Stop Telling Me How; Show Me What

Too many of us in the nonprofit sector are enamored with our programs.  We think that most people—donors especially—care as passionately about how we do things, when in truth, mostly they care about what these things achieve, for our clients, our donors, our community.

We insist on telling them about the 5 workshops, the 7 practices, the 334 kids who took the course and mastered the skill we were trying to teach them.  Yay!

To which I can only say, “so what?”

If we didn’t have these programs, what would your world look like?  If, for example, these kids never mastered that particular skill, what happens?  Or doesn’t happen?  Let’s assume that skill is literacy—the ability to read and write.  According to UNESCO, that ability is an important driver for sustainable development.  It enables greater participation in the labor market, improves health and nutrition, reduces poverty….in short, it is more than a program that uses I don’t what to teach kids to decipher words.   And yet, most nonprofits will focus on whatever process they use that ends up with children learning to read.  Period.  End of that discussion.

How you do something is important—especially if you are measuring your successes.  But too many organizations are not even collecting baseline measurements.  It’s as if they have decided that they are successful because, well, here we are;  our doors are still open; clients are still here.  But savvy donors want to know more.

A good way to think about this is if your program or organization did not exist, what would be lost to the community?  And then—the important part—“And this matters because?”  And then ask that again and again until you really understand what the community actually loses.

As a voracious reader, the idea that I couldn’t read is horrifying to me.  Ive felt it in a small way when I am traveling to places where I do not speak the language.  So a program that would teach me to read—I get that.  But my inability to read would mean so much more than the lack of entertainment, information, pure joy I get.  And it is that so much more that we must show our potential donors.

Literacy, of course,is one of those things like eating, shelter, health, that people do understand at its most basic level.  We know these things are necessary for any sort of life.  Food centers often talk about feeding the hungry—and yes, that is what they do and why they are important.  But there is much more than that.

Giving young children a hot breakfast means that they can concentrate on the lessons being taught in school rather than on their hunger.  Concentrating in school means they may stay in school, stay out of gangs and jail.  Go on to higher education and/or learning a trade.  Earn a good living.  Have children who don’t need free hot breakfasts and lunches.  In short, truly change the world in a very good way.

Many of my clients get hung up on what they do feel that it is obvious what they accomplish.  But that is rarely true for those who don’t experience it day to day.