There’s a nonprofit joke that goes like this. “There have been some concerns about the tone of your tracked changes.” Does it sound familiar?
Let’s imagine. You’re trying to get a report out the door. The person responsible for final delivery comes back with final changes. On the fifth draft. Then someone else comes back with final final changes on the sixth. Another six drafts later and you’re revisiting concerns raised in the first draft. There might be a couple of staff who have gotten a little angsty about each other’s changes. They start going back and forth on a minor point in the appendix. It’s getting late. You’ll need to cancel dinner to deal with all this nonsense.
No cause-driven organization is immune from this stuff. As an external consultant it’s often my job to finesse such situations. The first question you need to ask yourself if people are going back and forth is about the goal. What is this document seeking to achieve? Who’s the key audience we need to influence to make that happen? Is it written for them? Do the changes we’re making help towards that goal?
Then it’s a question of persuading people to stop obsessing over stuff that doesn’t matter. I can guarantee that the precise wording of page 42 is not important. I write for a living and I’m telling you that. Seriously. Let it go, man.
There’s a bigger issue at stake here. Sure, the more rounds of changes your documents are going through, the muzzier the goals. There are also questions about how many people need to weigh in on documents. But there’s a further question. What would you do if you knew nobody was going to read this thing?
I ask, because in broad terms, you can assume that nobody is going to.
Not the whole thing.
Sorry. I’ve known clients who’ve produced reports that nobody, and I mean zero people, read in their entirety. Too many of us assume there’s an audience clamoring to read our documents. 50 people read the average nonprofit report, and by that, I mean they skim the executive summary and might take a deeper dive into the bit they’re interested in. I know this because I have seen the analytics.
The harsh truth is that most people would rather barf than read a nonprofit report. The key audience for many of them is funders. Yet, what would it look like if you could convince those people that you’re better off communicating in different ways? How about strategic press placements? Animations? Dynamic web pages? Engaging with your target audience where they hang out on social media? If we’re seeking to have an impact on the world rather than only talk about our impact, those are all good ideas.
It’s 2024. My view is that the longest document your nonprofit should be creating to engage audiences to take action is about 800 words. If you can’t say it in two pages, it’s too complicated, and that’s a problem. The Lord’s Prayer is 66 words long and it covers most of the bases. Daily bread. Trespasses. You know.
A lot of this goes to the heart of why we do what we do in life. I tend to think that the more we sit and contemplate our purpose, the fewer words we’ll need to use to express it. That’s why introverts tend to make some of the best marketing and communications people, in my experience. After all, you can’t track the changes on a person’s deep and considered thought. In that context, endless rounds of changes on documents drive us all nuts for good reason. Will you join me as we all stop the madness and try to be a bit more purposeful and reflective before we act? Let alone before we communicate?
Namaste!
And thanks for reading, as always.
—Matt Davis is a communications consultant and writer for a wide variety of clients. He also teaches yoga and lives with his wife and son in New York.
