I’m a big fan of working for The Wilderness Society - great cause, great people. What’s not to like? Well…there’s one pesky task that’s downright painful - the dreaded Action mailbox! This is the one location where all of our WildAlert subscribers send their questions, gripes, and love letters. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from the Action mailbox, it’s that you really can’t make everyone happy.  Or at least, you can’t make everyone happy in one shot.

In the very same alert, one person might say the content was too long or specific. Someone else wishes we would have included more details or graphics. An activist wants to know how she can get involved on the ground locally? And another supporter disagrees with some portion of the topic or stance. So what in the world is the fix?

It seems the only real fix is allowing our subscribers to navigate through our issues and actions on their own terms. We keep our WildAlerts brief and interesting. We allow plenty of opportunities to drill down into meaty, engaging content on our website. And the real kicker - we tell our story and then allow opportunities for our supporters to jump in, add to it, talk amongst themselves, voice concerns, ask questions, truly feel a part of the community that surrounds them.

Through the action mailbox, I’ve been cursed at more than once. I’ve felt a little beat up after a day of responding to messages from frustrated folks. But you know what? For every really brutal message I’ve responded to, I’ve gotten several messages back from surprised supporters thanking me for my attention. Today I even had a man apologize for his admittedly harsh words and explain that he never expected to hear back from another human being.

I think we all get it. We want to be a part of something bigger. What better way to do that than to weave all our stories together, to talk to one another, to have a conversation. We’ve been talking a lot about telling TWS’ story and Betsy just passed around a great blog post with some suggestions on the what/why/how of telling organizational stories. That’s half of the battle. Once we learn to tell our stories really well, we can brush up on our listening skills and find out what our supporters have to add.