Jani’s Journal Issue 24: Communication & Collaboration
6/25/2024
Welcome to Jani’s Journal, your bi-weekly source of insights and tips to drive your nonprofit’s mission forward. I’m glad you’re here!
This month, in honor of National Effective Communication Month, I’m focusing on the theme of Communication and Collaboration. Effective communication is the backbone of successful collaboration, and Jani’s Journal is here to help you master both.
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Jani’s Jackpot!
If you only have time to read one article, Jani’s Jackpot promises the ultimate payout!
🔗 Understanding Nonprofit Communications: Definitions, Strategies, Comparisons and Best Practices 🔗
Prosper Strategies delves into the power of storytelling in nonprofit marketing. Discover how compelling narratives can transform your organization’s outreach, engage donors, and inspire action. This article also incorporates some marketing and communications basics that nonprofits may find useful, particularly around the structure and collaborative relationship between a marketing professional or department and other parts of the organization. Positioning the communications department as an internal agency focused on brand development, reputation management, and marketing in support of other functions such as HR and Fundraising clarifies roles and responsibilities within the organization, ensuring that communication efforts are cohesive, consistent, and strategic.
Storytelling
🔗 Nonprofit Storytelling: The Quick and No-Nonsense Guide 🔗
In the world of nonprofits, storytelling isn’t just a nice-to-have skill—it’s essential. Effective storytelling can ignite empathy, drive engagement, and inspire action. Check out this National Council of Nonprofits article if you still need convincing. For the busy nonprofit professional, finding the time to craft compelling narratives can feel daunting. Lucky for us, Bloomerang.com shares a streamlined, four-step approach to help you master nonprofit storytelling without the stress:
Identify the Core Message: Focus on the heart of your story. What’s the single most important message you want to convey? This central theme should resonate emotionally and clearly align with your organization’s mission.
Find the Hero: Every great story needs a hero. In the nonprofit sector, this could be a person receiving your services, a volunteer, or even a donor. Highlight their journey, challenges, and triumphs to create a relatable and engaging narrative.
Show, Don’t Tell: Use vivid details, quotes, and anecdotes to bring your story to life. Instead of stating facts, illustrate them with real-life examples. This makes your message more compelling and memorable.
Call to Action: Every story should end with a clear and compelling call to action. Whether it’s a donation, volunteering, or sharing the story, guide your audience on how they can make a difference.
🔗 How Storytelling Can Advance Your Career: 5 Ways to Improve Communication Skills. 🔗
In the nonprofit world, many think of storytelling as a skill for the fundraising team, grant writers, or “outreach” (nonprofit-speak for marketing) professionals, but in today's professional landscape, storytelling is more than a creative skill—it's a powerful tool for career advancement. For those looking to enhance their communication abilities, Forbes offers five ways to leverage storytelling effectively in your daily professional interactions:
Take on Hard Truths: Identify the one thing people need to know now, and the biggest promise you can keep. It might sound like, “Here’s the biggest challenge we’re facing…it won’t be easy, but I know this team can find an innovative path forward.
Take it One Step at a Time: The most important step is always the next one!
Identify the Hero of the Story: Hint: it’s not you! Demonstrating your greatness through action and service that makes others the hero builds trust and credibility.
Use Creative Language Instead of Descriptive Language: Save the descriptive language for white papers or news articles. Tap into creative language to invite others into your vision for partnership, new ideas, and possibilities you can build or deliver together.
Connect with Your Audience: Create an immersive experience beyond the numbers and facts. “Today’s hot! It’s 97 degrees outside” is clear and concise…and boring. “You know that feeling when you open the door on a 97-degree summer day? You emerge from the air conditioning. The heat hits your face, burns your lungs, and your shirt immediately starts sticking to your back. Today’s hot!” Same numbers and facts; different experience.
Presentations
🔗 Improve Your Influence by Creating Context 🔗
Gerry Sandusky (with a G, not a J!) shares strategies for crafting presentations that engage and persuade by providing relevant context. Context must go first for the content to be understood and remembered. Too many times speakers jump right to the content assuming our listeners will create the context we intended. Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle reiterates the need for context first.
Target Audiences
🔗 Five Signs Your One-on-Ones Aren't Working 🔗
Dreading the one-on-one meeting?
Your one-on-one always goes over time?
You have trouble filling the time during your one-on-one?
You leave one-on-ones feeling deflated?
You find yourself (or the other) on a second screen?
If you said, “Yes,” to any of these, check out this Harvard Business Review article for practical solutions to enhance the effectiveness of one-on-ones. Weekly to Monthly one-on-one meetings with people you supervise can be a key strategy to create engagement and connection.
🔗 How to Get Your Team to Actually Speak Up. 🔗
Communication and collaboration are two-way streets. Simply asking for feedback isn't enough. Leaders need to understand the reasons behind their team's silence and address barriers such as cultural norms, power dynamics, and learned silence that discourage open communication. To foster a culture of transparency, the Harvard Business Review article suggests leaders should:
Express Intent: Clearly communicate a genuine desire for honest feedback, ensuring actions match words.
Use Standard Questions: Employ consistent questions to invite diverse perspectives without catching employees off guard.
Discuss Communication Preferences: Clarify preferred channels for feedback, accommodating different communication styles.
Lend Social Capital: Actively support minority voices by endorsing and reinforcing their contributions.
Attribute Work Accurately: Recognize individual contributions to motivate and encourage further participation.
🔗 Ready to Board: Ascending New Heights through CEO-Board Communication. 🔗
This McKinsey & Company article highlights best practices for fostering open, transparent, and productive dialogues between CEOs or Senior Leadership teams and the Board of Directors. Despite the differences in corporate structure and status, McKinsey offers important takeaways from the for-profit world that nonprofit CEOs and Boards can also use:
Build meaningful, collaborative relationships to fuel performance
Make the board more knowledgeable by delivering by high-impact insights
Communicate with radical transparency to move at the speed of change
Collaboration
🔗 Making Sense of Nonprofit Collaborations 🔗
Sometimes 1 + 1 = 3! Nonprofit collaborations can amplify impact, enhance resources, and drive systemic change. This Bridgespan article outlines the types of collaborations (see chart below), the strategic benefits, and potential challenges.
Bridgespan emphasizes the importance of clear goals, mutual trust, and strong communication. Case studies illustrate successful collaborations and highlight best practices. For nonprofits, engaging in thoughtful collaborations can lead to more significant community impact and operational efficiencies, making it an essential strategy for organizational growth and mission fulfillment.
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