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Vulnerable language. Fabulous life?

December 3, 2014 by Erica Barnhart

I recently read Brene Brown’s book, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead.

Rocked. My. World.

That’s what I have to say about that book.

Like Brene, I’m not one who cozies up naturally to vulnerability. It often leads to pain and who wants that? Not me. But what I had failed to realize was the missed opportunities when we avoid being vulnerable. And it’s those opportunities, those moments, that make for a stupendously fabulous life.

My research on The Wordifier made it crystal clear that we are very conservative in our language usage. We’re all using the same words over and over and over again. There are lots of reasons for this, surely. But I believe one of them has to do with our willingness–or lack thereof–to put ourselves out there. To use words others aren’t using. To be linguistically bold and, therefore, vulnerable.

In this Language Lab podcast, I explain what I mean:

My challenge to you is to dare greatly when it comes to your words. Use words that others aren’t. The Wordifier can help guide you to some not oft used gems. Your words should be as awesome and unique as you are. Go for it!

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Introducing The Wordifier!

November 10, 2014 by Erica Barnhart

We are overjoyed to announce the arrival of our newest (and dare we say spiffiest?) tool to the Claxon family–The Wordifier!!!

What the heck is The Wordifier?

The simple answer is that it’s an amplifier for your words.

The slightly more in-depth answer is that it’s a tool based on research we did to figure out what words nonprofits were using to talk about their work.

You see, the more a word is used, the less likely someone is to notice that word. It’s just how our brains work. We crave new-ness. So we figure, give the people–and their brains–what they want. Use words that others aren’t using and you dramatically up the odds that someone will pay attention.

We decided nonprofits needed this information. Yet it was nowhere to be found. We felt that was unacceptable and decided to do something about it.

Research. What research?

Here’s what we did to rectify this problem of not knowing what words nonprofits were using.

We pulled a random, yet representative, sample of 2,503 nonprofit websites. Then we partnered with Community Attributes to create a tool that would tell us which words were used most often and who was using what words.

That makes it sound easy. It wasn’t, trust me. But it was worth it because now you have a tool that will tell you exactly which words you should stop using, use with caution, or use all you want. And it’s, like, statistically significant. #OMG

Go ahead. Give it a whirl.

#WordifierLove

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We’re just starting to sift through everything our research reveals about nonprofits and language. We will be sharing everything we learn with you!

BTW, if you play with The Wordifier and have a suggestion for how we can improve it, pretty please let us know. This tool is meant to be useful, actionable, helpful, etc! So let us know your ideas in the comments, on Facebook, or Twitter using #Wordifier!

The Winner of the 2014 #WorstMissionStatement Contest is…

September 16, 2014 by Erica Barnhart

…The Center for Justice!

Of all the entries, this one really stood out:

“The Center for Justice is a legal advocacy organization that works to empower individuals and provides vigorous oversight and advocacy when community rights need to be defended and community voices need to be heard.”

Before we dig into what could be improved about this statement, let’s talk about what it has going for it:

In the land of nonprofit Mission Statements, it’s relatively short. It isn’t a laundry list of absolutely, positively everything they do (although it could be more rigorous…more on that in a minute).
It’s not totally vanilla. There are some words with oomph in here—vigorous, defend, etc.

That said, this Mission Statement doesn’t do justice to the work of the Center for Justice.

The Reading Ease Score is a mere 3.3. That means the reader can’t understand 96.7% of it. #Drat
Even though it’s not a big ol’ long laundry list, it’s still trying to do too much. Your Mission Statement should concisely state what you do (and sometimes, space permitting, how you do it). By my count, there are five examples of what they do: 1) empower individuals, 2) provide oversight, 3) provide advocacy, 4) defend community rights, and 5) allow community voices to be heard. Are all these created equal? Usually the answer is ‘no’. Are some more important than others? Usually the answer is ‘yes’.
The statement hedges. Rather than “empowering individuals” they “work to empower individuals”. The addition of qualifiers such as work, trying, endeavoring, etc is very common in nonprofit Mission Statements. They get added because you don’t want to overstate your influence, i.e. the Center isn’t single-handedly responsible for empowering the individuals it serves. This is true and yet I still recommend you ditch the qualifiers.

