The Language of Social Good
maslansky + partners
The language experts from maslansky + partners take on the smartest, savviest, and sometimes stupidest messages in the market today. CEO Michael Maslansky and President Lee Carter bring their experience with words, communication, and behavioral science to the table — along with a colleague or client — and offer up a “lay of the language.” Their insight helps make sense of business, life, and culture, and proves over and over again that It’s Not What You Say, It’s What They Hear™.
It’s not enough to do good nowadays. In a competitive environment, you need to find the right
language to distinguish your organization from the rest. In this episode, guest Brian Crimmins, CEO of Changing Our World, Global Partner of ONE HUNDRED, and co-author of The Generosity Crisis: The Case for Radical Connection to Solve Humanity’s Greatest Challenges shares his expertise on how nonprofits can reframe their language to cut through the noise.
Listen below or on your preferred streaming platform:
LINKS MENTIONED IN THE SHOW
Lee Carter’s book, Persuasion
Michael Maslansky’s book, The Language of Trust
Brian Crimmins’s book, The Generosity Crisis
maslansky + partners newsletter
TRANSCRIPT BELOW
Michael Maslansky:
They said, what? Welcome to Hear Say, a podcast from the language strategists at Maslansky and Partners, where we give our take on the strategy behind the smartest, savviest, and stupidest messages in the market today, and what you can learn from them. Our philosophy is, it’s not what you say, it’s what they hear, and that’s why we call this Hear Say. I’m Michael Maslansky, CEO of Maslansky and Partners and author of The Language of Trust.
Lee Carter:
And I’m Lee Carter, president of Maslansky and Partners and author of a book called Persuasion. And we are really excited to be here today with our colleague Ben Feller, who I’m not gonna spend a lot of time on, and our special guest, Brian Crimmins, who’s the CEO of one of our sister agencies called Changing Our World, and recently released a book called The Generosity Crisis, the case for radical connection to solve humanity’s greatest challenges. managing partner of 100, which sparks change and creates meaningful global impact through the power of communications and philanthropy. And obviously an impressive person to have on our podcast. Welcome, Brian. Thank you for joining us.
Brian Crimmins:
Thanks, Lee. Thanks, everybody. Pleasure to be here.
Lee Carter:
And welcome Ben too.
Ben Feller:
Oh, hi.
Michael Maslansky:
Hahaha!
Ben Feller:
Hi, Lee. Hi, Michael. Brian, great to see you.
Brian Crimmins:
Likewise, Ben.
Lee Carter:
And also one of the things that I do want to just raise about Ben joining this podcast, of course he is our partner, but also has a great amount of experience working in the nonprofit world and also with education. So it has a lot to add here. So thank you Ben for joining us today. So I want to just dig in. The topic today is an exciting one to me want to see more good happen in the world. So I love talking about the nonprofit world. I love talking about social good and philanthropy. I think all of us are involved, whether on the boards of some nonprofits or as investors and donors into different nonprofits. And obviously, Brian, that’s what you do for your day job. And at Maslansky and Partners, we are invested in a number of nonprofits as well that we partner with and help. So this is gonna be a really exciting conversation. But before we dig into what this means from a language perspective, Brian, I just want you to tell me a little bit about the book, what led you to write The Generosity Crisis, and what that really means, some of the most surprising and best takeaways that you’ve had since writing the book.
Brian Crimmins:
Sure, happy to. I think what’s interesting is when we set out, my colleague and I, Nathan Chappelle, to write The Generosity Crisis, it’s not exactly a book you write to make friends. Let’s just be honest with this. We really were calling on the not-for-profit sector to relook at how it’s gone about its business for the past 40 years, because fundamentally, coming out of the financial crisis of 2008, 2009, there was a downward trajectory to the amount of people, and households who were giving to not-for-profits every year. And after 2008 and 2009, that only sped up downward to the point where we were prior to about 15 years ago, we had about 70% of Americans who were supporting not-for-profit organizations every year. And last year, that number was 49%. So we are on a steady, if not speeding up, downward trajectory that is not sustainable. At some point, this is going to bottom out, and it’s not a good place for this to bottom of our beloved not-for-profits who are on the front lines of doing such great work, don’t have the resources to do what they can do and need to do. And the last thing I’ll say is that when a lot of people in the not-for-profit sector cheer every year in June, when giving USA data comes out that says giving is up again, that is missing the underbelly of the fact that the percentage of households, as I mentioned, who are contributing or active has just been absolutely eroding away. And so we wrote the book to really Start the conversation about what was happening and you mentioned communications and language and that’s right at the forefront of one of the major Takeaways we’re hearing as we now are going around the country about the need for not-for-profits to get even better about how they communicate
Lee Carter:
So my experience writing a book is you write it for one reason. And then once you’re out there talking to folks, I’m sure you do tons of speaking engagements in front of large groups, there’s some surprises about what really resonates with people about your book. What’s the most surprising thing from your perspective after having talked to people since it came out?
