary steps.

First, to map your network of potential donors, ask yourself who you know. List categories like past event guests, mailing list subscribers, followers on social media, Pride‑goers, friends and family of staff members, contacts of board members, friendly journalists and politicians, and so on.

Secondly, map your resources. Getting started with fundraising will require some investment, at least time and effort. List the resources, not only money, that you have to work with. Do you have access to a free venue, the support of an artist or performer, contacts at a private sector company, a volunteer with graphic design skills?

And thirdly, work out your elevator pitch. To inspire anyone to donate, practise describing in a concise and simple way why you need money: what is the problem your community faces and how can donors be part of the solution? Make it understandable for people outside of LGBTI activism. Think about how you’d explain your need to your grandmother or a random neighbour.

The power of story

People want to help other people. This is why people respond more strongly to stories than statistics. When asking for money, try to avoid being too abstract. Don’t only describe the issue, but show how it effects real people in your community and how lives can be improved through the support of donors. Tell your story through a character with whom your audience can empathise.

In a well-known study on the impact of story-telling in fundraising involving Save the Children, people who were given the story of one seven-year-old girl and her family facing hunger donated on average double compared to those who were given factual information about food shortages affecting three million people. The fact that people would more likely support one person than three million people shows that people are more likely to support when they can identify with and empathise with another person.

But how can we tell our stories in the LGBTI movement?

In the Skills Boost we looked at some great examples of how LGBTI activists have told their fundraising stories. Last year Prague Pride, raising money to continue a community centre, shared stories of people from the local LGBTI community and what the centre means to them. For example, the story of 17-year-old Adam, who couldn’t be open about his trans identity at home or at school, and for whom the centre was the first safe haven where he felt acceptance. This is also an example of sharing a real story in an anonymised way, which is something you might have to do, so as not to put community members at risk.

Another success story is that of Transgender Network Switzerland (TNS). In December 2021, TNS launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for an important court case for legal recognition of non-binary people. The fundraising campaign, rather than focusing on too much legal jargon, featured community members sharing what legal recognition would mean for them, like Miyako, who explained that having the correct gender marker in their documents would have a positive impact on their mental health and make them feel more protected.

Press emotional buttons

Creating a fundraising message is not an easy task. Not only do you want people to stop and take in your message, you want them to be inspired to take the action of donating. People give from the heart, not the head. Empathy, solidarity, joy, outrage or fear are some of the feelings that make people tap on that donate button. You want people to think: “that’s terrible! How can I help?” or “I want to make sure others like me get the help they need” or “I want to be part of this positive change”.

However, in order to do fundraising ethically, we must not victimise people in our communities or sensationalise their circumstances (these are particularly relevant considerations in crisis situations). Be mindful that the stories you tell are ultimately empowering ones. In the Skills Boost we took some inspiration of how LGBTI-themed TV commercials aim to change hearts and minds by pressing emotional triggers, whether through powerful stories, humour or empowering queer joy.

Think about who your audience is – local community members, parents of LGBTI people, diaspora communities, LGBTI communities in other countries – and what story or emotion would move them.

Clear and direct ask

If you have a powerful story to tell packed with an emotional punch, but don’t actually ask for money, you’ll have created a lost opportunity. Don’t forget, or be shy, to include a clear call to action. Supporters want to feel needed and that they are making a difference, so show them how they can be a key part of improving lives for LGBTI people however you are going about doing that.

Testing our messages

Skills Boost participants had the opportunity to receive feedback on fundraising posts they had created for social media. Overcoming Together group from Russia created an Instagram post inviting followers to support by making a purchase in their online store. The post featured cute and appealing graphics of the items available to buy, and explained clearly how support goes towards their work helping helping community members experiencing intimate partner and domestic violence. Queer Svit created social media posts as part of their crowdfunding campaign to help queer and BAME (Black, Asian, and minority ethnic) people in Ukraine get to safety. They used eye-catching graphics, testimonials from people the group has already helped, and compelling figures of how many others could be helped with the campaign’s target amount.

There are often fears around individual donor fundraising, and asking for money can seem like a big step. One of the biggest take-aways from the Skills Boost session was to simply go ahead and give it a try. Finding out what works and what doesn’t is often a process of trial and error, and even if you don’t see big results immediately the steps you take to get started will strengthen your organisation and plant seeds for future fundraising success.

If you didn’t catch the Skills Boost live, you can watch the recording here. You can also have a look at how to make great videos at home, graphics with free tools, and building media relations if you didn’t have the chance to attend previous Skills Boost sessions. Remember that if you are an LGBTI activist in Europe and Central Asia, you can join our private communications support group on Facebook where you can vote for the theme of the next Skills Boost session. And, if you haven’t joined The Hub, ILGA-Europe’s free resource centre yet, do it now! There are plenty of great, practical fundraising resources available there at the click of a button!