Folks will know you’re not completely and utterly responsible for every single aspect of the empowerment (or oversight or advocacy, etc). We add qualifiers because we worry we’ll find ourselves at a BBQ with someone waggling a drumstick at us and saying, “Oh yeah? How is it that you do all that empowering?” That seems scary but it’s actually a good thing! Because question are good, right? Right. So no more qualifiers.

I don’t love the word ‘empowerment’ because it’s overused, but I appreciate and understand that for some groups—and often for those working in the field of legal advocacy—it’s an important word. Assuming that’s the case for the Center for Justice and we leave ‘empowerment’ in their statement, they might end up with something like this:

“The Center for Justice empowers individuals and communities through legal defense and advocacy.”

Other options with a significantly higher readability score include:

“The Center for Justice uses the law to protect individual and community rights.”

“The Center for Justice uses the law to defend individual and community rights.”

Remember: The job of your Mission Statement is to communicate your essence, not your everything. If someone is interested in your essence, there will be plenty of time to tell them everything else there is to know about you and your wonderful work.

Thank you again to all the organizations who were brave enough to submit their Mission Statements for the Worst Mission Statement competition. We hope some of these suggestions will help you develop a Mission Statement that’s as great as the work you do!

A Super Easy Way for Nonprofits to Replicate the #IceBucketChallenge

August 28, 2014 by Erica Barnhart

The success of the ALS Association’s Ice Bucket Challenge is a sight to behold. Everyone from Bill Gates (who has a much better sense of humor than he is given credit for) to Matt Damon (who uses toilet water cuz he’s the co-founder of water.org and a marketing genius) is getting in on the action. It has generated tons of buzz and so far raised $94 million. #Yowza

It’s obvious that part of what made the #IceBucketChallenge a success is its exceptionally high fun factor and that it was easy, i.e. people were instantly engaged. Who wouldn’t want to see Laura pour a bucket of ice cold water all over W, after all?!

The ALS Association are making it super easy for people to get in on the fun. So long as you have water, ice, a bucket-like container and a way to take a video, you’re set.

Put another way:

Fun + Easy = Successful Engagement

If we know this combo works, why oh why are nonprofits using boring, convoluted language to talk about their work? Doesn’t make sense.

Yes, I’m going to harsh on Mission Statements. Again. Remember this list of Mission Statements that were un-fun and technically incomprehensible? Mm-hm. That list. The one that sparked our Worst Mission Statement contest.

But it’s not just nonprofit Mission Statements that make people nod off. We did a survey of 384 nonprofit websites and learned that, of the 250,000 words in the English language, nonprofits are only using about 1,000. Gimme a B-O-R-I-N-G.

Totally fine to try your hand at creating something as successful as the #IceBucketChallenge, but seeing if you can use language that’s fun and easy-to-understand would be a worthy challenge as well!

Want to win prizes for spunking up your Mission Statement? Enter to win our Worst Mission Statement contest by 8/31!

Really? Really.

August 21, 2014 by Sarah Healy

This is the latest post from our word-nerd-erific inter, Vicki.

I have a love hate relationship with the word really. There are times when it is great.

Thank you very much.
Thank you, really.

Both sentences use an intensifier on “thank you” but the sentence with “really” feels more, well, real. I like that the thing it is highlighting is the authenticity of the sentence. There are many times when really is a fabulous word choice, but I have two issues it.

First, I over use it. Grossly. I annoy myself with how often I say “really.” To deal with this problem I search for every instance of the word really when editing and make sure it needs to be there. It’s at the top of my editing checklist.

The other issue I have is something I learned while editing it out. Really, like other intensifiers, often hides vagueness. As the term implies, we use intensifiers when we want to make a statement more (you guessed it) intense. However, if the statement needs more intensity, it deserves more than just an extra word slapped on. In these instances, figure out why you need to make your words intense. Is there a more specific word or do you need to elaborate? I’m all for parsimony, but sometimes you need a few more words to make your point.

Let’s revisit our example from above and look at the term “Thank you.” Imagine you’re thanking a new volunteer at your organization’s soup kitchen.

Thank you. We were able to feed fifty more people because you helped today. The kindness and patience you gave our clients show that you share the values that motivate us all in this work. I know Penny appreciated your help with that tray. She hesitates to ask so it was sweet of you to jump in and offer assistance.

There are no intensifiers in that version, but it has a stronger impact because I’m showing the connection to the mission and core values as well as giving some personal detail.