Brian Crimmins:
Great question. On the not-for-profit side, the audiences we’ve been in front of, kind of three things jump out at me. One is the competition for connection perspective and point of view that we hit on in the book is really surprising me that it surprises a lot of not-for-profit leaders. And what I mean by that is they thought they were only competing with nonprofits for the longest time. But when you talk about, and I know we’ll get into, the role of corporates and organizations that are social impact focused, created a competition in the marketplace for who’s actually delivering impact, who is doing good. And that once was just the purview of only not-for-profits and it’s not anymore. So not-for-profit leaders have been really gravitating to that when we speak and after we have conversations just about how that’s reframing how they think about going about their work and now their work. I mentioned the communications. This has them rethinking, okay, how do we cut through this noise? How are we different? or a health organization. Well, guess what? CVS Health is doing a tremendous amount in the community. How are we different? How are we partnering with them such that we should still be worthy of receiving philanthropic dollars? I think those two, and then finally, what NAFRA prophets are really starting to talk to us about about our book is that when they truly understand what we’re saying, which is that they have to reframe their outreach efforts, they’ve begun to realize that this is way bigger than just the fundraising and This is a management, this is a board related issue that they need to start having these conversations. Fundamentally, it’s ultimately change management at the end of the day that needs to happen as well.
Lee Carter:
So there are three really, really big points there, and I want to dig into each one of those. But the first, this notion that it’s more competitive, I think, than it ever has been before. I think you and I have talked about how it used to be if you want to donate cancer, there was the American Cancer Society. Now there’s tens of thousands of organizations related to cancer, let alone the products that you can buy that benefit cancer and all of that. have, right, is what that means for how we communicate. And so Ben and Michael, I want to bring you guys into this too, because I saw another statistic that really weighed on me this week in thinking about it. So the Wall Street Journal did a study on values and how values have shifted since 1998. And there’s a lot of conversation I think that’s come out of that about patriotism, about people’s view on religion. to me was about people’s view of giving back to the community, which at one point went really, really high. In fact, it was one of the more important drivers and has completely in 2023 fallen off. I think it dropped by something like 30% in importance to people to give back to their communities, which then also plays into this. And now we’re in a competitive environment, and you’ve got people who place less value on giving back to community, which is another thing — what do we talk to people about? How do we engage people in all of these different causes? What’s this mean?
Ben Feller:
Well, there’s a bunch of ways to go with that. Let me lean into the first part of what you said, Lee, on the competition. I love the community connection as well, but I really wanna get Brian’s point of view on this point. I went to a conference a few years ago of nonprofits large and small across America, places you’ve heard of, places that are a little bit more understated, and I was taken aback by how much they wanted to share with each other what they did. They wanted to open their books, to give their best ideas for how they recruited the youngest and most talented employees, how they raise money. And I was fascinated because companies compete, nonprofits collaborate. They’re all in this to fix the problem together. And that wasn’t how I was wired as a journalist and how I’m wired in terms of helping companies win, but as I got smarter about in the nonprofit space, different ethos. So now we’re having this conversation about competition. I’m wondering, Brian, how you see that, because if nonprofits who have been working away at solving climate change or renewable energy or cancer treatments now have all this help from corporate America, is that not a good thing?
