99.9% of the time, the reason I am brought in to an organization to help solve a communications challenge is related to change of some fashion. In about half of these cases, it seems that a problem originated after a poor decision was made  and the other times, because a supremely proactive organization wants to ensure it is done as well as possible.

Here’s the first few points from my September enewsletter on this topic which offers a checklist for the critical success factors of change. If you want to read the full article click here or better yet, sign up, so you get future issues delivered straight to your in box.

How does your organization measure up:

Business case - there has to be a strong business reason to make the change. Without this rationale, and senior management and board support, it will simply not happen. Trying to push through a change alone is like rolling a granite boulder up a very steep hill.

Guiding principles or rules to live by - taking the business case a step further, begin with a critical dialogue. Formal or not, the process should include a frank discussion about how the work will get done, how difficult decisions will be made, and where the inevitable lines will be drawn in the sand. This could be three simple statements, or ten, but it is the process that counts the most.

Schedule and time commitment - change doesn’t miraculously happen, at least, not well! A commitment to a realistic timeline is critical and tells everyone involved that this is a serious project that is happening, with or without them!

Big picture thinking - while it can feel to the people involved that the change is all important and the only critical thing happening in the organization, this is almost never true. It’s important to recognize where this change fits into the larger context. To not do so is to risk errors and to miss opportunities.

Want to read the rest? Click here.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy recently concluded something close to my heart - that nonprofit organizations need to do a better job of recruiting and training volunteers, and keeping them engaged. We have all been there, personally and professionally, no doubt… asked to join a nebulous committee, perform volunteer feats that no mere mortal could be expected to achieve, pester and bully our family and friends into donating their time and money, and stuff envelopes too.

This is not a recipe for long term success. Instead:

• Recruit and orient your volunteers, and staff, carefully and with consideration for the skills and attributes you need. A live body or bum in the chair is not a recruitment goal! A volunteer or staff mismatch only leads to dissatisfaction.
• Once you have the right people on the bus, give them what they need to work and feel great — tools, information and leadership!
• Keep them informed and engaged, making sure they know how they fit and how their efforts are appreciated.
• And last but not least, listen to them…communication is intended to be two-way!

What I have come to realize over the past few years is that there is no longer any generalization in public relations and communications. Technology, market forces and demographics have transformed my profession. This signals that the tide has turned within the marketplace and all of its sectors.

What this means to organizations is that the old rules no longer apply. The trusted bag of communications tricks is no longer effective. One industry person commented at a seminar I attended recently that media releases (you may still be calling them news releases) are now considered the lowest life form of public relations. But this is the tool most organizations rely upon to get the word out.

If your communications efforts are at the lower end of the food chain, it’s time to think about how you can avoid being gobbled up… more to follow. Watch this space.

The more you do something, the better you become at it. This is as true for communications and marketing, as it is for anything else. A marketing expert I read once said, "writing is like flexing your marketing muscle" and I have certainly found this to be true.

The more you write to, talk to, listen to and absorb all you can about your donors, staff and volunteers, the more natural and authentic your communications will become. You will be speaking their language, rather than the clunky, formal org-speak of your mandate, vision etc. This leads to better matches, greater understanding, and more funds raised for the work of your organization. So feel that burn (the good and healthy kind)!

Like making grand personal resolutions, good communications in organizations is something we strive for but don’t always achieve.  Like anything that’s worth doing, it’s "obvious but not easy." Quitting smoking, eating better, or exercising more is about integrating new habits and not about knowing they’re good for you. When I work with a client organization, I almost always find that they know what they want or need to do — but for various reasons can’t get there.  The same often applies to strategic planning and visioning exercises — it is more energizing and fun to blue sky the future than it is to do the daily work that will support the end goal. If this rings true for you, dust off that plan, and talk with your team members about concrete steps you each can do, today, tomorrow and this month, to make progress. The more real you can make your strategy, the less it will feel like a special project that can be put on hold while the "real work" gets done. Watch for more on habits coming soon!

Attend a few gatherings of fundraisers or nonprofit executives and you’ll soon tap into what’s on the minds of people working in this sector. One of the most common topics of discussion is how to create a giving environment, a.k.a. culture of philanthropy (another example of bad language in fundraising). I spend a lot of time helping others communicate better within organizations, and I have always been a strong advocate of what I call inside-out communications.

At yesterday’s presentation to the Association of Fundraising Professionals in Winnipeg by Tom Ahern and Simone Joyaux on Keeping Your Donors (based on their recent book Keep Your Donors –buy it!),the unavoidable and ever present link to the level of support and understanding within the organization for fundraising came up more a few times. Lucky for me as I will be speaking on this topic to the same group in a few weeks.

So here’s my spin on this: If you are lamenting that no one understands you, that fundraising doesn’t get the support it deserves, etc., convincing others how important fundraising is to your organization is not going to work. The same way you can’t argue a prospective donor who is not interested in your cause into making a donation, assaulting other staff with facts and figures is not likely to help you much.

