We learned so much from the research we did for The Wordifier. We’re still sifting through it all. But one thing was immediately, shockingly, riveting-ly evident: nonprofits are using so few words it’s worrisome.
We decided this was a problem so big it warranted it’s very own superhero. Thus, Super Verb was born!
(You knew if Claxon was going to create a superhero it was going to be a verb, right?)
Check out the infographic and then go find more heroic words!
Yeah, that’s right. Last week, I told you no one cares about your anniversary and/or your birthday. And now here I am, whooping it up over our 25th Language Lab podcast.
But I’m not really whooping. I’m sharing.
I just took a look at which podcasts had been listened to the most. To be honest, I thought there’d be a type of word that piqued listeners’ interest. New words or funky words or made up words. You see, podcasting was a new venture for Claxon. It was an experiment. The goal was to offer word-loving do-gooders a new way to think about language (and, on occasion, life). To that end, we’ve looked at a wide variety of words: words we use all the time (e.g. ‘and’), words we rarely use (e.g. ‘peregrination’) and words that aren’t really words at all (e.g. ‘alot’).
As you’ll see from the Top 3 Most-Listened to Podcasts below, there wasn’t a trend. Nope. No type of word jumped out as most popular and compelling. Oh well. Still fun to see which words got the most air-time, as it were.
If you have shared these podcasts with others–THANK YOU. I work hard to make these podcasts worthy of your time and deeply appreciate you sharing them with others.
If haven’t listened to a podcast yet, here are the ones your do-gooding colleagues have found the most interesting. I hope you enjoy!
Vulnerability
Birthday
‘Alot’
Just like you and your mom are really the only ones who care about your birthday, very few people care when your organization has an anniversary.
The reality is people care about ourselves. It’s human nature. So your birthday really isn’t that big of a deal to most other people. Not that they aren’t happy for you. But it’s not, like, a super huge deal.
Ditto for organizational anniversaries. Should you celebrate milestones? Sure. But make sure you’re clear on what you’re really doing and why. Don’t waste resources celebrating something that other people don’t really care about.
As counter-intuitive as it may seem, don’t make the celebration about your organization. Make it about the change you’ve created during that period of time. Make it about the people you’ve been fortunate enough to serve and work with. Make it about your donors and volunteers and supporters who made it all possible.
Birthdays and anniversaries are good times to pause and reflect on who, and what, is important to you. What’s working? Who can you thank for that? What’s not working? How can you change that?
One handy, yet albeit odd, way to come at this whole birthday/anniversary thing is from the perspective of a eulogy. Sounds weird but is really powerful. Listen to this week’s podcast and you’ll get to hear one of the very best “eulogies” ever written. It’ll give you a whole new perspective on things!
Many cities and states now have a day dedicated to getting lots and lots and lots of people donating to local organizations on the same day. Greater Washington Give to the Max, Idaho Gives, GiveBIG. Whatever you call it and wherever you may be, these days all have one thing in common–they are an exercise in cutting through the noise so donors hear your message.
Part of the trick is to get donors to pay attention to your emails among the sea–truly a sea–of email appeals flooding into their inbox. They are being blasted with emails from dozens of nonprofits. You absolutely, positively must stand out. But how?
In a word: words. And specifically, the words in your subject lines. Because it doesn’t matter how good the content of your email is if no one opens it.
Subject lines can be tough, so here are some do’s and don’ts to help you out.
DON’T
DO
Seen a click-worthy subject line recently? Share it in the comments!
When it comes to messaging and language and words, it’s easy to get stuck. You’ve stared at the same set of words for hours. You want to yank your hair out. But the deadline is looming. You must stick with it!!!
Yes, you have to remain focused on your priority for the day. But maybe what you need is a good ol’ peregrination. Yep, some purposeful mental meandering might be exactly what you need to get you to your goal.
Not sure what a peregrination is? Kick up your heels and find it in this week’s podcast. You just might find that taking a break gets you closer to arriving at your destination.
If an organization doesn’t have a leader, it is leaderless.
If an organization has a leader, it…has a leader. There’s no adjective to officially refer to the state of someone or something displaying leadership.
Why is that?!
I first started wondering about this almost two years ago. And I’ve written about since.
I’m bringing it up again because language reflects our society, our values, our opinions. So what does it say that we have a word for when we don’t have a leader but not one for when we do?
Dive deeper in this week’s podcast:
Did you know that the word ‘priority’ was part of the English language for 500 years before it became pluralized? 500 years!