All over the world, LGBTI organisations face a lack of resources, particularly funding that can be used for flexible needs. One of the ways to tackle this issue is  to start (or to boost) your own fundraising campaign. At our new Skills Boost, ILGA-Europe’s Partnerships Manager, Anna Shepherd will provide some tips and advice on where to start and walk you through good practices for effective fundraising campaigns targeted at individual donors. These practices are applicable to any campaign but particularly in times of crisis!

At the first session, on March 14th (Tuesday) – 16:00 CET – Anna will talk about effective fundraising campaigns, share the most effective tips and point to the things you need to think about before the launch of the campaign. At the end of the first session you will get a short exercise related to the work you are doing.

Register for the first session here. 

At the second session, on April 4th (Tuesday) – 16:00 CEST – Anna will provide individual feedback to every exercise [sent to svetlana@ilga-europe.org before March 30th] and will answer all the questions about individual fundraising, both in times of crises and during regular work.

Register for the second session here.

It’s important that the media explores the issues that affect our communities in a realistic way, but for many LGBTI activists, getting journalists interested can seem difficult, if not impossible. Our latest activism Skills Boost sessions explored connecting to the media. Here’s what our participants learned.

All LGBTI activists know that communication is power. It is a crucial tool for making change to advance our rights. But, with so many things happening in the world, getting the real issues that LGBTI people face into the headlines can prove difficult, especially since journalists are only interested in certain stories about our communities, like sudden tragedies or new anti-LGBTI laws.

As part of our current Strategic Communications programme, our latest Skills Boost sessions focused on media relations. The worldwide media not only brings us daily news but also sets the agenda and frames the narrative about LGBTI people and rights. Journalists and editors are the ones who ultimately decide what stories are told, and which ones are left out.

So, to get stories that aren’t headline-grabbing out there, building a good relationship with journalists is vital for activists. However, the ever-changing media landscape, activist workloads, juggling advocacy and community needs, and emergencies that arise so often, make it difficult for activists to connect, and stay connected with media representatives.

As part of the Skills Boost, ILGA-Europe’s media officer, Ana Muñoz walked participants through a part of her daily routine. Here are some of the good practices Ana has learnt over the past three years in the job, which might help you step up your media game.

Daily news-skim

Start your day going through the news to have a sense of what is going on in the world and in your communities and locality. This doesn’t mean you have to read all the news. Subscribe to newsletters that are relevant to you and your work and set up alerts to monitor news about LGBTI rights, both across the region and in your country and locality. Also set up alerts for mentions of your organisation. There are paid tools to monitor the news, but there are also free options like Google Alerts. Curate your social media feeds so they show you what you need to see and what is useful for your work. For example, make sure you follow on Twitter (or Mastodon!) the journalists and media outlets that are right for you, so you can stay on top of the news and understand what gets journalists’ attention.

Share what you pick up

Once you’ve scanned and spotted news items that are relevant to your organisation, you should share them with your colleagues across the organisation. A decade ago, you may have delivered a daily or weekly news clipping report but now there are platforms that allow you to share links in an immediate but organised manner. At ILGA-Europe we use a cross-organisational communications tool called Slack, which is either discounted or free for not-for-profits. But you can share the headlines and links on email, if you prefer. Sharing daily updates ensures that your teams stay on top on things and can evaluate possible responses to the media in advance.

Talk to journalists

Journalists are real people too, and they need stories to keep them in business. Like all human beings, they also make mistakes. If you see a typo in your organisation’s name (this happens with ILGA-Europe regularly), take it as an opportunity to introduce yourself and the work you do. See something misreported, inaccurate data or a quote you gave out of reported out of context? Email the journalist and tell them about it, in a polite way. Journalists usually appreciate feedback so they can do their jobs better, but they also like to receive feedback that is constructive rather than simply a complaint. Moreover, they will be happy to enlarge their list of contacts!

Create a media database

You will have many first conversations with journalists, the hard part is to maintain those relations. To prevent your relations disappearing into thin air, build a database and update it regularly. Keep in contact with those journalists when stories arise that you think they may be interested in, sending them a paragraph pitch. Or send them your press releases. Whether it is through a fancy mailing tool (which can be expensive) or a simple excel spreadsheet or mailing group on email, make sure to note down those names and emails. If you make a good connection with a journalist, ask them to let you know if they are moving on to another publication. (Journalists move all the time.) That way you will begin to have a way of figuring out who moves where.

Scan the horizon

If you read the news to understand what has just happened, horizon scanning techniques give you an insight of what is coming next. Bookmark anniversaries of important LGBTI-related events in your country, keep an eye on international days coming up, and gain access to journalists’ and parliamentarians ‘forward planners’. For example, here you can check the European Parliament’s agenda of the week. The launch of official statistics about LGBTI people and issues, such as the ILGA-Europe Rainbow Map, or TGEU trans rights map might be interesting for your media and communications strategies too. Knowing things in advance enables you to prepare accordingly. For example, journalists may be interested in speaking to LGBTI couples on the anniversary of marriage equality in your country. You can make horizon scanning a regular agenda point in your monthly meetings.

