Category Archives: Social Responsibility

Have you advanced your organization’s mission today?

Have you advanced your organization’s mission today? Your readers are eager to know about it!

Every outreach or fundraising piece you write needs to speak to your organization’s reason for existing in the first place. That is, each page should remind your readers that you never forget what you set out to do in your community.

Every values-driven organization has a specific mission to make a positive difference in the world. My guess is that you already know what yours is. You may not have memorized your official mission statement, but you are clear on the essence of your organization. Your mission, after all, is a key part of your organization’s brand.

To your readers, your mission (or perhaps some particular aspect of it) is the heart of the matter. They want to hear that it is central to everything you do. They want to know that your work continues to be relevant to their lives and the life of their community, even as times and circumstances change.

There is no shame in reminding yourself of your organization’s mission statement once in a while. Some people I know even plaster it on the wall or make it their screensaver to keep it at the top of the mind and on the tip of the tongue.

Your mission should inspire and motivate support and commitment from those who share your concerns. Your organization’s name alone should cause your mission to spring to mind.

However, if you — and your colleagues — do not revisit your mission statement regularly, and ideally fine-tune or update it on occasion, you can get stuck in out-of-date patterns of branding. This is true for both start-up organizations (whose missions are usually still evolving) and more established groups. For instance, a client organization of mine had focused for decades on the needs of all low-income families, but recent demographic changes in their county compelled them to focus on new immigrants, with the associated cultural and linguistic challenges.

Even more dangerously, if you are not careful to monitor your work in light of your mission, your organization could easily lose its sense of direction. The Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland summarized why you need a strong, relevant mission: “If you don’t know where you’re going, it doesn’t matter which way you go.”

Of course, your readers might not come out and ask, “What is your mission?” Instead, they might want to know what you do (how you benefit your clients and the community), how you do it (products and services featured in your work), and why you exist at all (why you are needed).

Help them out by frequently reminding them of your goals and how you are consistently making progress toward them. You cannot assume that your readers will instantly recall who you are or exactly what you do — and that includes both die-hard supporters/patrons and casual online surfers who may have stumbled across your website. But repetition will certainly help!

Here are some tips for maintaining a focus on mission in your copy… (Read more on the GIFT Exchange blog)

Please join me and the Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training (GIFT) on September 13th for my webinar, “Writing to Make a Difference: How to Create Fundraising & Outreach Materials that Get Results.” Click here or give Ryan Li a call at 888-458-8588 X301 to register or for more info.

Meeting Readers: Young Nonprofit Professionals Network Book Club Event

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This week, I had the pleasure of meeting with nearly a dozen readers at the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network (YNPN) Book Club in San Francisco.I’m proud to say that I have been involved in YNPN since its founding in 1997; the group started here in the Bay Area and has since gone national.

YNPN Book Club meets to discuss "Writing to Make a Difference"

The YNPN Book Club drew people from many positions, all with an interest in writing, books, nonprofits, social entrepreneurship, grantmaking, and/or related topics. I enjoyed hearing about their work and everyday communication struggles—many of which I write about in Writing to Make a Difference! For example, they:

Understood the importance of everyone in an organization knowing and communicating their mission, often using similar keywords whenever they are representing the organization (speaking or writing)

Were interested in the re-branding process when an organization’s mission changes, or is moving from a negative frame to a positive one

Realized the importance of writing about benefits to all stakeholders (both clients and supporters), even if those benefits are sometimes assumed or difficult to uncover

Recognized the goal of maintaining an organization’s values and ethics during all marketing activities (e.g., upholding the dignity and diversity of clients while engaging supporters’ wish to help)

Talked about the rise of social media and the importance of ensuring its effectiveness in our fundraising and marketing work

A few challenges people were grappling with included:

Showing impact in terms of both the head (numbers or facts) and the heart (before-and-after stories with emotional appeal), instead of simply writing about “numbers of people served”

Debates within their organizations on defining exactly who their audiences are, and the best ways to reach them
Dalya (in white, on the left) speaks with the YNPN Book Club in San Francisco

Book Club participants also told me how they look forward to sharing Writing to Make a Difference—and its many exercises and tools—with their colleagues back at the office. Excellent! I intended for the book to serve as a way to encourage a “writing-positive” organizational culture. One of the best ways to learn is in community, where you can get lots of feedback. I highly recommend using the book in a group: Discuss the various skills you are learning, work together on the “Writing Workouts” at the end of each chapter, and get input from colleagues who are also committed to improving their writing.

Also, you may be interested in working with me and many others in the Writing to Make a Difference Online Community, where we will provide lots of feedback to each other. We are currently building that site; please contact me directly to learn more about it.

All of this focus on feedback reminds me that, unfortunately, the YNPN Book Club did not have the chance to talk about the editing section of the book. Many young professionals have told me that their supervisors often lack the time to offer constructive feedback on their writing. This frequently means that this critical skill goes undeveloped and may hamper professional growth. If YOU have an experience in this area, either as a staff person or as a supervisor, I would love to hear about it!