It’s a great question. I was talking and presenting on the book to At Salesforce last two weeks ago and one of their larger not-for-profit clients said to me I think we’re on the precipice of the next generation’s coming of age not caring about our labels anymore Not caring if we’re a not-for-profit or a for-profit they want it solved Ben to your point They want whatever that it is and they don’t care who does it if you think about that That is as I’ve said to a lot of not-for-profit leaders your system that should keep you up at night because that is you have now moved the needle of competition from this, , not-for-profits having that ground to themselves, to everybody being in the game. And I was giving a talk recently up in Boston and the head of a major not-for-profit, not in the environmental space, said to me what Patagonia will be able to do with their roughly hundred million dollar profits every year, oddly enough, now that they’ve made themselves a non-profit. corporations forming nonprofits, they’re going to be able to do more than 99% of the environmental not-for-profits out there. So when you think about that and you think about the consumer who doesn’t live in this world every single day, it’s going to get harder for them to decipher who’s doing the really important good work. And that is the dangerous territory from a communication standpoint for not-for-profits to be able to articulate their value proposition in such a way that going back to it. You want long-term donors but how you communicate is the bedrock of being able to do that.
Michael Maslansky:
Yeah, and I think, Brian, if we sit in the chair of a nonprofit executive director or CEO and their board and think about, there’s the bigger challenge that they’re trying to solve, but there is the often shorter term, more immediate, more important to them challenge of how they survive as a nonprofit. And that means that they may decide that the best answer is to not. in order to kind of focus on the end game. But until they make that decision, the question is how do they compete for attention in dollars? And that is much more challenging than it has been, particularly in the environment that you’re talking about where there’s kind of this, I imagine when you talk about the drop off in households, you’ve got similar to what the kind of separation in the political space where you’ve got small dollar donors and big dollar donors, There are big dollar donors that are coming in with bigger dollars that leads to the overall, the top line numbers going up. In politics, we’ve got more small dollar donors that are getting involved. In the charitable space, we’ve got seemingly fewer small dollar donors. And so how do you get their attention? And from where we sit, as I think about what it takes for these organizations to compete Tons of organizations that are focused on let’s say cancer. It’s not just cancer. It’s pediatric cancer. It’s not just pediatric cancer. It’s lymphoma And you know, and you’ve got all these specialized organizations. You’ve really got this challenge of first of all How do you how do you identify what it is that you distinctly stand for in the marketplace that that? Will allow you to be a specialist in that space How do you find the people that also care about that? You may be going after a more narrowly targeted set of households, but those that really care about the thing that you focus on. I think there’s also kind of a larger aspect of things is that there have been enough unfortunate stories about charities that have not done the things that they said that they were going to do, that they either haven’t had the impact that they said that they were going to have, or much worse, they have not used the money in the way that they are supposed to use it, that now the bar for demonstrating not only that you’re supporting a good cause, but that you are the right organization to support that cause because you are capable of achieving the outcomes that you say you’re going to achieve becomes a critical part of communication. You have to like, you can’t assume that just because you’ve identified a good cause that a potential donor is going to say, okay, let me give you money. You have to demonstrate effectively.
Brian Crimmins:
Michael, if I could jump in on that, because you hit on one of the biggest other takeaways that leaders are starting to get when we are in front of them. The notion that, as you said, maybe it’s better that you focus on a smaller group who really intimately care about your issue versus the spray and pray mentality that the entire sector has been following that playbook for 15 or 20 years. And that is what we are trying to say to the audiences we’re in front of. More donors is not always the answer. higher quality, those that are absolutely are near and dear to you. And I try to explain to them that many big corporations, may think that they, the not-for-profit community may think companies take a spray-and-pray approach to those that they know will buy their products. The answer is they don’t. They know exactly who will buy the products. They know when they’ll buy them, what color they’ll buy them, and they focus on that long-term value. We’re trying to get the nonprofit community to we now have as human beings eight seconds of attention span, which puts us below goldfish who have nine seconds. So it’s a very competitive world. And I think you hit on a really important point, Michael, I just wanted to double down on that is all too often foreign to a lot of not-for-profits who think that everyone should be a donor to them.
Michael Maslansky:
Yeah, you know, something that you just said that I think is something that we see a lot from the corporate side, which is that historically, I think corporates have given a little bit of their charitable money to lots of different organizations. And then they try and go out and get credit for how philanthropic or how socially responsible they are. And certainly what we find when they try and communicate that is that, is that the spray and pray approach from the corporate donation perspective really does not work. and that we advise them to pick the organizations to support that are most aligned with what they do as an organization, as a company, with their customer base. And so, not only from a nonprofit perspective, not only do they need to be thinking about which kind of individual donors to go after, they need to be able to think about which corporate donors to go after that are most aligned with their mission in order to be to get money when I think in general corporations are donating to fewer and fewer organizations in a more concentrated way.