• Earlier this year, ILGA-Europe launched a new communications programme to foster stronger and more strategic communications across the movement.
• As part of this programme, we are bringing together a cohort of organisations that will work on developing their communications capacities with us and with each other.
• The programme combines grants and learning, which are equally important elements of it.
• To join the programme, organisations/groups need to apply with a concept and present their initial project ideas along with the learning goals. We will be assessing applications’ fit for this call, project ideas and the potential of the applicants to learn. Grantee partners will have access to various learning opportunities and will be able together with us to develop their thinking and project plans.
• We will select 8 groups, and each will receive a grant of 10,000 Euro for the duration of the programme (18 months).

Introduction

Earlier this year, ILGA-Europe launched a programme to foster stronger and more strategic communications across the European and Central Asian LGBTI movement and to contribute to collective thinking on shaping public conversations and changing public attitudes.

As part of this programme, ILGA-Europe is opening this call to support LGBTI organisations in strengthening their own communication capacities. The aim of these grants is to support organisations that do work on communications with no or limited resources or capacities (meaning for instance the absence of paid communications staff, developed communications strategy, or secured funding for communications activities), and those that work with/serve underrepresented communities.

Why this call?

Throughout our work, we have seen that an increasing number of LGBTI organisations and groups felt the need to develop their communications. However, the assessment of communications needs launched in 2019 suggested that in the vast majority of LGBTI organisations in Europe and Central Europe day to day communications activities are done not by full-time staff persons but by volunteers, project managers, or directors.  And with this call we aimed to provide some support specifically for groups that work that way and want to do their communications in a more strategic way.

Aim of the call

The aim of the call is to contribute to stronger communications work by LGBTI organisations and groups that do this work with no or limited resources or capacities and/or work with underrepresented communities. We will support projects that combine two elements:

1. Supporting communications learning within LGBTI organisations and groups. We designed this project as a learning process and we hope that by the end of this programme our grantee partners will get new knowledge and skills necessary to proceed with communications work and will share their experiences with the wider LGBTI movement.
2. Developing and implementing communications activities, such as campaigns, the development of new narratives, testing, enhancing the organisation’s presence on social media, relationship building with the media, etc.

NB Both communications learning and developing and implementing communications activities are equally important elements of this call for applications.

Who is this call for?

This call is for LGBTI organisations and groups  that:

• Are LGBTI organisations and groups in Europe or Central Asia¹.
• Propose a communications project with specific focus on organisational learning in communications. We aim to support organisations and groups that will demonstrate how their learning will positively affect their future communications work and their organisational development.
• Have some experience with communications and can demonstrate it with a track record of communications work. A track record may include previous campaigns, work done to frame and test messages, stably operating groups in the social networks/website or other communication activities. You don’t need to do ‘perfect communications’, but there should be some experience you can base your work within this programme on.
• Are able to commit to a collective learning and thinking process about LGBTI movements’ communications in Europe and Central Asia. This project involves a significant learning and experience exchange commitment.
• Have at least one person who is committed to proceed with communications work and willing to improve their skills and start thinking more strategically about communications. We understand that with no or limited resources and capacities different people can be involved in communications work on a day to day basis. Therefore we ask you to think if more than one person can be involved in this programme, and how new skills and practices can be integrated into your communications work in the future.

We encourage applications from organisations and groups that do not have a full-time communications staff and dedicated resources for communications work, serve/ work with less represented groups and organisations working at the  intersections of identities and experiences  (e.g. raciliased LGBTI people and LGBTI people from ethnic minority backgrounds, LGBTI people with disability, LGBTI people experiencing poverty).

This call might NOT be a match for organisations that:

• Have substantial experience in communications or have strong communications capacity (for instance, full-time communications staff and resources secured for this work).
• Have the resources or expenses that mean that 10,000 Euro would not bring significant added capability.
• Have  more than 4 full-time paid staff.
• Propose communication projects (such as one-off campaigns, or specific actions to develop message frames) without focus on organisational learning. We aim to support organisations and groups that will demonstrate how their learning will positively affect their future communications work and organisational development.

What does the participation entail?

1. We will bring together a cohort of 8 organisations that will work on developing their communications capacities with us and with each other. We will support these processes with grants: 8 participating organisations/groups will receive 10,000 Euro for up to 18 months for their communications activities. Grants will be awarded in 3 phases (50% in two weeks after the contract signing, 40% after the interim financial report and 10% after the final financial and narrative reports). The first 2 months will provide space for grantee partners together with the invited consultants and other participants of the programme to further develop their projects.
2. Our grantee partners will receive individual support throughout the process with regular check-ins and coaching sessions with the communication expert. We will work with you to develop your plans and ideas. If necessary, project management support can be provided.
3. Our grantee partners will participate in joint capacity building activities, such as trainings and workshops  with external experts and peer-learning sessions. Peer-learning will take place in various phases of the development of the project, including initial design of activities. Training sessions will be designed to respond to the needs of the grantee partners.