Look for places where you are using intensifiers in your own writing. How many can you replace by being more specific?

Looking for more tips on “Thank you?” Erica has a few posts on the topic. This one is my favorite.

Thinking of creating your own list of things to check for when editing? You may enjoy Tessa’s post on editing checklists.

Enter to win the ‘Worst Nonprofit Mission Statement Contest’

August 5, 2014 by Erica Barnhart

Mission Statements, Worst Mission Statement, Nonprofit Mission Statement I’ve been spending lots of time thinking about Mission Statements because of our Mini-Mission Makeover series. Turns out there’s nothing mini about how bad most Nonprofit Mission Statements are. To wit, this submission from Leslie Hall of the Michigan Rural EMS Network:

“MiREMS is a diverse network representing EMS interest in Michigan developing partnerships with providers, to identify challenges, strategies, and opportunities to improve patient outcomes for all Michigan residents.”

Leslie also wrote, “If you have a Worst Mission Statement Contest, I believe I will be a strong contender!” With all due respect, Leslie, I couldn’t agree more.

Here we are, all about mission and yet the statements that are meant to reflect that mission are incomprehensible combos of meaningless words. This must stop. Mushy, incomprehensible Mission Statements drive people away, rather than bringing them in. And that’s no good. Let’s do a Failure Bow and move on.

We’re taking Leslie’s suggestion and hosting the Worst Nonprofit Mission Statement Contest. We need to get all this ridiculousness out of our systems, so we can move on to having Marvelous Mission Statements that clearly and compellingly communicate what we do so that people can quickly and easily decide if they want to get involved.

Here’s how the contest will work:

By August 31, you enter to win by posting your organization’s Mission Statement on Claxon’s Facebook page.
In September, we will announce the three finalists in the Claxonette. (If you don’t already subscribe to the Claxonette, now’d be a good time to get yourself signed up.)
You will get to vote on which statement you think is the worst.
The Mission Statement with the most votes wins a copy of Pitchfalls and a Very Special Secret Gift!

Once we have all these terrible Mission Statements behind us, we’ll figure out how to get you a marvelous one, okay? Okay. Now hop to it and submit your statement!

Eradicating ‘Provide’

July 30, 2014 by Sarah Healy

[A few weeks ago, Emily Litchfield of Northern Arizona University reached out to share a win her team had had—they had eradicated the verb ‘provide’ from their Mission Statement! I asked if she would share how they did it so we could all learn from their hard work as part of our Mini-Mission Makeover Series. Hats off to Emily and her team for a job well done!]

In 2009, the Institute for Future Workforce Development and the Gerontology Institute merged to become the Civic Service Institute (CSI) at Northern Arizona University. At that point, we adopted this little beauty of a Mission Statement:

The mission of CSI is linking students, AmeriCorps members, Senior Corp volunteers and others to community, educational and non-profit organizations to build, enhance, and strengthen community capacity, workforce and career development.

Yeah… I worked there and I wasn’t even sure what that meant (and I’m quite certain that none of the other employees did either). How in the world was I supposed to sell that to any potential supporters? I certainly wasn’t going to try and memorize it so I could parrot it back in a robotic fashion, preceded by a long sigh, when asked what it is that we actually “do”.

We needed help! We needed a new mantra that declared our drive, passion and experience not some rigmarole statement packed with as many words as possible. It had to be action oriented because CSI is all about movement and service and community. We needed a good verb because we don’t simply “provide” anything (see Erica’s blog post from April 3, 2014).

After a lot of hard work rearranging word order, researching synonyms, and focusing on verbs, we finally had it and we were pretty darn proud!

The Civic Service Institute (CSI) @ NAU mobilizes generations to strengthen communities through service and volunteerism.

Recently, I read Erica’s mini-mission makeover for July 17, 2014 and I had a moment of disappointment- “Mobilize has issues”?? I took a little breath and decided to celebrate our victories- our mission is miles ahead of where it was in the beginning… and we didn’t use ‘provide’.

Emily Litchfield is the Program Coordinator at CSI. She enjoys playing the Ukulele and is currently studying for the GREs.

The Cure for Your Completely Incomprehensible Mission Statement

July 28, 2014 by Erica Barnhart

As part of our Mini-Mission Makeover series, more than 30 organizations submitted their Mission Statements for review. Brave souls the lot of them! Sadly, most of them make almost no sense to anyone outside the organization.