Lee Carter:
I remember there used to be a lot of commercials, especially late at night, for different nonprofits that would make you cry. Sarah McLachlan was often in the background of hurt animals. And you’d just be like, I have to go save those animals. You don’t see that as much. There used to be a lot of communication and really focused on the problem and how bad it was. And I think people don’t respond to that in the same way as they used to. They want to understand the impact that they’re having more about how they’re part of the solution. And so communicators often hear, OK, so people are skeptical that we need to have more transparency. That means that we should show them more about the accounting or the financial principles of what we’re doing. But is that really what people are asking for? They’re really wanting to see the other side, the impact And what does this all mean from a communication perspective on how we need to shift the way that we’re talking about nonprofits?
Brian Crimmins:
the not for profit community, when we talk to them about how the Edelman Trust Barometer for the last two years, corporations are more seen as ethical and more competent than not for profits now blows their minds because this was the trust that you the word that you talked about the ethical place. I mean, Michael, you were talking about some of the scandals. All those things have created a perfect storm where now they are blown away. When I tell them that they’re behind companies. as what people see as being competent and ethical. And by the way, their most recent report, in the last three years, companies have grown 19 points on the ethical side. So if you don’t think their purpose and social impact and CSR programs are working, trust me, they are with people’s perceptions of that. So now, Lee, back to your point. One of the main themes of our book is this concept of radical connection that we define is what we think not-for-profits and for-profits to be competitive need to establish as individuals. And it’s not that I don’t think it’s the same recipe for each organization, but there are elements of what you said. There are donors, for instance, who do wanna know, how effective is this not-for-profit? What impact are they having? You know, let me see under the hood. What’s the budget? Where are you going with your programs? There are others who want different aspects. They wanna hear different stories. They do still wanna hear the Sarah McLaughlin, believe it or not. But understanding that, which is something that only recently not-for-profits at the scale that for-profit brands have because of the use of AI and the understanding of how to bring data about all of us to the mix of how then they turn around and communicate to us is something that is a big transformation that the not-for-profit community is going under. But the radical connection piece, that transparency, the authenticity, the sharing, that’s part of the ingredients that I think not-for-profits need to figure out to then translate that to how they communicate.
Michael Maslansky:
We’ve talked a little bit about organizations specializing and really focusing on where they can stand out and who they need to target. We’ve seen in a lot of work, you know, just as that slimming down who they focus on, there’s also a slimming down of what they say that they hope to achieve. on work with Head Start a while back where it was all about the war on poverty. And the feedback that we got there is like the war on poverty is too big. No one’s going to solve poverty. If you say you’re going to solve poverty, it’s not credible. And so how do we make that smaller and more achievable? And we see that in a lot of the nonprofit work that we do where if you go out and you say that you’re going to cure cancer, I think actually think in a lot of ways is less credible than saying that you are going to, you know, make cancer a disease that you can live with for longer or some other endpoint that is smaller and more achievable. Are you seeing that much in the organizations that you work with?
Brian Crimmins:
Absolutely. The contextualizing of the impact that that not-for-profit can have on these bigger issues, whether it be cancer, education, et cetera. Absolutely. Because you’re right, they lose credibility when they say, we’re going to solve childhood hunger. Well, guess what? Good luck with that. That used to work. But as people have more access to data, understand the issues more than ever before, that’s… Yeah, the credibility question is certainly at play when they make bold claims like that. We’ve been helping our clients actually both on the corporate side, going back to your example, we had a corporate client who was funding an issue and their statement was basically, we’re going to solve this. And actually in their CSR report, Wall Street analysts said, how’s that going? And they lost some credibility with that. And then they were able to define it by saying, actually, fair point, we want to impact a million people who are dealing with this issue and got it. Okay, that makes sense. And now I understand why you’re doing it. So I couldn’t agree more.
