Shaping Your Message, Cont'd

Start at the Top

Everyone in the organization needs to be on board with your key messages.

You want all of your nonprofit’s key constituencies – board/trustees, staff and volunteers – on board with the process of developing your positioning statement and main program messages. Much of the heavy lifting for building the foundation for those messages will rightly fall to the executive director/president and other managers of your organization.

It is also advisable to include staff who work closely with constituents in this process to provide feedback on proposed messages. Even if some staff and managers initially push back on being involved, citing already busy schedules, explain how invaluable they are to this process.

And remind them of the benefits: Communication is one of the most important tools they have. It helps them articulate and frame the issues in a way that your audience can understand and relate to – and in a way that respects the audience. (In fact, when we went through this process at TSNE, we put it into our annual workplan to ensure participation.)

So, while your communications director shapes and leads the process, these other managers and staff need to work with him or her at each stage, developing the positioning statement, clarifying it, approving the final messages and refining them further over time.

Develop Your Positioning Statement: An Inclusive, Structured Process

Developing your message presupposes that you have done the foundational work of knowing your audiences, your competitors and the partners in your specific non-profit field, and you are clear about your desired program results.

If that is the case, then one way to efficiently create a consensus on a positioning statement is by facilitating highly disciplined, tightly focused meetings with your senior management team and other appropriate staff.

Provide participants with the facts.

In advance of the initial meeting, provide participants with a document that crystallizes your mission and intended impact; clarifies in black and white who you serve, where and in what ways; and outlines who comprises your competitors, partners, etc. You want to clarify your niche, or what makes you unique. Give yourselves about an hour to discuss your position in the nonprofit and larger community, and another 30 minutes to brainstorm key descriptors of your work.

Then, follow this meeting with one (at least 90 minutes) in which you will draft your positioning statement, supported by 3 core messages (culled from the key descriptors by the communications group). Include many proof points, defined by Texas Tech University as data and specific evidence to substantiate the claims found within your core messages and positioning statements. A final meeting should be held as soon as possible to give the messages lift, differentiating and validating them even further.

A final positioning statement and set of messages should be refined by the communications staff and presented for sign off to your executive director/president.

Getting Buy-in Across Your Organization

The executive leadership in your non-profit organization needs to commit to the strategic positioning statement and make it clear that everyone in the organization is part of the overall "messaging" and branding team. This combination of leadership and effective tools is the basis for a clear, effective communications direction.

That, in turn, is the basis for all of the communications emanating from your nonprofit. This, of course, goes for your general communications and marketing efforts, but it even includes community relations, speeches, advertising and internal communications.

Sharing Your Mission and Vision with Your Community

With your positioning statement and core messages in hand, the communications team can help to coordinate strategic, focused and integrated outreach campaigns to build and strengthen your non-profit organization’s brand in support of your programs, constituent education and policy advocacy campaigns, and fundraising initiatives.

Now, on your next elevator ride, you’ll be prepared to spread the good word.

About the Authors

Diane Boudreau, diane@graphictouch.com, is founder and creative director of Graphic Touch, a strategic design and communications firm located in Newburyport, Mass., specializing in work with non-profit organizations.

Denise Moorehead is the director of communications, education and outreach at Third Sector New England.

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