If you want people to understand your Mission Statement, the first thing you should do is figure out where it lands in terms Reading Ease. There are two super simple tests for this.

For the Flesch Reading Ease score, the higher the score the better. Time Magazine hovers around 52, whereas the Harvard Business Review is in the low 30’s (cuz those peeps are wicked smaht).
The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level score says how many years of education someone needs to understand your Mission Statement. In this case, the lower the score the better. For instance, Dr. Seuss, Master of the Monosyllabic Masterpiece, with an average score of ‘o’, managed to write book for which you need no education to totally get them. (If your’e inclined, you can learn more about both tests here.)

The following organizations submitted their Mission Statements and, sadly, are not just tough to understand but are, in fact, technically incomprehensible, i.e. no matter how many years of education you have, you won’t be able to understand them. #ugh

Sustainable Connections‘ mission is to be the local forum where businesses come together to transform and model an economy built on sustainable practices

West Coast LEAF‘s mission is to achieve equality by changing historic patterns of systemic discrimination against women through BC based equality rights litigation, law reform, and public legal education

The mission of Scottsdale Leadership is to inform, inspire and empower leaders to champion and strengthen the interests of the community.

Pangea Giving For Global Change‘s mission is to inform and engage members in supporting the efforts of grassroots organizations in the developing world to address social, economic, and environmental issues through financial assistance, ongoing partnerships and site visits.

KMFA, Classical 89.5 is a non-profit, listener-supported radio station whose mission is to uplift, entertain and educate Central Texans by providing the best in classical music and cultural programming.

The National Churchill Museum commemorates and celebrates the life, times, and distinguished career of Sir Winston Churchill and inspires current and future leaders by his example of resilience, determination and resolution.

Colorado Alliance for Environmental Education’s mission is to serve all sectors of the Colorado Community by improving the collective effectiveness of environmental education.

How do you fix your Mission Statement if it’s completely incomprehensible?

Although not completely incomprehensibly, the Mission Statement for the Environmental Center at Fort Lewis College is pretty darn low in terms of Reading Ease, as are most nonprofit Mission Statements. Let’s look at their statement as a way of seeing how you might up the readability of your Mission Statement.

AS SUBMITTED: The Environmental Center at Fort Lewis College strengthens student’s commitment to a more socially just, ecologically responsible world by connecting students with the opportunity to create change on campus and in our community. Reading Ease: 5.1, Grade Level: 20.4

FIRST REVISION—taking out some extra words: The Environmental Center at Fort Lewis College connects students with opportunities on campus and in our community to create a more just and ecologically responsible world. Reading Ease: 12.2, Grade Level: 17.7

SECOND REVISION—translating fancy words into plain-speak: The Environmental Center at Fort Lewis College connects students with opportunities to create a more eco-friendly world. Reading Ease: 16.7, Grade Level: 14.6

THIRD REVISION—making it easier to say by rearranging verbs and cutting out syllables: The Environmental Center at Fort Lewis College creates opportunities for students to make our world a more eco-friendly place to live. Reading Ease: 40.4, Grade Level: 12.8

Is “eco-friendly” the same as “socially just and ecologically responsible”? Not exactly. But people get ‘eco-friendly’ so they might—just might—ask a question about the types of eco-friendly opportunities the Environmental Center creates and that will give them a chance to go into greater detail.

For those of you saying, “Not fair–we’re getting dinged for having a big ol’ long name!”

The name of this organization has lots of syllables. This means it will, by definition, not do as well on reading ease tests. Simply by swapping out the name for “we”, you get:

We create opportunities for students to make our world a more eco-friendly place to live. Reading Ease: 61.8, Grade Level: 8.3

61.8 and 8.3? Now we’re cooking with gas! If you have a long name, sometimes it works best to have it be its own sentence, e.g. “I work for the Environmental Center at Fort Lewis College. We create opportunities for students for make our world a more eco-friendly place to live.” Play around with it and see what flows best!

[Check out Kristina Leroux’s fab post on how to use the Flesch Kincaid Reading Ease tools in Microsoft Word on Kivi’s Nonprofit Communications Blog.]