At the initial phase of the project (the first two months), we will provide a space for our grantee partners to further think about their projects and ideas. There will be several peer-learning and individual coaching sessions to support this process. Later on webinars and other learning activities will be organised, which will be designed to respond to the needs of the partners. This will likely involve several group calls across the 18 months and individual support.

Learning and experience sharing are an integral part of the programme! We expect all grantee partners to commit to this part of the programme and participate in training and learning activities that will be organised.

Preliminary timeline of the project

• Online session for prospective applicants: on October 10, 12:00 (CET/Brussels time).
• Deadline for applications:  October 30, 23:59 (CET/Brussels time) .
• All the applicants are notified about the results of the assessment process by 7 December.
• The projects are  to start in January 2023 and finish by the end of June 2024.
• First peer-learning session with the grantee partners: January 11.
• Individual coaching sessions: January 12 – 28.
• Second peer-learning session: February 2.
• Session on project management and creation of the budget: February 6.
• Submission of final list of activities and budget: February 20. 
• Administrative work and signing the agreements will take place in March, but our grantee partners will be able to include the expenditures that occur in January and February 2023 as well (if any).
• Session on project management and reporting: December 2023 (after the submission of interim financial reports).
• All project activities must be finished by the end of June 2024.
• Final narrative and financial reports are due by July 15, 2024.
• Throughout the project: individual and group meetings organised by ILGA-Europe every 1-2 months, depending on the needs.

A few things about activities and costs that we will support

Applicants can include costs for a variety of communications activities, such as (but not limited to):

• Expert’s fee and other costs to support organisational learnings (coaching, on-line education, training activities for staff and/or volunteers, or other efforts that help nourish skills and capacities including activities to integrate learning happening within the programme itself).
• Creation of content for diverse communication channels, including podcasts, blogs, websites and/or community portals, opinion articles, media releases or other work with the media, etc.
• Work to influence narratives through audience insight and research, message development and testing, trialling dissemination methods, etc.
• Campaigning activities to raise awareness on the realities, needs and rights of LGBTI communities (including for instance to raise awareness on issues or communities that remain unseen by larger audiences).

We understand that part of the budget can be used to cover at least some time of a team member/ team members who are involved in communications work. The grant can also cover corresponding and proportionate (no more than 10% of the total grant) administrative costs such as bank fees, amounts for communications (i.e. payment of a Zoom account) or part of other office costs (i.e. rent or stationary) . 

How will you be working with ILGA-Europe?

Project management and support

ILGA-Europe works hard to make sure that there is efficient communication with grantee partners and that project administrative requirements don’t take up a disproportionate amount of time! Yet, here are the things that you should expect us to ask from you.

• Once grantee partners are selected, we will work with them to discuss any questions or doubts, look together at the concepts and help to design activities and budget.
• During the implementation of projects, we are available to support you in case you experience problems or need advice on how to go about aspects of the work.
• Participation in the learning opportunities provided by ILGA-Europe is expected from grantee partners.
• During the project’s implementation, we will have regular contacts with grantee partners (every 3 months). We expect our partners to commit to these regular conversations with ILGA-Europe staff to discuss project’s implementation, threats, opportunities, and possible capacity building needs. Conversations will include an update on the progress made and any issues that might be relevant for the continuation of the project (incl. overall national context in which the project is being implemented, and applicant overall strategy for change).
• You will need to report financially on how the funds are being spent. We will ask for an interim report and a final report. To manage this grant your organisation needs to have an accounting and financial management system in place that allows to track income and expenditures per project/funder and across multiple years. You will be asked to report in Excel and support your expenditures with records: contracts, procurement documents, invoices, timesheets, proof of payment, documentation of exchange rates. For more information, please contact ILGA-Europe. Guidance on reporting financial and administrative requirements is available on the call page and further support will be provided to successful applicants. ²
• A final narrative report is foreseen after the end of the project.
• You are also expected to participate in various evaluation and experience-sharing efforts around the project. For example, participants in other programmes have found it valuable to attend peer-learning and sharing meetings online throughout the project, and contribute quotes/examples to written resources to be shared (confidentially) with other members in the movement.

How to apply?

• To apply please submit your application to svetlana@ilga-europe.org.
• Proposals should be submitted using the attached application form. 
• Proposals should be submitted before October 30, 2022, 23:59 (CET/Brussels time).
• We will inform all applicants about the results of the review via the email address provided in the application by December 7.
• We expect the projects to start in January. 