Ben Feller:
I just wanted to jump in Brian, on this point about radical connection. All of the different obstacles we’re outlining get in the way of not-for-profits succeeding, particularly in getting donations and support. One of the big overarching themes to all of this is there’s a cynicism out there. Is the money being spent wisely? Are you actually going to be helpful? Why should I give it all? The Sarah McLachlan example is so apt because I remember those commercials too, and now Sarah of Lachman does a Super Bowl commercial, mocking herself for those commercials. We’ve all kind of so moved on. And so I was thinking about Lee’s point about values and people not giving back to their community. I gotta think it’s really hard for a lot of these nonprofits to have a sense of connection to their audiences because if you went to a university and they keep asking you for money, at least you have some emotional, loyal connection to that place. and you think of the American Cancer Society, you give to them because of a personal connection. But if you’re a nonprofit that is generally going after one of these big issues, or even a slimmed-down one, as Michael said, and there’s not a connection there, you know, you just need a radical connection in this environment to overcome the cynicism and all these other players who are doing it well. Is that what you’re finding in your discussions?
Brian Crimmins:
That’s exactly what we’re finding. And as crazy as it may sound, but maybe not, you nailed it, but that’s a foreign concept. Because for so long, because the percentage of American households who would give to a nonprofit was so high that you could have, let’s just go out blanketly and tell people what we’re doing and people will give to us because we’re this not-for-profit and because we do good work. You throw in all the points you’ve made and that environment has changed dramatically. I mean, the fact that more than half of Americans me, but Lee, it does fit into the narrative that you’re talking about so many other things that are driving downward that we used to take for granted as sort of the bedrock of our country. No longer can we take it for granted.
Michael Maslansky:
I mean, I’d love to come back to this question of why that is and the relationship between the reduction in household giving and the increase in companies doing it for them. Because you know, I think from, from where I sit, in many ways, I think individuals are starting to outsource that community giving. They’re either doing it in the way that they shop. If I support a company that supports a cause by the transitive property, I am supporting the cause. Or they’re choosing a company to work for that supports a cause. And by working for a company that supports a cause, again, by the transitive property, they are doing it that way. And so their kind of personal responsibility or feeling that they need to do it directly is minimized but it’s not something that’s being recognized by the individuals who are actually doing this.
Brian Crimmins:
Totally agreed. A couple of points we write in the book are about why we think this is happening in a bit of a perfect storm. One is the disassociation of religion, and it doesn’t matter what religion, but as more and more Americans disassociate with religion, this habit-forming nature of giving back, all religions have a form of giving back in some way, shape, or form. And as less and less younger and younger people disassociate, I don’t care in general where will the next generations learn the habit of giving. Michael, that’s one point. The second is we’ve talked about it a bit. I love what Mackenzie Scott Bezos is doing. I love it. But let’s be honest, when she gives XYZ, not for profit, $450 million, we call it the crowding out effect. You can’t tell me the $100 donor goes, what do you need my money for then? Even if they legitimately need the $100 donor, that, I’m back to communication. Like how do you make that relevancy Scott just dropped $430 million. I don’t know what this next comment is going to say about me, but I’ve heard from three friends today that they’re going to Jersey Mike’s for lunch, because today is the day they’re going to give all their profits back to charity. And I said to them, that’s great. But exactly your point, Michael. I’ve said to them, please don’t let that abdicate your responsibility to give elsewhere. Please don’t let that be the thing that allows you to check the box that says you’ve done good for 2023, because that is what’s happening in our world right now.
Lee Carter:
Brian, you mentioned that you get the same dopamine effect from buying a pair of Toms that you would and being involved in a charity. Is that right?
Brian Crimmins:
That is correct. And that is another a-ha point and when we’ve been in front of the audiences thus far with the book, which is buying a Patagonia sweater, buying Toms, going to Jersey Mike’s, we literally get the same chemical reaction, the dopamine hit that you just spoke about, that we used to get when we would write a check to a not-for-profit. And when that happens, as that’s happening, I’ve had audiences of small and large, you can hear the gasp from that the environment has changed and they’re no longer the only place to go get that hit.
Lee Carter:
There are a couple of things that this is just making me think about. So we also have a mental health crisis in the country. It’s well documented over the last several years. And one of the things that we know to be true is that people who are involved in nonprofits and giving back directly help mental health. And yet, I don’t think we’re making that connection. I’m wondering if there’s not any opportunity to engage people on that front. For whatever reason I’m thinking about Princess Diana and how publicly she talked about how her giving back helped her so much. And it’s not a conversation we seem to be having in these moments where we do have a giving crisis and we have a mental health crisis at the same time.
