Collaborating with creative consultants can be a real game-changer. Bringing fresh perspectives, compelling storytelling, and impactful visuals to help you reach your target audience. However, making sure you get the most out of these collaborations requires more than simply hiring a talented creative; it’s about fostering a smooth and efficient work relationship.
In this blog, I'll share the top 5 tips I would give to any iNGO when trying to improve their workflow with creatives. Whether you’re commissioning a film, photography project, or campaign materials, these tips will help ensure your collaboration is as productive and effective as possible.
Collaborating with creative consultants can be a real game-changer, especially when working with visual communicators such as filmmakers, photographers, and multimedia specialists.
These partnerships bring fresh perspectives, compelling storytelling, and impactful visuals to help you reach your target audience. However, making sure you get the most out of these collaborations requires more than simply hiring a talented creative; it’s about fostering a smooth and efficient work relationship.
Over the years, I’ve had the honor of working on numerous communication projects with INGOs such as the United Nations, The Nature Conservancy, Mohamed Bin Zayed Wildlife Foundation, and more. Through these experiences, I’ve witnessed how small tweaks to the shared workflow (on both ends) lead to significantly better results.
In this blog, I would like to share with you the top 5 tips I would give to any iNGO when trying to improve their workflow with creatives. Whether you’re commissioning a film, photography project, or campaign materials, these tips will help ensure your collaboration is as productive and effective as possible.
INGOs issue detailed Terms of Reference (TOR) to attract capable creative consultants for a variety of projects. But often, these TORs unintentionally restrict their capabilities before the work begins. While TORs are essential for setting expectations, an overly rigid framework can stifle creativity and prevent consultants from performing at their best.
The ‘pain point’ when it comes to following TORs is when they dictate not just what is expected deliverables but also how the creative consultant needs to create them. My recommendation is to avoid treating the TOR as a rigid framework but rather as a point of reference.
Over the years, I've noticed that the most impactful communication ideas were the outcomes of joined brainstorming sessions - allowing the creative consultants to have the flexibility and freedom to pitch ideas that went beyond the original TOR of the project.
Of course, no communication project can be made without a clear and goal-oriented TOR. Moreover, as the communication executive, you will always have the final say on what the creative team will end up producing. Just remember that creative freedom can lead to results that exceed all expectations. Once you’ve chosen a creative you trust, be open and consider their ideas. After all, you hired them for their expertise—so give them the chance to use it.
Writing reports is a standard practice for INGOs, ensuring transparency, accountability, and progress tracking. However, most creatives tend to struggle with the process of writing and submitting reports that are effective, clear, and relevant to iNGO needs. Now don’t get me wrong, I firmly believe that any creative working with iNGOs should be able to produce the needed documents - reports included! However, I’ll recommend turning your iNGO’s reporting needs into a structured system that the creative consultants can simply follow.
One of the best solutions I’ve experienced was with an INGO that required my team to submit progress reports at each production stage. Instead of leaving my team to figure out the structure of each report on our own, they provided us with a ‘Reporting template’ and an approved example from a previous project. This simple act transformed the reporting task into a quick, easy, and well-structured process—almost like answering a Q&A form.
I know that for INGO professionals, writing comprehensive reports can often be second nature, but for us creatives who have a slightly different internal workflow, having clear guidelines and structured formats makes a significant difference - easing bureaucracy, speeding up the development and produaction process and ensure that more of their time and effort is spent where it truly matters: bringing your vision to life.
In many INGOs, there’s a strong tendency to stick to what’s been done before - thinking that since it was approved it must have been beneficial. This mindset often leads to repeating outdated practices rather than exploring more effective ones. This is especially crucial when it comes to communication products as these practices can be a real hindrance to the success of your investment.
Without mentioning any names, allow me to share with you an example from a film production I worked on for an iNGO a few years back. The client had commissioned a series of communication products, highlighting the benefits of the project they were implementing within the local population. However, one of their common practice required that each video begin with a 20-second animation showcasing their own and partners’ logos.
You can probably see the problem here—this was an instant engagement killer. After running a few test screenings, we quickly proved that most viewers lost interest within seconds and never even reached the actual content of the films. While we did manage to change this requirement it made me wonder: How many other powerful films had been undermined by this practice?
Identifying and fine-tuning your organization from harmful practices is key to improving your communication efforts. Remember, the most impactful communication products often result from breaking away from conventions and embracing innovation.
One of the most important things to establish when working with a creative consultant is a clear deadline for reviews and feedback. These stages are essential, helping guide the creative team toward your desired outcome and allowing them to refine the communication product to serve your needs.
However, one of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen INGOs make is, that once they arrive at a review stage of production, they flood the creative team with feedback through dozens of emails from multiple sources and often with conflicting requests - leaving the creative team confused about how to move forward.
To avoid this, I strongly recommend following these three steps before submitting your reviews:
By centralizing your feedback and prioritizing structured conversations, you’ll be more effective at guiding the creative team toward your desired outcome and adaptations while avoiding days or even weeks of clarification emails and calls.
You’ve done it! You worked with a team of creative consultants and together, you’ve produced a powerful and effective communication product—one you’re both proud of and eager to share with your audience.
But too often, this is where things fall apart. Many INGOs fail to prioritize dissemination, treating it as an afterthought rather than an essential part of the communication strategy. It’s disheartening to see months (sometimes even years) of hard work and financial investment disseminated in a way that fails to generate a fraction of its potential for engagement or meaningful impact.
Effective communication isn’t just about creating a great video, photo series, or campaign—it’s about making sure the right people see it, engage with it, and take action. That’s why dissemination should be an integral part of the project from day one. By working with your creative consultant’s team to integrate a dissemination strategy early on, you ensure that the content is designed with its audience and distribution channels in mind. This might mean adjusting formats, leveraging strategic collaborations with your pre-existing partners, or ensuring the messaging aligns with the platforms where it will be shared.
Think of it this way: Even if you have created an amazing communication product that is aligned perfectly with your INGO’s mission and values! But if no one sees it, you might as well be communicating with yourself.
In this blog post, we talked about relatively small shifts you can do that I believe will make a big difference in how well your communication products perform. By approaching creative collaborations with clear strategies, open communication, and a willingness to adapt, you set the stage for smoother workflows and stronger results.
Always remember that, at the end of the day, both the creatives and the iNGO’s communication professionals want the same thing - to share your message through impactful, engaging, and effective content that reaches the right audience.
I hope these insights help you navigate your next project more effectively. If you found this useful, feel free to share it with colleagues or anyone who might benefit from it. And of course, if you have any thoughts, questions, or experiences to add—I’d love to hear them! Let’s keep the conversation going.
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