The View From Skookumchuck Road: A Few Words

When I was starting work as a consultant with a new client and had my first meeting with the Board or the senior staff, I often would conduct a little exercise that went something like this:

(Me): “I’ve read through your information, annual reports, etc., but I wanted to take a few minutes to hear directly from you what you really do.”

(Board or staff members): They usually provide me with a litany of services and programs the organization carries out.

(Me): “If you were on an elevator and had an about 3 – 5 minute ride, and someone asked you about the organization and what it does, what would you say?”

(Board or staff members): They usually provide me with a condensed version of the first responses.

(Me): “Now, please tell me in one or two sentences what you really do?”

(Board or staff members): Often the response was “Hmmm. It’s difficult. We do so much it’s hard to condense it into one or two sentences.”

My point with this exercise was always to get the leadership of the organization to express what its real core was, not give me a list of its programs and services. If possible, the one or two sentences should also show how the organization is different from others that might be seen as providing similar services or programs. Some organizations refer to this core as their “brand”, a concept I sometimes had difficulty with as the brand might not really reflect whom they serve or the impact they have on those served. One organization I knew went through an elaborate branding process and basically came up with a brand that was their existing mission statement.

So what am I getting at here? The description of your programs and services is not enough, because it leaves out the impact on the lives of those your organization serves. After I went through the above exercise with one of my clients and after we had reached a dead-end at the one or two sentence challenge, I said “What you really do here is change lives.” All of a sudden the discussion focused on the outcomes of their services and programs – the real impact on the people they served, rather than a list of what they did every day.  The organization’s members gave many examples of people whose lives had been turned around because they were touched by the organization and what it did. The effect was to bring the organization’s impact to a more human, emotional level that could better connect to its supporters and the general public. These stories became the basis for annual reports, newsletters, and fundraising appeals.

Now, I want to recount one quick story about how this approach of getting to the real core of an organization, and how it can help with fundraising. Many years ago I was working with an Easter Seal Center and helping to prepare them for a capital campaign to acquire a new building. It had never undertaken a capital campaign and had a relatively small annual campaign effort, so the campaign would be a big step. This Center was unique because the therapists were using a very innovative treatment method for disabled children that, in many cases, enabled the children to achieve almost complete mobility. I was asked to suggest a campaign theme, and thought long and hard about what theme could be used to generate excitement and yet keep the focus on what was really being accomplished by the Center’s programs. I went back to the Center and watched the kids getting excited as they started to walk. And suddenly there was the campaign theme:

“Little steps… big steps.”