We help non-profits and sustainable businesses with a range of strategic and messaging issues.
- Assessment of Current Framing – What is getting traction, what isn’t, and why?
- Opposition and Competitive Research on Framing – What is the other side saying about your organization, and is it sticking? What are you saying about them?
- Media Research – Does the media accept and repeat your framing? Why or why not? Is your organization seen as credible and constructive by the media?
- Framing and Message Development – What framing and message could work better than what you are using currently? What can be improved regarding message content, creative, or delivery?
- Audience-specific Messaging – Do your messages align properly across multiple stakeholder groups such as customers and staff (in the business sector) and members, staff, donors, and targets of influence (in the non-profit sector)?
- Messages of Identity – Is your organization speaking to its audiences at the level of their deeply-held values and sense of identity? Or is your organization limited to the less inspiring level of pragmatic, utilitarian benefits?
- Breadth of Appeal – Are you limiting your appeal with an overly narrow message platform? Conversely, do you risk alienating your base or those core customers who are most passionate about your social mission as you work to pursue a broader audience or market?
- Capacity to Deliver – Is the promise implicit in your message consistent with what your organization has the operational and financial capacity to deliver? Or is your organization at risk of losing credibility with key stakeholders?
- Messaging and Strategy – is your message aligned with the essence of your organization’s strategy? Is it consistent with how your organization fits with other organizations that hold complementary or competing roles in the movement or in the industry?
We view framing and messaging strategically, focusing on the interplay of strategy and story, which must fit together at mutliple levels, and for multiple stakeholders. Our toolkit is a combination of the framing techniques developed by George Lakoff and others, which offer a way to communicate with honesty and integrity; business marketing techniques that have
proven all too effective in stimulating a growing economy -- but which
have great potential if used responsibly;
and the strategic planning disciplines of the corporate world. With these tools, it is possible to help with a wide range of challenges:
For non-profit / public benefit organizations:
- How do you expand your impact past your loyal base, and communicate persuasively to those who would be helped by your agenda – but who don’t yet see it that way?
- Do you find it difficult to grow your membership – even though there might be millions of people “out there” who agree with you on the issues?
- Is a challenge to win over new major donors from among those with capacity who support your cause generally -- but do not yet see a compelling case for your organization?
For socially-responsible/sustainable for-profit and hybrid organizations:
- How do you communicate the sustainability part of your proposition in ways that resonate with your target customers? How do you add sustainability to your story without muddying up your core proposition?
- How do you develop and manage a complex business model with both conventional components and new elements related to the “people” and “planet” part of the triple bottom line?
- How do you craft a story that explains your entity in a way that provides clarity and focus to staff, customers, and investors alike.
- How do you express these ideas to donors or investors in a written business plan or presentation?
Each engagement is structured individually, to meet the unique goals and challenges at hand. However, the work generally involves a combination of:
- Commissioned opinion research, whether focus group based, survey, or individual interviews, to understand the thoughts and emotions of key stakeholder constituencies.
- Interviews and working sessions with management and staff to check for values alignment, understand the objectives, develop a shared understanding of the possibilities for a better future, and build a commitment to take action.
- Review of the tangible resources, goals, and performance metrics of your organization to ensure that a potential solution is practical in light of the organization’s finances, staff capacity, and other resources.