Brian Crimmins:
Lee, I should take you out on the road. This is the point that beyond everything else we’ve been talking about that I’m actually trying to get most people to understand. If you understand what being generous does to you, we should all be doing it. So the 48, 49% should be 96% because you’re 100% correct. I mean, studies have shown it lowers blood pressure. It increases our relationships. It helps with our mental health. We have an unhappiness crisis in this country. Generosity is the antidote to all those things, but nobody’s talking about it.
Michael Maslansky:
So, Brian, I gotta ask you a question about this. So, you know, many people have talked about Gen Z, millennials, and Gen Z being like the generations that were gonna save us. They were gonna change the world. They were gonna, you know, kind of pull us away from all of the bad things that we were doing. And yet I imagine that your numbers are showing less than previous generations gave in order for that to hold. Cause I imagine that people, individual people are probably, I would say they’re probably fewer individual people who have stopped giving and used to give than there are people who never started giving. And, that number is just growing. And so how do you reconcile that? I mean, cause I think Lee, to your point too, that is where I think the heart, of a lot of the mental health challenges are. I think more purpose-driven, at least in what they say, and yet they’re not, you know, it seems like it’s all a big contradiction.
Brian Crimmins:
So the next generations, the next two particularly, are a part of what we wrote in the book that they’re in a sense redefining the word generosity. I’m the youngest of nine kids, so my parents are much older, but their generation defined that by giving to a not-for-profit, right? Mostly. The younger and younger generations, Michael, to your point, if you ask them if they’re generous, the answer is off the charts, yes. But when you think of volunteering, well, they think of that as generosity. For instance, which is now pushing north of $20 billion a year. It has removed the not-for-profit from the vehicle which I need to support. We had a friend recently whose house unfortunately caught on fire and had some major damage. Well, to see our community rally through crowdfunding to support them, there was no nonprofit in the way. There are more options now to be generous, to re-inspire that, that when you ask them because studies have shown the next generation say, oh, we are incredibly generous. following the path of giving to not-for-profits. And I think when you have if I could poke the bear, what you often have at the highest levels is you’ve got the likes of Elon Musk out there saying that his companies are philanthropies. Because he’s taking the true definition of philanthropy, which is for the love of humanity, and saying if that’s philanthropy, well then my companies, I’m doing and building these companies for the love of humanity. You’ve got the next generation who’s coming up saying, well, I don’t just look at it as giving money to a nonprofit to be generous. There’s a lot happening right now. Sorry to keep coming back to it, but this is what you all do better than anybody. You can start to see when I walk into not-for-profit clients’ boardrooms and they say, we’re doing the same thing and the results are getting worse every year. How do we cut through this noise? Ourselves? How do we tell the story that, yes, we need you to volunteer but we also need to keep the lights on? Let’s be candid, we need to run programs that impact people. That’s the point that they’re really about to be struggling with or already struggling with.
Lee Carter:
And so what’s the answer? Right? I know you’re working with so many nonprofits. What are the, like if you could tell every nonprofit who’s struggling with this issue, which I imagine, I mean the boards of the organizations that I’m involved on are struggling with this very issue. How do we get eyeballs on disaster relief when there’s Habitat for Humanity, when there’s SBP, when there’s all these different ones? How do you get eyeballs on climate change when it’s the companies who are doing all this on health care when now suddenly we know that all R&D happens at pharma and it’s not the nonprofit? So what are, tangibly, what are three things that a nonprofit should do to make sure that they’re having an impact?