NB The application form assesses the project idea, learning goals and potential of groups and organisations to benefit from the organisational learning and to gain new skills for further communications work rather than finalised plans. It does not require the submission of detailed project activities and budget at this stage. A full proposal will be finalised as part of the project itself, by the end of February 2023, based on exchanges with other partners, consultations with experts and individual coaching sessions.

If you have any questions in the preparation of your project proposal, please contact Svetlana Zakharova, ILGA-Europe’s Senior Programmes Officer (svetlana@ilga-europe.org)

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1. For this call Europe and Central Asia is considered to include the following countries: Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russian Federation, San Marino, Serbia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Kingdom and Uzbekistan.
2. We welcome applications from unregistered groups. If your group is not registered, you can partner with a registered organisation that will support you as a fiscal sponsor for this grant.

The next of our popular Skills Boost sessions for LGBTI activists will take place on September 14 (12:00-13:30 CET), giving you practical advice on how to make the most of media opportunities as an LGBTI activist, without getting overwhelmed.

This will be an interactive Skills Boost structured around a ‘typical day’ for ILGA-Europe’s Media Officer, who covers all kinds of LGBTI stories across European media outlets:

• How to keep up with the fast-moving media without spending all your time on it
• Understanding and maintaining relationships with journalists
• Judging whether to respond to a story and what your unique contribution could be
• Tactics for responding to the media, and tips to make the internal process easier

As with previous Skills Boosts on videos under lockdown and graphics with free tools, at the end of this session you will be given resources and a small assignment. If you are interested then you will be invited to a second follow-up session a couple of weeks later where you will get personalised advice and group feedback on your assignment. 

If you would like to join this Skills Boost session, register here now!

Over the coming three years, ILGA-Europe will do this through different activities, including financial support and consultancy to build strong communications abilities, grants to support targeted communications initiatives, peer learning spaces and a growing network of communications practitioners and experts. 

Since 2013, we have been offering support through analysis of message and framing on LGBTI issues, grants to support narrative development and message testing, trainings and materials on strategic communications for LGBTI organisations, skills-boost activities on basic communications skills, and facilitation of a Facebook group of LGBTI communicators, among other activities.

In 2019, we launched an assessment of communications needs of the LGBTI movement in Europe and Central Asia, to better understand what is holding LGBTI organisations and groups back. The main conclusions of this study, the largest-ever carried out specifically on communications of the LGBTI movement in the region, were twofold:

1. Existing capacities to undertake this work are currently inadequate
2. There is a huge untapped potential of the movement’s communications ability as we see a great wealth of communications knowledge and experience in the movement on which we can build to grow the movement’s communications capacity.

With the new programme ILGA-Europe aims to effectively close the gap between inadequate resources and the wealth of existing experience.

As part of this programme, at the end of May 2022, ILGA-Europe is opening a call for proposals for multi-year project grants to support LGBTI organisations in strengthening their own strategic communication capacities.The aim of these grants is to support organisations to make communications into one of the core functions in their work and to amplify their existing communications skills and experiences.

Main things about the call:

• ILGA-Europe invites project proposals from LGBTI organisations and groups in Europe and Central Asia
• We expect to make up to five multi-year project grants (each grant for the period of 2.5 years) to LGBTI organisations to develop and strengthen their communications work
• Organisations should be able to demonstrate their existing communications experience and have a clear vision on how to develop communications as a strategic area of work
• Grantee partners will have access to various learning opportunities and will be asked to share their own learning with ILGA-Europe and with the wider LGBTI movement
• Following an online session for prospective applicants organised on May 12, we prepared a Q&A document about the call and the application process.

To apply please submit your application and budget to our Senior Programme’s Officer, Svetlana. Proposals should be submitted using the application form and budget template before May 29, 2022, Sunday, 23:59 (CET). For the detailed information on the aims of this call, background information and eligibility criteria, see the Call for proposals. You can also use our Guidance on reporting financial and administrative requirements while preparing your application.

If you have any questions in the preparation of your project proposal, please contact Svetlana Zakharova, ILGA-Europe’s Senior Programmes Officer: svetlana@ilga-europe.org

Do you want to make better use of graphic design in your LGBTI activism?

This Skills Boost Has been Concluded

See the results here!

Join our next skills boost session on Thursday 17 February from 12:00-13:30 CET to learn practical skills and get inspiration from other LGBTI activists.

The Skills Boost will cover:

• When and how is graphic design useful to LGBTI activists specifically?
• Basic design principles to get you started
• Practical tips for using free tools that have been released or updated recently

As with our first Skills Boost on making videos under lockdown, at the end of this session you will be given resources for an assignment to design your own graphic. If you are interested, you will be invited to a second follow-up session in March where you will get feedback on your graphic from ILGA-Europe’s experts, and help to ‘premiere’ your graphic publicly. 

A communications needs assessment of the LGBTI movement in Europe and Central Asia, for donors to help create new grant opportunities to support communications efforts.

