Why and How to Create a ‘Strategic Message’ to Promote Your Organization

NEW BOOKS

Message Matters: Succeeding at the Crossroads of Mission and Market
by Rebecca K. Leet

“Society is reaching the point where the more we are told, the less we hear,” writes Rebecca K. Leet, a nonprofit consultant and a former reporter. “In this environment, success — even survival — requires associations and nonprofits to communicate in new ways.”

Ms. Leet says charities must focus on strategic messages, defined as “a set of statements that prompts targeted audiences to take a desired action.”

As technology increases the speed and amount of information transmitted each day, a charity’s mission and efforts must be conveyed succinctly and persuasively. Ms. Leet describes how to select a four- to nine-person committee that will create the message by following her five-step process for brainstorming, crafting, and disseminating it to the people the charity hopes to reach.

The author writes that the message must describe benefits for the listener as well as the organization; the benefit for the audience may be a good feeling or a material reward, for example. Most importantly, Ms. Leet writes, “If you want me to listen, talk to me about something I care about. What I care about, not what you want me to care about.”

Five chapters describe each of the five steps in detail; the author includes a case study to illustrate the process and a questionnaire to determine if an organization is ready to craft strategic messages. Each chapter ends with a summary of important points and a set of review questions to help readers apply the book’s ideas to their own organizations.

Publisher: Fieldstone Alliance, 60 Plato Boulevard East, Suite 150, St. Paul, Minn. 55107; (651) 556-4500 or (800) 274-6024; fax (651) 556-4517; books@fieldstonealliance.org; http://www.fieldstonealliance.org; 149 pages; $26.95; ISBN 0-940069-63-6.