Michael Maslansky:
I think, and this is something that we’ve seen in the work that I’ve done at Pencil in New York where I’m on the board, which is a nonprofit that’s focused on bringing business professionals into the classroom to work with students and connect students to success, as we say. And I think one of the things is kind of a recognition that what got us here is not going to happen and the old tools for fundraising are not going to be as effective. And so like the big goal, every year is not going to be as effective and the kind of open-ended donation request that isn’t tied to something specific is not going to be as effective. We need to find ways to create a connection and ultimately create a long-term connection with people. And Brian, this may tie into your dopamine point, which is a much greater need for a kind of stimulus and response. It is no longer I’m going to give to a good cause and just the act of giving is going to be enough. It is what I get out of that act of giving that makes it feel like there’s an impact. So, you know, so one of the things that I’ve been a big advocate for is kind of the connection between, you know, donation and volunteering, the approach that says, you know, you’re not just giving money, you’re giving time, you’re getting some clear kind of feedback back from the value of that volunteerism. It creates a stronger connection with the organization. It wants you to come back year after year. I think so that that’s one is it’s it, you know, if you’ve got programs as part of your organization that have volunteerism associated with it, and you’ve got financial donations that I historically have often been treated as two separate things. How do you integrate them in a very deliberate way so that it creates that stickiness with the organization? I think the other is that it’s got to be constantly changing. I mean, the amazing thing, if we look at the Geico ads, they’ve had the same message, but no two executions of that message are the same. And so from a recipient’s perspective, you’re getting a new view on that same message every time you engage with them. And I think for nonprofits, like, again, I think the message, they pick a message, they stick with it, they hammer it home, similar execution, similar events, similar things like that. and refresh of how that message is being communicated so that it doesn’t feel like I’m doing the same thing that I did last year.
Lee Carter:
You helped them at Pencil change the language of how they talked about it. So can you just tell me what they were talking about and what you shifted it to? Because I think that also is a lesson in how to engage.
Michael Maslansky:
Yes.
Michael Maslanky:
Yeah, absolutely. so Pencil was created, it had almost a policy focus in the New York City school system. It was about getting businesses to engage with the system to impact how education was delivered in New York. And one of the things that they had already realized before I got involved, but certainly we use the language to shift this was that the power was the power into the system to connect, but it was all about the students and the business professionals. And we identified three things that the organization was focused on from a programmatic perspective, opening eyes, opening minds, and opening doors. And then what we did is we also said, not only was it about doing that for students, it was about doing that for professionals. And so everything that we do there is about how we open the minds of students and business professionals. For business professionals, we’re showing them about kids who may live a mile away from them, but that they don’t really understand. They never experienced the life that they’ve lived or what opportunities they know are there. When it comes to opening minds, we talk about skills-building for students. We’ve got programs that are like fundamental life skills around communication, around networking, things like that, that help open minds for students. And obviously, go in and you start working with these kids, it starts to change your perspective about what’s possible, about how you might be able to bring these kids into the workforce. And so the third one is about opening doors. And for students, it’s pretty clear we focus on creating internships, which leads to jobs, but mostly relationships, because often these kids, the biggest thing that they’re lacking is access to those relationships that create opportunities that we were fortunate to benefit from. opportunities often just mean like they take on new roles, you know, either with students as mentors or in other ways that have been revealed to them through this process. And so the messaging is very closely tied to the programs and hopefully the programmatic connection creates a financial commitment that leads to a financial commitment as well.
Lee Carter:
I think that is an amazing shift in language because where you started is what the organization does, right, it’s system change versus where you went, which is really impactful and meaningful and emotional, and it’s a big shift in how they describe it. I even felt, from the way you describe the mission of the organization to begin with, that when you give those three pieces of language, it’s a completely different feeling that I have about wanting to be engaged with it. So I think it’s so important nonprofits think about it this way, most nonprofits are talking about what they’re doing, not how to create that emotional connection. And I know if more people talk to Michael about how to shift their language, they’d be better off. And Ben, I know you’ve got something to add here. They should probably talk to Ben too.
