Tara Dowdell Group has built its PR and marketing practice around organizations engaged in social good.
The Black woman-owned public relations and marketing agency works with government agencies, foundations, nonprofits, and healthcare organizations, primarily in New York and New Jersey.
Its clients often need to explain public programs, community initiatives, policies and other issues with significant consequences for the people they serve.
That focus carries added visibility and scrutiny. Tara Dowdell, the firm’s founder and president, describes the current environment as particularly challenging for Black women business owners working in public-facing sectors.
That environment also reinforces the value of defining the firm through its work and communicating that work consistently.
TDG’s clients face a related communications challenge. The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer found that 70% of respondents were unwilling or hesitant to trust someone with different values, facts, problem-solving approaches or cultural backgrounds.
For organizations trying to reach divided audiences, the question is how to explain complex issues clearly while giving people credible reasons to trust the message.
Start with what the audience needs to know
Mission-driven organizations frequently work on issues that require more explanation than the messages used to discredit them.
“It’s a lot easier to tear something down than to build it up,” Dowdell said.
Passionate founders and organizational leaders can make the task harder by trying to communicate every detail at once. Dowdell recommends beginning with one audience-centered question: Why should this matter to the people receiving the message?
Answering it requires more than identifying a general demographic. Organizations should understand their audiences’ needs, aspirations and concerns, including the fears that critics may use to undermine the message.
“Do not try to tell everyone all the things,” she said. “Try to tell them the key things.”
Explain technical language without losing context
Industry terminology creates another barrier. Doctors, engineers, government officials and other specialists may use language that feels routine inside their professions but remains unfamiliar to the public.
Dowdell does not recommend eliminating every technical term. When a term is important, organizations can define it in plain language and connect it to a concrete example.
“What may seem simple or intuitive to you may not be simple or intuitive to people who are in a completely different industry,” she said.
That approach allows an organization to educate its audience while preserving the context needed to understand the issue.
Let people affected by the work tell the story
Organizations can also build credibility by allowing beneficiaries to describe their experiences.
Dowdell recalled work her firm conducted for a New York City agency promoting rent relief and a tenant helpline. At the time, she said, only 46% of eligible New Yorkers were applying for rent relief.
The communications effort used media relations and stories from residents who had received assistance. Those residents could acknowledge the public’s skepticism directly and explain how the programs had helped them.
“There’s greater trust when someone who’s been through the program, who looks like you, sounds like you and lives in a similar neighborhood tells you, ‘This is a real program, and I benefited,’” Dowdell said.
The example also illustrates a frequent operational problem: creating a useful service does not ensure that eligible people will find it. Audiences are busy, media consumption is fragmented, and potential beneficiaries may never encounter an agency’s usual communications channels.
Maintain one message across different audiences
Organizations often need to communicate with several constituencies, each with different priorities.
Dowdell recommends maintaining one overarching message, then developing supporting messages around the needs of each audience. The information emphasized may change, while the organization’s central position remains consistent.
That consistency helps prevent audiences from concluding that an organization is telling different groups conflicting stories.
It also requires anticipating likely criticism. Dowdell advises organizations to address legitimate concerns proactively and distinguish good-faith questions from personal attacks or habitual opposition.
Dowdell recommends setting ground rules for responding to criticism, explaining to the public that concerns, criticism and disagreement are welcome as long as they are respectful and productive.
She also cautions leaders against allowing a small number of negative comments to outweigh substantially larger numbers of people engaging positively or using the service.
Connect public positions to organizational values
Businesses and organizations do not need to comment on every public issue, according to Dowdell.
The decision to speak should be informed by the organization’s values, employees and customers, including the communities that sustain the business. A company selling sustainable products, for example, has a clear reason to address an issue related to climate or the environment.
Organizations should also consider whether employees expect their employer to speak and whether the issue affects customers or communities that have supported the business.
“When you center those three, it’s hard to go wrong,” Dowdell said.
Create an accurate record for search and AI platforms
Clear communication now includes the information organizations make available to search engines and generative AI platforms.
Dowdell recommends treating the organization’s website as its central source of information because it offers greater control over the message than social platforms. Frequently asked questions, definitions, supporting data and clear descriptions of products, programs or services can help audiences find accurate answers.
Generative AI platforms powered by large language models, including ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, may synthesize information from organizational websites and other available sources. Consistent website content, sourced data and credible media coverage can create a stronger public record for those systems to interpret.
The goal is to give people and technology reliable information before incomplete or inaccurate narratives become established.
Communicate the announcement, execution and result
Effective communication continues after a program, product or initiative is announced.
Dowdell recommends showing audiences what was promised, what was completed and what resulted from the work. That continuity gives people evidence they can use to evaluate the organization.
“There are no days off in communications,” she said. “You should be using all of the tools at your disposal to communicate to the public.”
The scale of that work will depend on the organization’s resources. The underlying requirement remains consistent: clearly explain the value of the work, reach the people affected by it and continue communicating long enough for the message to be understood.
For Dowdell, that discipline sits at the center of TDG’s work: helping organizations explain consequential issues in ways people can understand, evaluate and act on.