In October 2019, we launched a survey to better understand how communications are currently being used, and the needs/capabilities LGBTI groups and organisations in Europe and Central Asia have for this critical organisational function. Almost 200 LGBTI groups and organisations, small and big, registered and non-registered, ILGA-Europe members or not, participated in this survey.

Consisting of surveys, focus groups, interviews and webinars with 190+ activists from 45 countries, this is the most in-depth investigation into the communications strength of the movement in Europe and Central Asia.

ILGA-Europe are using the results to plan for new guides and resources to support strategic communications work, and, with the help of our donors, creating new grant opportunities to support communications efforts.

Today we are publicly launching The Hub – ILGA-Europe’s free Resource Sharing Centre for LGBTI activists in Europe and Central Asia.

The Hub is an easily accessible online platform for LGBTI activists in Europe and Central Asia. Through it, ILGA-Europe offers various resource ‘cards’ that contain information and guides around certain thematic areas of work. You will find dozens of resources already in the thematic sections on campaigning, communications, community, fundraising, management, security, wellbeing and Russian language cards. Each card contains comprehensive information around a particular area of work.

In recent months a number of activists from ILGA-Europe member organisations have already joined us. Today we ask you to join us too!

As activist, you can proactively contribute to building resources by sharing case studies. Simply click ‘add case study’ in the card that you want to contribute to and share your experience. We will then review your case study.

Want to help make the Hub a success? Here are four things to do now:

1. Join today – by creating your own account at https://hub.ilga-europe.org
2. Check the community guidelines – to understand how the Hub works https://hub.ilga-europe.org/code-of-conduct/
3. Spread the word – and tell other LGBTI activists in Europe and Central Asia to join us. Here’s a tweet you can share now!
4. Help us keep the Hub a safe place – and get your account verified once you’ve signed up. This way you can access content that is marked sensitive.

You are invited to register for the activist launch of ‘Communicating for Change: a communications needs assessment of the LGBTI movement in Europe and Central Asia’, taking place at 12:00 CEST THURSDAY 15TH APRIL. 

This event has already taken place

Communication is at the heart of some of the biggest successes of the LGBTI movement in Europe and Central Asia. In a context where opposition actors continue to gain in strength and momentum, the time for increasing our communications capacities is now!

• Are you curious about how your communications work compares to that of other LGBTI activists across Europe and Central Asia?
• Are you interested in using evidence from your country and the region to make the case for your communications work to be properly funded?
• Do you want to hear what ILGA-Europe is doing to implement the results of our biggest ever communications needs assessment, and discuss what to do next?

You are invited to register for the activist launch of ‘Communicating for Change: a communications needs assessment of the LGBTI movement in Europe and Central Asia’. Click here to register for the event 12:00-13:00 CEST Thursday 15 April. 

LGBTI activists from Europe and Central Asia who register will receive the summary report of our communications needs assessment, available in English and Russian.

Consisting of surveys, focus groups, interviews and webinars with 190+ activists from 45 countries, this is the most in-depth investigation into the communications strength of the movement in our region. Many of you contributed by responding to the survey, and participating in interviews, focus groups, and webinars. Thank you, this needs assessment was possible thanks to the time and energy you made available!

This event will present the findings, give you an opportunity to discover how you compare with your peers (in terms of capacity, skills, and challenges), and discuss where we go from here.

Don’t miss this opportunity to discuss with ILGA-Europe and your peers how!

Guest blogger, Richard Roaf, director of VideoRev and an expert in helping activists develop low-budget viral campaign videos, shares his best tips for LGBTI activists filming home-made campaign videos and the learnings from the ‘Skills Boost’ workshop he conducted for ILGA-Europe.

Video is one of the most powerful ways LGBTI activists can reach new audiences. People are most persuaded by hearing from individual people, not faceless organisations, and with a presenter video you can share your campaign and your story with people around the world.

I’ve seen how video can shine a light on injustices to millions, drive thousands to take online actions and even help build powerful international movements.

The great news is that these days, if you’ve got a laptop or a smartphone you’ve got everything you need to be a great filmmaker.

This blog will take you through the six production steps and two creative steps you need to make a great video, as we did with the activists who joined in ILGA-Europe’s video-making Skills Boost sessions.

Production: 6 Steps to Filming a High Quality Video

Just picking up your phone and filming something is the best way to learn. Audiences will be moved by your passion and the important information you are sharing, so don’t get hung up on getting the lighting perfect. Having said that, here are six tips:

1. Choose your style

There’s no one right way to film a video. Decide whether you want to come across as formal and professional, or if you want to seem more personal and authentic.

2. Choose your camera and position

You may want to film on your smartphone, laptop, a webcam or a video camera. For a professional shot, make sure the camera is fixed and at eye level. For a more personal shot, film in a selfie style.

