Raise Your Voice Book Summary - Raise Your Voice Book explained in key points
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Raise Your Voice summary

Brian Sooy

A Cause Manifesto

4.2 (10 ratings)
9 mins
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    Raise Your Voice
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    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.

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    Key ideas in Raise Your Voice

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    What is Raise Your Voice about?

    Raise Your Voice (2014) is a guidebook to getting your message across as a nonprofit organization. These blinks explain everything you need to know to build a stellar communication strategy that wins over supporters and keeps people enthusiastic about your mission.

    Best quote from Raise Your Voice

    The audience wants assurance that the organization is credible, and want to believe the cause is worth investing in.

    —Brian Sooy
    example alt text

    Who should read Raise Your Voice?

    • Employees and volunteers at nonprofit and philanthropic organizations
    • Anyone interested in effective communication and making themselves heard

    About the Author

    Brian Sooy is an entrepreneur and principal of Aespire, a design and communication firm that helps nonprofit and philanthropic organizations.

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