Happy Wednesday, nonprofit communications leaders.

Whew, last week's ​Nonprofit Comms Salary Report was a HIT with you all! I could not believe the responses I got in my inbox. It sounds like I've struck a nerve, and many of you found the data to be a helpful tool for your next salary conversation.

Today I'm moving away from the topic of how much we get paid and moving to the topic of how we can move up in our organizations. Which, honestly, is tied to salary in a way because you can't move up in your nonprofit if you don't have the right relationships.

Now before I'm accused of telling you all to schmooze your way to the top, let me put a stop to that real quick. What I'm not talking about today is sucking up and becoming THAT COWORKER. No, I'm talking about the real things you can do to earn trust with the people in your organization who can advocate for your role to increase or change. Because you can't do it on your own.

So keep reading to hear my advice for you.

You need more than just your CEO.

I've written and spoken at great length about the need to develop trust and build rapport with the leader of your organization. And I stand by that. If you want to become a strategic partner at your organization, your leader needs to know who you are and what you bring to the table.

Some of you are working at 300-person organizations, and this is easier said than done. Others of you are working on teams of under 25, and you're in that awkward position of having a leader who is everyone's "friend," but also... everyone's boss. It's complicated, and I get that.

So before I move on, yes, find ways to get to know your leader, be in meetings with your leader, and serve your leader well. If anything, ask your boss what you can do to get more time with the leader or access to projects you can work on that will give him or her more awareness of your skills.

You need the other senior leaders.

In each of my nonprofit comms roles, I was promoted to the next level up because someone higher up than me believed I could do it and advocated for me. Every. Single. One.

But that wasn't just a random occurrence where a leader was sitting in his office one day and had a sudden idea to promote me. No, I made sure my direct bosses knew what kind of responsibilities I was looking for.

Here's what this did NOT look like:

• Constantly mentioning my desire to lead at a higher level
• Including an item in my weekly 1:1 to remind my boss that I wanted more responsibility
• Incessant texting, emailing, or phone calls asking if there was anything else I could do to prove myself

That may work in some instances, possibly out of sheer annoyance and a desire to make it stop. But it won't get you where you want to go.

Here are some things I did to build trust and rapport with other senior leaders besides the CEO:

I executed well.

If I was in charge of running social media for a huge national event, then I prepared a comprehensive strategy, complete with timelines, pre-written copy, and a spreadsheet to make execution in the moment on-brand and easy.

This actually earned me a pay raise when our Twitter account received so much organic engagement that we earned "verified" status. Remember those days?? Now you have to pay for that honor.

But I digress...

You do have to be good at your job. So if you're struggling in an area of comms, go get help. Find a mentor in your city, follow experts on LinkedIn, or join a community where you can learn how to become a better nonprofit comms leader.

I picked up the phone when the boss called.

Now, if you work for a really unhealthy person with poor boundaries, this piece of advice doesn't apply to you.

But I worked for a boss that I really liked and trusted, and he was more of a phone-call person than a Slack person, and especially not an email person. So if he needed to talk things through, he called.

Those conversations were often so productive and helpful for us both. It was through those phone calls that we problem-solved together, and I was able to make his job easier by taking things off his plate.

I actually hate being called without warning, so this was something I did outside my comfort zone, and it paid off. Because when he was promoted, he brought me with him.

I got to know people as fellow human beings.

This one is huge.

Your fellow coworkers, and especially senior leaders, are stretched thin. They may feel pressure from the board or even the top leader, and you will win no award for being the person who piles onto their overwhelming plates.

So I worked hard to become friends with some of the senior leaders. It wasn't always a good fit, and I never forced something that wasn't there, but I did ask them questions about what they liked and didn't like. I joked around with them in Slack. I sent them memes.

We interacted as coworkers, not just two people on an org chart with varying levels of seniority.

As I got to know them better, when we were working on projects together, we had an established relationship already. And working together with people who trust each other is a HUGE step in the right direction.

In one instance, I remember hearing of a job opening in another department, and one of my interns was a PERFECT fit for that role. I was able to pick up the phone and talk to that senior leader about the intern and share my thoughts on why I thought he should hire her.

That only happened because we had a relationship of mutual respect and trust.

There are a lot of things outside of your control when it comes to your career, but building trust and rapport with those who can advocate for you is not one of them.

Make the effort to build bridges with those you work with. It will make the work more meaningful and the end product much better.

(Plus, if people like you, they tend not to get in your way as much. 😉)

Happy communicating,

Founder of the Nonprofit Comms Club, former nonprofit CCO

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