(As the nonprofit I work for has been formulating its strategic plan, I’ve been reflecting on what role communications should play a part. Here I make the case that “the Center’s” communication strategy be auxiliary to our now-forming strategic plan.)

I’m reminded of the work of philosopher-theologian Henry Nelson Wieman, who describes six types of communication. His descriptions might be useful in helping us discern what we mean when we say that we wish to focus more on the Center’s communication.

1. Deceptive communications. Obviously we don’t want any part of this.
2. Manipulative communication. Here the goal is propaganda or indoctrination.
3. Reiterative communication. Re-communication. You’ve seen this before.
4. Confused communication. The intent or purpose, and thus the content, is not clear.
5. Other-centered communication. Putting on a pleasing front in order to get by. A socially necessary but imperfect form of communication.
6. Creative communication. This kind of communication creates, in particular, an appreciative understanding of its participants in one another. Creative communication is (trans)formative. The end of a process of creative communication cannot be accurately predicted from the outset, since it transforms its participants. Creative communication increases individual capacity for goodness through the risks of interpersonal vulnerability.

Creative communication will take one of four forms. Wieman frames these in terms of the individual, but we might take them to refer to organizations and institutions as well.

1. An increased capacity to know, evaluate, and/or control.
2. An increased capacity to know and understand others, even across great interpersonal barriers.
3. An increase of responsible individual freedom to fulfill one’s purpose in life.
4. An increased capacity to incorporate diverse experiences into one’s own individual uniqueness, which can then be gifted to others.

As an organization interested in promoting ethical character formation and in serving as a focal point for ethical dialogue, the Center is interested first of all in what Wieman calls creative communication.

To align ourselves with this transformative process we will of course need to participate in reiterative and other-centered communication, that is, in advertising. But these types of communication alone will not get us to the creative communication we desire. In short, advertising is not a magic pill; we cannot advertise ourselves into collaborative partnerships across the university. To achieve the collaborative partnerships we desire, we must reorder ourselves and our programs to risk relationships of creative communication.

The Center’s advertising strategy, then, should always be secondary to the Center’s efforts to engage in creative communication. Reiterative and other-centered communications must have content to them, and that content must come from somewhere other than the advertising itself. (Otherwise, we might end up looking like one of the dot-com companies from the nineties that—in spite of slick advertising campaigns—had no actual product to offer.) We need more than name recognition. As Kathy said, we need people to know who we are and what we’re about, and in the end that will come about only through personal and institutional relationships. Advertising might open the door and underline those relationships. But it cannot form them—not if our purpose is creative communication.

Creative communication should be our calling card. (Even if we—wisely, in my opinion—choose not to use Wieman’s vague term in our advertising or strategic plan.) It will be the role of our advertising, then, to market the Center’s participation in creative communication—principally as it takes the form of vocational formation and focused ethical dialogue. So the form our advertising strategy should take should become more readily apparent once we are clear about the Center’s vision and purpose. Otherwise, our advertising, when measured against our reality, will appear confused.