A culture of philanthropy is not something you grow in a petri dish or in a series of statistic heavy, carefully crafted debates — it’s gained through shared experiences, rowing in the same direction and those little "emotional aha" moments when someone has realized on a personal level, how they have contributed to something that makes a difference. And they want to do more of it!

Of course, there is more that you can do, and it doesn’t happen overnight. However, it bears remembering that in fact, accountants are only human and not the mutants they are called in Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium — although they might like numbers more than the average person, they have feelings too! (p.s. I am married to one).

Just like consumers in the marketplace, donors can be at any point in the psychology of buying process at any given time. This is through no fault of your own; the fact is, you have no control over if or when a prospective donor is going to make a contribution to your organization.
All that you can do is encourage them to walk with you down the path of the possible. This is not without its challenges: in many cases you are selling the invisible. Unlike a product you can touch, see, feel or hear, your organization is selling a cause and a chance to invest in it. This isn’t new. What is? Today more people make decisions based on their peers and aided by social media using internet, popular tools like Facebook, YouTube and others. So in addition to being able to identify and market to the right prospects, organizations and businesses are also wise to recognize the power of word of mouth.So what can you do to encourage a contribution, and ultimately, a relationship? Read the rest here.

The secret of popular writing is never to put more on a given page than the common reader can lap off it with no strain whatsoever on his habitually slack attention.

  - Ezra Pound

The next time you’re seeking perfection, resist the urge to edit yourself to death. One of the best lessons I’ve ever learned was early in my career when a high ranking vice-president of communications took one look at something I had painstakingly laboured over and said, "you realize no one cares and no one will read this whole thing." As you can imagine, this was not the reaction I had wished for nor anticipated. However, like most parental advice that you don’t agree with at the time, subsequent experience showed me that he was right.

It is easy to justify the holy grail of perfection when writing something that will be seen or heard by your very important audiences. However, the truth is, simpler really is better (note - simpler doesn’t always mean shorter, but if you can say the same thing clearly in less words, go for it). In the nonprofit world, this can be a challenge as most every project is done through a committee process, and multiple people shape and have input into the final product. Too much of this is not a good thing, and will erode and weaken your message. If you find that you are beyond a few drafts of a fundraising appeal or other item, and are at the stage where the comments are focused on specific words - namely changing them for other words of the same meaning - rather than improving the overall content, you may have crossed the tweak line!

Writing for marketing purposes always has an objective, an audience and a specific action in mind. More time spent on agreeing to these up front will make your end result better. Then when it comes to review, the measure of the approval or disapproval should be based on the end goal. This is not to say that well chosen words are less important — but it bears remembering that with more than 171,000 words in the english language, there is always another way to say something. Perfection is entirely subjective. With today’s information top-heavy environment, and my personal lesson in mind, do yourself and your audience a favour, and simplify!

If you are a reader of many popular nonprofit marketing blogs, you’ll soon find that several common themes emerge. The reason? Because these are the issues that are most common for nonprofit organizations. Communications and marketing, especially for fundraising purposes, is so vitally important and also difficult. If it were easier, everyone would be doing it so much better! People like me who work in this field hear the same challenges and issues from so many organizations - it’s hard, we don’t have the resources, people don’t seem to be responding to our message, there’s too much competition, and so on.

This is all true, and it will always be true. Yet there are many organizations that sustain themselves, and even thrive, while facing these same challenges. What is the answer?

In my view, it comes down to one simple answer - they know who they are! The minute you start to stretch your organization to fit the criteria of a new grant, or tweak your message to appeal to a new group that’s beyond your usual audience, is the moment you start to dilute your image, and therefore weaken it. All the money and time in the world will not improve the results for your organization if you do not start off with a clear image and goal in mind. This is why the smallest and most grassroots driven organization can succeed above others, without the bells and whistles, if it has a clear goal and message. 

I’ll let you in on a little personal secret. When I’m working on a project for a nonprofit, I look for the secret ingredient that makes its flavour unique. I read all of the material, like annual reports, newsletters, fundraising applications and appeals and the like. But most of the time, that’s not where I find it. These have often been added to and convoluted over time, that they rarely reflect what the organization is actually doing today.  To get the true sense of the organization, I talk to the volunteers and donors to find out what motivates them to give their time and money above all of the other options out there. And I talk to someone who has benefitted as a result.

So the next time you are stumped by writing a message or just feel discouraged, get out of your office and get back to the very basics of what makes your organization tick day after day.

Are you stuck? Borrowed from business writer and direct response expert Dan Kennedy, here are some creativity formulas to help you work with what you’ve got:

1. If you can’t change the product, change the package.
2. Make it bigger.
3. Make it smaller.
4. Add to it.
5. Subtract from it.
6. Do it faster.
7. Do it slower.
8. Do it cheaper.
9. Do it more expensively.

These formulas can work for anything, from a pizza parlour to your nonprofit. There really aren’t that many new ideas under the sun, it just takes some creativity and fresh perspective to make the most of what you’ve got!

Interested in more like this? I’m offering a free teleseminar this week that will introduce you to new ways of thinking about your "old" nonprofit challenges. Signing up gives you access to the session as well as 15 days of tips to get you started.