3. Backdrop

Arrange your background so it will reflect your campaign and how you want to come across. Use books and professional equipment to emphasise expertise, or use photos, art and colours to bring out more personality.

4. Improve your light

You want lots of even light on your face with minimal shadows. You can achieve this by adding desktop lamps, positioning yourself by a window and if you have budget buying a video light.

5. Sound

Improve the sound quality of your video by buying a lapel microphone for a smartphone, or a desktop microphone for a laptop.

6. Kitlist and Checklist

Find the right equipment for you using the VideoRev Kitlist. and use the Checklist to apply these six lessons. Download the Kitlist and Checklist.

Creative: 2 Steps to Plan a Great Video

You may feel confident to just switch on the camera and speak from the heart, in which case, fantastic! But you can use these two steps to come up with a great creative plan for your video.

1. Use the Crisitunity structure

The four-stage Crisitunity structure is very effective at driving audiences to take action, and we used it to generate over 100K petition signatures to help ban microbeads.

Once you’ve decided the action you want the audience to take, jot down bullet points for:

Crisis: What problem are you trying to solve?

Opportunity: What could overcome this problem?

Theory of Change: How could the audience take action to help bring about the opportunity?

Ask: What action do you need the audience to take?

You can use our Script and Visual Plan document to write your Crisitunity script.

2. Write a strong hook

Audiences on Facebook look at content for 1.7 seconds before scrolling on. If you put a short Hook Statement at the start of your video, it will immediately grab them and give them a strong reason to keep watching. This hook can appear as text on screen, as the accompanying Tweet text, and as the first thing that you say in the video.

Our Hook for the viral video “5 Ways to Disrupt Racism” was effective because it told the audience the topic of the video and what they would learn by watching it.

To get inspiration you can use the VideoRev Hookbook which provides 30 of the most successful campaign Hooks.

Top five ‘Do’s and Don’ts’ that came up in ILGA-Europe’s Skills Boost with LGBTI activists

1. Look directly at the camera

This creates a connection between you and the viewer.

2. Be yourself

Imagine you are talking to a good friend and let your personality come across.

3. Keep it short

Under a minute is usually best for social media.

4. Clearly tell the audience what to do

Even if it’s just to share the video.

5. Just do it!

Nothing will ever be perfect, but just getting started is the most important step.

Anyone can start

The fantastic videos by activists at ILGA-Europe’s Skills Boost were made just with the kit they had available and we were blown away by the quality of their messages and their videos. You can watch some of them here.

We hope that you are inspired to follow their lead and start making your own videos today.

If you are an LGBTI activist in Europe and Central Asia, join our private communications support group on Facebook where the idea for this Skills Boost came up in the first place, and where every week activists and ILGA-Europe staff discuss videos, social media, narrative, and other communications challenges.

Watch this series of short campaign videos created by LGBTI activists who got expert help to make easy, free homemade videos under lockdown conditions – and get some tips and inspiration for making your own!

Despite lockdowns and social distancing, LGBTI activists have to continue communicating and campaigning, and creating our own videos at home has become an ever more important skill. At the end of 2020, ILGA-Europe invited Richard Roaf – director of VideoRev, an expert in helping activists develop low-budget viral campaign videos – to host a video ‘Skills Boost’.

Activists learned strategic, creative and technical tips to create great campaign videos at home, with no budget. Many of the participants created their own videos straight away and got extra help from Richard and each other. 

On Friday 29 January at 13:00 CET (Central European Time), we will be premiering a small selection of their videos. Introduced by Richard Roaf, it will be a moment to learn more about making no-budget campaign videos from the videos themselves, and celebrate this creative, personal, and authentic way for our movement’s messages to travel, even when we cannot.

You can get some tips and inspiration for making your own.

After our blog on crisis communication, ILGA-Europe hosted a Q&A call for LGBTI groups to share experiences and advice on communicating clearly during the COVID-19 crisis. Here is a summary and 60-second video of five lessons we learned from each other on that call.

Our call focused on how to communicate about COVID-19 from the perspective of an LGBTI group, but we repeatedly discussed how it is not possible to completely separate communications from other organisational tasks. How your organisation acts externally and internally during a crisis is your crisis communication, and it does not matter if your COVID-19 statement says one thing if your actions communicate something else.

With this in mind, ILGA-Europe is developing a rounded response package to help the LGBTI movement ‘Protect, Adapt, and Rally’ through the COVID-19 crisis. You can find many more resources on questions such as digital security, adapting activities, remote working, and financial management on our website — with more to come.

Every crisis is different (do you know any organisation that started 2020 anticipating this scenario?), but the process for effective crisis communication is often exactly the same. In fact, the reason why some groups respond well to crises is arguably because they follow the same process, whatever the crisis — having a routine to follow can help give you structure to respond to the unpredictable.

