The mission of the Better Communication Forum (“BCF”) is to reduce the economic and human cost of poor, inaccurate and misdirected communication. The principal focus is on the relatively new and fast growing areas of electronic communication, including without limitation, all forms of electronic messaging: email, text, social media and others.
BCF researches and disseminates tools, resources, and techniques for effective communication through webinars, newsletters, website postings, case studies, the exchange of information among our constituents and other appropriate means. Better communication entails reaching the right people at the right time for that outreach to be mutually valuable and to prevent the harm that can be caused by uniformed or misinformed communicators.
SPAM and do-not-call laws are evidence of severe historical misuse of communication technologies by organizations not following best practices. BCF develops and publicizes best practices for reducing audience fatigue through the ethical application of analytics, data collection methods, data appends, data enhancements, de-duplication, data cleansing, data scrubbing, and data purchasing. Not only does BCF promote best practices for effective communications; but perhaps even more importantly, BCF, helps educate technologists and organizations on how to identify and correct bad data that blocks effective communication.
Nonprofit and for profit organizations can all benefit from effective communication that doesn’t abuse electronic messaging. Nonprofits gain through improved donor retention and reduction in the frequency of lost donations. Similarly, for profits gain through client retention and reduction in lost sales.
The adverse consequences of misdirected or inaccurate communication can be far more serious. For example: bill collection directed to the wrong individual; negative entries in the wrong person’s credit report; and even being wrongly targeted by a government agency.
The future of effective communication to consumers, donors, event attendees, supporters, and clients depends on the ability of these people to be addressed in a relevant and ethical manner. BCF is a voice for these groups to coordinate and convey best practices to the organizations that wish to reach.