Expected to Transform, Funded to Survive: The Reality of Communications

On What We Actually Mean When We Say Communications Matters.

Comms Creatives on LinkedIn has built an entire following on the quiet comedy of working in communications. The jokes land because they are true. There’s one about being asked to "just post something" about a strategic initiative that took six months to develop, and another about the budget that covers a Canva subscription and half a freelancer. Then there’s the one that stings a little about being looped in after the decision has already been made, to help communicate something that, honestly, was never going to be easy to explain.

People share these posts because they recognise themselves in them. And then they go back to work. I have been in communications long enough to know that the joke is also the wound. We laugh because naming the dysfunction directly feels too exposing for the organisations we work in and us. So instead, we repost a meme, exhale, and carry on. This piece is me choosing not to carry on quietly.

What Communications Is

I want to start by saying that I think we get it wrong about what communications is. When most organisations talk about communications, they mean content. You know, that newsletter that goes out every other Friday, the press release, social media calendar, and talking points for leadership. These things matter, but they are outputs. They are what communications produces, not what it is

Communications, when it is actually working, is the function that decides how an organisation is understood by the people outside and inside it. It shapes whether a funder thinks you are relevant or outdated, a partner trusts you enough to sign on, and a community believes you are for them. And it shapes whether the person hired six months ago actually understands what they are part of, or whether they are just completing tasks.

That second part, the internal piece, is the one I find most organisations forget entirely. We talk about communications in terms of visibility, reputation, and reach. We forget that the people who build the work every day are also an audience. They need a coherent story, too. When they do not have one, something goes quiet in how people show up. It is not always obvious. It looks like meetings that feel directionless, or a team that executes well but cannot explain why the work matters. I have sat in enough rooms to know the feeling.

So when I say communications, I mean all of it. The external story and the internal one. The brand, culture, funder pitch, and all-hands meeting. It is one function and should not be split into three underfunded parts and distributed across people whose actual jobs are something else.

That second part, the internal piece, is the one I find most organisations forget entirely. We talk about communications in terms of visibility, reputation, and reach. We forget that the people who build the work every day are also an audience.

The Dilemma

Here is the contradiction I keep running into.

Organisations will say, with complete sincerity, that communications matters. That brand trust is everything, and that storytelling is how they raise money, build partnerships, and grow. I have sat in strategy sessions where leadership articulated this beautifully. And then I have watched the same organisations allocate the communications budget last, hire one person to do the work of a team, and describe the function in job descriptions, org charts, and how they introduce it to new hires, as support.

Not strategy. Support.

I understand how this happens. Communications is hard to quantify. It is easier to measure the cost of a campaign than the value of being understood. So it gets treated as a cost rather than a multiplier. And because most organisations have, at some point, had a talented communicator who quietly made the impossible work, there is a precedent set: it can be done on less. The talent absorbed the gap, and the dysfunction became invisible.

I have been that person. I think most communicators reading this have been that person.

The problem is that absorbing the gap is not a solution. It is just a delay. At some point, the gap catches up and shows up in more quantifiable ways. A funding opportunity missed due to unclear positioning. A partnership that did not convert because the narrative was inconsistent. Or even a key hire who left within a year because they could not find their place in the organisation's story. These are communications failures. However, they are rarely identified as such because by the time the cost is visible, everyone has moved on to the next thing.

The problem is that absorbing the gap is not a solution. It is just a delay. At some point, the gap catches up and shows up in more quantifiable ways.

I came into one organisation and found a team doing genuinely important work with a track record, credibility in its field, and real relationships. But outside of a small circle of people who already knew it, nobody could quite explain what it did or why it mattered in the current moment. The language used to describe it belonged to a version of the organisation that had moved on. The work had evolved, but the story had not. This is not uncommon. Organisations grow and sometimes pivot, but their communications stays fixed at whatever it was when someone last had the time to think about it.

What I found, sitting with it, was that this was not a content problem. It was a structural one. The organisation had never invested in building a communications function with the resources or authority to stay current with the work, so the story drifted. And because nobody whose job it was to hold the story had been given the space to do that, nobody noticed until it was visibly costing them.

In another context, I watched what happens when an organisation decides to take communications seriously. Not just as a function that produces things, but as something that sits close to strategy. Within a couple of years, the numbers moved. Visibility grew, funders showed up differently, partners who had been distant came closer and there was more buy-in from the team. I am not saying communications did all of that alone. Nothing works alone. But I am saying the investment was not decorative. It made a measurable difference.

The contrast between those two organisations is the clearest argument I know for what is at stake.

The organisation had never invested in building a communications function with the resources or authority to stay current with the work, so the story drifted.

The Stakes

There’s something communications professionals often feel but rarely say directly. When you consistently give a function high expectations and low resources, you are making a choice. You might not experience it as a choice. It might feel like a practical constraint, a budget reality, or a timing issue. But for the person holding the function, it feels like a message. A message that says: we believe this matters, but not enough to properly invest in it. Do what you can.

And most communicators will. Because they care about the work and believe in the mission. Also, because leaving things undone is not in our nature.

But there is a cost. I have seen it in the communicators I know and myself as well — the quiet exhaustion of being brought in after decisions are made and asked to translate them, and being measured on outputs when what they are actually building is something slower and harder to count. It wears on people. And organisations lose good people this way, often without understanding why.

I am also going to say something to the communicators reading this: we have a role in this, too. Every time we absorb the gap without naming it, we make it easier for the organisation to stay comfortable with the arrangement. Naming it is not a complaint. It is information. It is the kind of honest feedback that organisations claim to want and often do not know how to receive. Offer it anyway. Not once, not in a moment of frustration but clearly, calmly, and with evidence.

The Comms Creatives community has been saying all of this in jokes. At some point, the joke has to become a conversation.

But there is a cost. I have seen it in the communicators I know and myself as well — the quiet exhaustion of being brought in after decisions are made and asked to translate them, and being measured on outputs when what they are actually building is something slower and harder to count.