Ben Feller:
I would add one item to the to-do list for not-for-profits. If you think about the work that we do at Maslansky and Partners, before we help clients by crafting the language that they need to help their audiences listen and engage and care and act, we uncover first the mindset shifts that they need to make and that their clients need to make and that Michael was just referring to. And I think the mindset shift that nonprofits need to make to have a radical connection to their audiences, need a radical reinvention of how you communicate. And you need to be careful about using the word radical too often because it can lose its power, but I really think it applies here. I think the reinvention that not-for-profits need to make is this awareness that they’re up against it. And if they want to be distinctive and compete and win, then they need to own that. The rest of certainly corporate America is we need to be distinctive, we need to compete, and we need to win, and owning that mindset will flow directly to their communications if they say yeah, we want that but then you get into your language and it’s consensus driven, it’s inward. It’s about us. It’s about their 501c3 status. It’s not about connecting with the audience and winning and saying we’re gonna grab you stop you and make you care about, why we are different, and how we help. Then if they don’t do that, they’re not going to win in the way that we’re talking about. And that might sound so intuitive to some of our listeners, but for others, it is actually tough. It’s where it offends their sensibility. And they’ve got to get past it. They’ve got to own that radical mindset of our communications need to be distinctive and assertive and even aggressive. And once they do that, they realize, OK. And that can have a really profound impact on how they show up, but also to Michael’s earlier point, not doing the same thing every year. Right? The other point I’ll make on this is you think about the NFL player Demar Hamlin, who collapsed on the field and would have died if it weren’t for really miraculous treatment. That sports story became an American story immediately. And for a few days, the whole country was galvanized about that. But from a generosity standpoint, Damar Hamlin had set up this nonprofit and it drew tremendous donations, millions and millions of dollars. Why was that? A lot of those folks weren’t football fans. Like I got to do something. You’ve captured me, I got to do something to help this guy. What do I do? I can’t go into the hospital and help him. Oh, he set up this cause. I’m going to give you this cause. Because there was this radical connection right at that moment. And people wanted to do something and gave. Fast forward a few months, you know, and he makes it and he’s showing up at the games and he goes to the Super Bowl and he wears a controversial outfit. And now the story is not about his health and his recovery. It’s more about like, okay, we’re back to judging him for his clothing and now we’re not really talking about him anymore. And I bet the donations have dropped off. Why is that? Because you need that radical connection in every month to stay in front of people to get them to give.
Lee Carter:
I think what that means in terms of how you communicate with somebody at the point that they make that connection is so important. I’ve seen clients who instead of saying you’re a donor, you’re part of the team. Instead of, you know, saying this is about one point in time, they’re saying, you know what, over the next 12 months, we need you to be part of the solution because we’re going to create a program where once a month if you give us this, it means that. you use to create that ongoing connection instead of it as one point in time. I think that’s something really needs to be carefully considered because you can seize on an opportunity but to create that connection over the long haul takes rethinking how you engage in those moments.
Ben Feller:
Yeah, absolutely. It takes a lot of work because first you have to have the mindset shift, then you have to have the personal connection to that audience who you may never meet about what’s in it for them and how they are part of the team, make it personal. And then you got to look at your year of giving that you want and figure out how are we going to continue to communicate in our language and in our actions to continue to draw them in. And that takes a lot of work, but it’s completely the right approach.
Brian Crimmins:
I’ll just piggyback on what Michael and Ben were saying because they said it really really well what we did and hit hard in the book is just that we challenge and we’re doing this in front of audiences to Have not-for-profits and again, you all said this in such great ways great examples to stop focusing on money and focus on relationships And I again easier said than done But we’ve been challenging not-for-profit leaders to say mean you are going to do differently? What KPIs are different? How are you communicating differently? What’s your change management? Because that is the ultimate way I think we think when we came up with the notion of radical connection. It was because connection, affinity just didn’t work anymore. It’s not as effective anymore. And I agree, Ben, your point. Who knows? Maybe radical will get overused and we’ll have to think of something else. But for the time when we wrote the book, the radical connection point and the reframing, because into not-for-profits and look at their database through the value of how much money those individuals could give. Now I’m trying to reframe all of our efforts to say what is the connection quotient? What is the connection strength of your database? Then we’ll layer on the money and it sounds simple but it’s a completely different mindset.
Lee Carter:
Brian, thank you so much for joining us. I feel like any of our clients and listeners who are in the nonprofit world, in the foundation at the corporate world, or even in the social impact space in companies would benefit from a conversation with you. So we really appreciate you joining us today. the conversation around social good. We’d love to have you back to talk more in specifics about a number of topics we touched on, including sustainability, ESG, and more. So thanks for your time today.
Brian Crimmins:
Great, thanks for having me and really enjoyed the conversation and looking forward to future ones.
Michael Maslansky:
Yeah, that was great, Brian. Thank you.
Brian Crimmins:
Thank you. Thank you.
Ben Feller:
Thanks, Brian.
Lee Carter:
And for more language insights and to be in a loop on all the other fun stuff we’re doing, follow us on LinkedIn at maslansky + partners and join our mailing list at maslansky.com/connect. That’s all for now. Stay tuned for more episodes of hearsay because when it comes to truly effective communications, it’s not what you say, it’s what they hear.