Mini-Mission Makeover: Volunteer Center of Morgan County

July 17, 2014 by Erica Barnhart

This post is part of our Mini-Mission Makeover series. If you want input on your Mission Statement, submit it on Claxon’s Facebook page. THANK YOU to the wonderful people at The Volunteer Center of Morgan County for being brave enough to have your Mission Statement made over!

There’s a whole lot of mobilizing going on in nonprofit Mission Statements. To wit, this Mission Statement submitted by Melissa Hill Dees of The Volunteer Center of Morgan County in Decatur, Alabama:

“The Volunteer Center of Morgan County, Inc. mobilizes people and resources to address the issues that are important to the community and strengthens the capacity of local organizations to meet community needs through volunteerism.”

I’m not saying this happened at the Volunteer Center of Morgan County, bu I can’t tell you the number of meetings I’ve sat in where a group focused on volunteerism is working away on their Mission and Vision Statements and–lo and behold–the heavens part and someone shouts all excited like, “We mobilize! That’s what we do! Why yes!” And everyone nods and smiles and exclaims, “Why yes, yes we do mobilize.” And everyone is very pleased because mobilized is such an action-oriented word and that feels neat because action is good. So they high-five each other and head to the pub for a post-Mission Statement-writing pint.

Mega-buzz kill moment: Mobilize has issues.

Here’s the problem with ‘mobilize’. It has very specific mind-share for English speaking North Americans. We mobilize forces or troops. Let me stop you before you go making the case for the fact that you’re mobilizing forces of volunteers–just because you can make the case for it doesn’t mean you should.

When you co-opt a word that has a strong association with another market segment–in this case military forces vs. volunteers–you’re fighting an uphill battle. Uphill battles are expensive because they take lots of resources to fight. If our brains expect a sentence to be finished in a certain way, it gives us a brain cramp when they finish differently. Brain cramps are bad when it comes to getting people involved in your work. (#BrainCrampsBad)

The other thing with ‘mobilize’ is that it doesn’t sound very appealing. Hard to imagine Pat the Potential Volunteer sitting himself down and saying, “Jinkies, I wish someone would mobilize me.” Sounds painful. Something to run away from rather than toward.

So that covers the issues with mobilize.

Another issue with the Volunteer Center of Morgan County’s Mission Statement is that it’s try to do too much for one sentence–a very, very, very common state of affairs for all Mission Statements. If you’re going to make your Mission Statement something that those outside your organization find compelling, you have to prioritize and simplify.

I would ask the fine folks at the Volunteer Center of Morgan County the same question I asked when presenting at the Hands-On Network Affiliate Meeting: What’s the one thing that you fundamentally want to be known for?

Depending on the answer to the question above, here would be some options for the Volunteer Center of Morgan County to play around with:

We bring people together who want to make our community an even better place to live.

We strengthen local nonprofits by putting volunteers to work.

We create partnerships between volunteers and nonprofits to tackle issues that matter to our community.

Any other thoughts or suggestions for Melissa and the very wonderful and hard-working folks at The Volunteer Center of Morgan County?

Mini-Mission Makeover: Association for Supportive Child Care

July 14, 2014 by Erica Barnhart

I recently did a follow-up webinar to a keynote I gave at t he Alliance for Arizona Nonprofits’ Annual Membership Meeting. I invited participants to send in their response to the question “What do you do?”, so we could chat about them.

The Association for Supportive Child Care sent in the following sentence: “We work to enhance the quality of care for children across Arizona.”

This is very similar to their Mission Statement, which is “to enhance the quality of care for children across Arizona.” It’s great that their Mission Statement is so short and sweet, isn’t it? So rare and wonderful!

My advice–stick with that short n’ sweet Mission Statement of theirs. They *almost* stick with it but commit a common messaging mistake–they use a qualifier. In their case, the qualifier is “work to…” Other examples of qualifiers include: striving, endeavoring, and trying.

Qualifiers function as little, tiny apologies. They make your work seem like it has less impact, less oomph, than it really does. They don’t enhance your messaging. It makes it sound like you’re kinda, sorta doing the thing you’re referencing, but you’re not all in. People want to support organizations that are all in for whatever they’re doing. Sitting on the fence isn’t inspiring. Best to eliminate qualifiers.

For the Association for Supportive Child Care, they could simply say, “We enhance the quality of care for children across Arizona.” Simple. It begs the question, “How do you enhance the quality of care?” And remember–when it comes to using language to engage people in your work, questions are good!

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