Why should you care about this little linguistic tidbit? Because it offers insight into why your mission statement may be–how shall we say?–sub-awesome.
You see, it wasn’t until 1940s that we started having priorities. Plural. That’s when the trouble started.
We got into the (nasty) habit of believing that all tasks were created equal and that all of them had to get done. We no longer had a priority, i.e. a clear idea of the “thing that was most important”. We started having priorities, i.e. things that were all important.
If everything is equally important, how can you prioritize? How can you focus? How can you convey the one thing that is most important about your organization? You can’t!
And that, I’m pretty darn sure, is contributing to the Laundry List approach to creating Mission Statements, which is leading to ~50% of nonprofits having Mission Statements that are technically incomprehensible.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again (because it warrants repetition)–if you tell someone your everything, they will remember nothing.
Listen to this week’s podcast and learn more about the power of having a priority. One. Singular. Priority.
Used to be that if I just worked hard enough, I could tick all the things off my to-do box that needed to get done. “Perfect!”, I would exclaim at the end of the day.
That’s no longer the case. It doesn’t matter how long or hard I work, that to-do list is always there at the end of the day. It’s smug. Always growing. Always coming up with new things for me to do. It’s irksome. And existential. Infuriating, really.
Maybe you can relate? I find that nonprofits attract perfectionists. Makes some sense. Idealism and perfectionism are like two peas in a pod. I see this combo in many of my clients. In many ways, it serves them well. They get a lot done and make the world a whole lot better of a place!
But at what cost? The relentless pursuit of perfection is exhausting. It takes a toll. It’s not super healthy, what with the stress that goes along with it. This is why I’m a new-found advocate for mediocrity. Yes, that’s right mediocrity. Or if not mediocrity, at least a much bigger Good Enough Box.
I make my case for mediocrity in this podcast. Take a listen and see where you land. Is mediocre the new perfect?
As I was walking into the office this morning, a woman with a jaunty ponytail was wheeling a trolley filled with boxes through a set of double doors. I had to wait about 8 seconds for her to maneuver through the door. As she passed me, she said, “So sorry to make you wait.”
I thought, “Geez, no need to be sorry. No biggie to have to wait. It was only 8 seconds!”
This got me thinking about the word ‘sorry’. We hear it and use it all the time. But what does it really mean?!
Vicki, one of our fab interns, thinks the words ‘I’m sorry’ are straight up lame. She goes so far as to tell us never to say ‘I’m sorry’ in this post.
I’m not sure I can get behind the categorical elimination of the words “I’m sorry” because sometimes you really are sorry. It’s how you say the words and what you follow up with that makes a difference, it turns out. If you listen to this week’s Language Lab podcast, I lay out the anatomy of an effective apology and look at how different cultures relate to, and use, the word ‘sorry’. Kinda fascinating, IMHO.
The Wordifier data showed us that 16.9% of nonprofits use the word ‘sorry’ on their website. It gets a yellow “Whoa, Nelly” light. I’m curious about this. Are nonprofits sorry for something they’ve done? Are they referring to a sorry state of affairs which they are trying to rectify? For what are nonprofits sorry? Certainly not for doing everything in their power to create a better world. Further research may reveal more on nonprofits’ relationship with apologies. I just hope they’re following-up with the two magic questions that make for an effective apology (which I cover, yep, in the podcast).
In sifting through the data from our Wordifier research (the free tool that helps you amplify your words), I came across a startling–and depressing–discovery: Not all nonprofits are thanking their supporters!
Gasp. Sigh. Forehead slap. Yipes!
The word ‘thank’ (as in ‘Thank you’) showed up on 54.3% of the websites. ‘Thanks’ made an appearance on 34.6% of the sites.
If we’re being generous, that means that some form of gratitude shows up on 88.9% of nonprofit websites. But in perusing the raw data, it looks like organizations who use one of these words, also use the other, meaning organizations that loverize their donors double down on that love, i.e. some form of gratitude likely doesn’t show up on 88.9% of the websites, but rather a smaller number of websites.
That there are any nonprofits with gratitude-less websites hanging out on the interwebs should be a wake-up call to us all. Gratitude is free, bountiful and feels awesome to give and receive. Here’s a Language Lab podcast devoted to the amazingness that is gratitude.
When we gather the Wordifier data in future years, I want us to be living in a world free of gratitude-less websites.
Thank YOU, dear reader, for being awesome and amazing and doing the wonderful work you do to change the world!