My partner Lori did a beautiful job earlier this week sharing how Nonprofit Media Solutions came about. I like how she said “every startup has a story.” It’s true. So does every nonprofit, every company, every couple, every person. Don’t you feel like you know someone or something better once you have its background, giving you some context from which to work?
In our experience working with nonprofits and previously as we have completed writing and editing projects for businesses, colleges/universities, academic professionals, etc., it seems that no matter what the goal of a communication piece is, making sure it tells your story well is a good rule of thumb.
Years ago when I worked in higher education marketing, any time our team had a new scholarship, academic program, campus event or student project to promote, we worked hard to make sure the resulting project told the right story. Many times this meant just finding the person or group of people who would most benefit from that particular project/event/program, and putting them at the forefront of the story. For example, if a scholarship had just been created, what kind of student will be the right fit for it? Or, if a nutrition class put together a community garden and then donated the produce to a nearby homeless shelter, the recipients of that food would be the end result of the process and the ones who would benefit most from the student project. Highlighting the end result, the beneficiaries, of such a project always felt like the right way to spin it, showing the most good.
We believe doing the same kind of thing for nonprofits is the way to go, and we encourage nonprofits to toot their own horns in this way whenever it feels right.
Yesterday as I was reading Lori’s blog post and thinking about how Nonprofit Media Solutions came about, I ran across an article on Twitter that does a great job of explaining six ways to get that story across. It’s from StartSomeGood’s blog and it’s definitely worth a read.