Name: Raise Your Voice
Rating: 4.2 (10 reviews)
Author: Brian Sooy

What’s in it for me? Get your message heard loud and clear.

According to some estimates, Nike spent over $3 billion on marketing and advertising in 2014. This huge budget allowed the sportswear giant to project their brand and story across multiple channels. So how can a small nonprofit like a local charity possibly compete with such full-throttle spending?

Well, of course it can’t, but this doesn’t mean it can’t make itself heard. These blinks help explain how nonprofits of every size can communicate in a way that amplifies their message above the competition and reaches the attention of their potential supporters.

These blinks also show you

why everyone, from board member to volunteer must broadcast the same message; and
why your design should have a mission.

If you want to be heard, communicate with clarity.

Can you even estimate how many brand messages you hear each day? It’s probably in the hundreds, if not thousands and, for a resource-strapped nonprofit, making your voice heard in this cacophony can be nearly impossible.

Your only hope is effective communication, and that means speaking with a single, clear voice. That’s because the best communication is clear communication. But what is clarity exactly?

It’s when every part of your organization echoes the same message. For instance, if you work for Greenpeace, your message is “environmental care” and this has to be central to everything else you say. That means your campaign against nuclear power needs to connect to environmental care in just the same way as your work against political corruption.

But it’s also essential to focus on the critical things you want to get across about your organization: your purpose – why you exist, your mission – what difference you’ll make, and your goals.

For example, Greenpeace’s message should emphasize their mission to end practices that are detrimental to the environment and to communicate their ultimate goal of a cleaner, safer, more peaceful world. Messages like this give people a good sense of what an organization does and how helping Greenpeace will help the world.

However, it’s not just your publicity and advertising that need to speak with clarity, all your staff from the chief executive to your volunteers need to speak the same message too. So, ensure that everyone who speaks for your organization can clearly state the mission in just one sentence.

If you don’t, a tide of conflicting messages will erode the clarity of your message.

And remember, clarity doesn’t just mean being reasonable, informative and speaking your mind. Clarity is also about inspiration and speaking to people’s emotions.

While inspiration and clarity may begin with your organization’s board, it shouldn’t stop there. Because once your board is committed, you can use them to gain commitments from every staffer down the ladder and eventually to reach your audience.

Relating to and inspiring your audience are essential for effective communication.

The third principle of a cause manifesto requires using relational principles in your communication. This means it should be full of content and make people interact with your organization.

There are lots of ways to accomplish this, like by making shareable content or showing your audience how grateful you are to them. By doing so you’ll build a relationship that encourages them to become active as new ambassadors or advocates.

Key ideas in Raise Your Voice