The NonProfit Times - The Leading Business Publication For Nonprofit Management

By Rebecca K. Leet
When you are talking about such important issues, why aren’t more people listening? That lament might reside in the top five questions most often asked by nonprofit leaders. The pain and frustration behind it often motivates an organization to develop a message that, it hopes, will break through information overload and be heard by its target audiences.

While it’s tempting to move quickly to develop a message when frustration gets too great, an organization needs to resist the urge, pause, and first do some preliminary -- though not necessarily time-consuming -- reflection. Before starting, it’s important to thoughtfully assess the organization’s specific message need and its readiness to use the message developed.

Honest self-assessment is necessary if an organization wants to ensure it creates the right message and that it will use the message once it’s created.

The first issue to address is the specific purpose of the message. Is it to cause action in the near term? Is it to raise the visibility or clarify the identity of the organization so that activating audiences is easier later? Is it to explain an especially difficult issue, concept, or set of scientific or technical goals?

Once the specific purpose of the message is determined, the following 10 questions help an organization or program assess its message need. The accumulation of yes or no answers is less important than the discussion engendered by the questions. Answering them requires an organization to look at itself with naked honesty and sometimes face uncomfortable truths, such as the fact that not everyone in the group agrees on the outcomes the organization is trying to achieve.

Are we satisfied with how well people listen to us when we talk about our organization or program?
Does everyone in our organization explain the overarching goal of the organization or program in the same way?
Do we know who our target audiences are?
Does everyone in the organization agree on the goal of the program or project we wish to communicate about?
Can the group articulate the action we wish to have happen as a result of talking to stakeholders?
When someone asks us to describe the purpose or the essence of the organization or program, can we do so effectively in less than thirty seconds?
When we describe what we do or what our goal is, do people look at us blankly or with confusion when we are done?
Can we talk about our program or project using only language that our next door neighbor would understand?
Do we know what audiences we need to reach to achieve the action we want?
Do we know the desires of our audiences and what desires of theirs will be met if they take the action we want?

An organization could recognize that it needs and wants a message, but that does not necessarily mean that it is ready to develop one. The executive director of a conservation group might resist spending time being involved in the process, yet creating a message without her is a recipe for failure. The program director of a professional association might feel that he doesn’t need to be involved because it’s a “communications” responsibility.

However, an inter-disciplinary creative team is critical to designing an effective message. Researchers for a health agency could insist on jargon words rather than agreeing to everyday language target audiences will understand. Board members might reject orienting the message to the audience’s perspective rather than focusing on what the organization wants to say.

Before deciding to undertake a message development process, roadblocks to success must be recognized and addressed. These seven questions help an organization identify potential barriers so that they can be dealt with - in other words, to assess its readiness to create a strategic message. The questions are purposefully leading because an organization is not ready to develop a message until it can answer yes to all of them.

Will we involve an interdisciplinary team in the message development process?
Will the team include our organization’s or program’s top leadership?
Will we use the strategic message that is developed for a sustained period of time?
Will we be disciplined about how we use the message, for example, refraining from changing it due to boredom?
Will we commit to stating an organizational expectation that everyone in the organization, including board members and volunteers, will learn to use the strategic message?
Will we refrain from telling our audiences what they should want or do?
Will we practice linking what we want them to do with something they desire?

Truly strategic messages connect an organization’s goals to what actually drive stakeholders to take action. They resonate with audience desires so that audiences are motivated to act in a way the organization desires. Not surprisingly, the process of creating such messages usually takes the organization deep into its own goals and motivations-and even to the heart of organizational strategy.

That’s why the message development process should be undertaken only when an organization is clear about what it needs and how disciplined it will be about using what it creates.

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Rebecca K. Leet, principal of Rebecca Leet & Associates, is a strategic consultant to nonprofit organizations and writes and speaks about nonprofit issues. She is the author of Message Matters: Succeeding at the Crossroads of Mission and Market, which was published recently by Fieldstone Alliance. Her email address is rleet@leetassociates.com.