Many participants in the call had different questions, but the first steps to take were often the same:

? Be brief

? Focus on the facts

? Stay human

? Test it from your audience’s perspective

Our initial blog on crisis communication has more detail on how to follow those tips, specifically for LGBTI groups during COVID-19.

During the Q&A, we annotated an example together — a mailout that a foundation in the USA had sent their audience. While our participants saw a lot of positives (“clear”, “urgent”, “all the important information for customers”), we also started to pick apart all the things it could do better (“not empathetic”, “not very two-way”, “no contact for follow-up questions”).

That’s not because it is a bad piece of communication. We chose it precisely because it is a good example sent very early on in the crisis from a small organisation with a communications capacity that is more relatable for most of ILGA-Europe’s members. But it is normally easier to spot what someone else has missed out, or what is not clear to you, than it is to see in your own work.

There are two actions that come out of this lesson for all of us:

? Ask someone who was not involved in writing the communication to test it from your audience’s perspective.

? Forgive ourselves for the things we will probably miss in our own communications. As long as we remember to stay human, our audiences will understand that humans make mistakes under pressure. We are all in this together.

The LGBTI movement is strong, deeply connected and has much learning that can help the world at this time. We have the resilience, creativity and solidarity to strengthen society’s response to the pandemic, and so many of our questions can be answered by each other. Here are examples of participants in the call helping each other on crisis communications:

Questions and tips from the call

“How do we maintain activities but not look like we don’t care about people, or the importance of the virus?”

? Repeat the official general advice from your local health authorities (do not assume that people have already heard enough of this).

? Emphasise that you are continuing your activities because of the crisis and explain why people need it at this moment. Do not talk as if you are continuing activities in spite of the crisis or it could sound like you are selfishly pursuing ‘distractions’.

? Include a (short!) message about why you care (do not just state that you care) to help your audiences understand and empathise with your motivations.

“What about those who are left without money, jobs, or who are at risk of remaining on the street?”

? Prioritise communication directly to those who are most vulnerable and marginalised.

? Governments still have an obligation to protect people and you can hold them accountable for human rights during this crisis. ILGA-Europe has created briefings on advocacy for affected LGBTI groups and legal obligations of states in our ‘Protect’ resources for COVID-19 response.

? Pay attention to minorities who may have an additional language barrier. In one country the government is over-reliant on TV, and there was a role for civil society to work with specific communities on a local level.

Ideas from the call

Participants shared some ideas with each other about their actions so far:

? “What we did was talk about our feelings about the new situation during our online events for the first two weeks and then moved on to other topics, thinking it might be too much to talk about constantly about the virus.”

? “We developed a series of new events on Zoom. Interviews like ’10 uncomfortable questions’, psychological and informational training, support groups, lectures. And we try to involve people in the process as much as possible.”

? “Thinking of alternatives for Prides, etc — we reorganised our theatre initiative as an online initiative. We could share links to this online and think about subtitles and translations.”

? “Due to corona we had to cancel all the workshops we were going to do on the concept of building a new queer centre, but we got consultants to help turn it into a survey, and then an online workshop on Zoom where we worked in small groups on the results of the survey.”

Moving from crisis communication to proactive communication

Some questions moved from reactive crisis communications to questions about how to proactively campaign during this crisis. ILGA-Europe will be sharing more about how we can ‘adapt and rally’, but in the meantime do you have suggestions for these questions?

? We are trying to transform a three-day queer activist camp to an online course — how do we make sure this is effective when we don’t have experience of organising interactive activities online?

? How do we get through to the media and stakeholders when all attention is focused on COVID-19?

? Now that everyone is organising initiatives online, how do we make sure ours doesn’t get lost in the mix?

As the world is rapidly forced to change our daily working practices, this Q&A call itself was a chance to experiment. We had so many registrants and attendees that we had to change format at the last minute, but we managed to keep a couple of activities which helped visualise where everybody was coming from, and give everybody a chance to see each other’s feedback, live. It is obviously not the same as being in a room together, but it helps replace some of the benefits of all being able to see each other’s faces and each other’s post-it notes on flipchart paper.

Our combination of Google Slides and Zoom was inspired by Training to Change, which is a great place to find templates and tips for online (and offline) facilitation.

The last words should go to the participants — thank-you for taking part in this experiment and supporting each other, we hope to do more with you soon.

“I’m taking away… ‘adapt not postpone’, a very important message, which is well received!”

“I’m taking away… ‘society is only as strong as the weakest person in society’.

“I’m still not sure about… Zoom security and best tools for online activities.”

“I’m still not sure about… activities for people who don’t like cameras or video chat.”

“I would like more… specific examples from different countries of successful online activities, bringing the community together, advocacy, etc.”

“I would like more… meetings like this.

Do you have other questions about communications as an LGBTI activist? Join our new Facebook group for LGBTI activists in Europe and Central Asia who focus on communication as (part of) their role.