6-Word Mesage (Follow-Up)

Tom Suddes | August 26, 2008

I’m begging you not to short-change the power of a CLEAR, CONCISE and COMPELLING MESSAGE. Think of this 6-WORD MESSAGE as the 6 Sigma of the For Impact World!

Special Note: ‘6 WORDS’ can break down into 6 BIG WORDS…
Or 2 GROUPS OF 3 WORDS…
Or 3 GROUPS OF 2 WORDS!

I thought I’d provide you some ‘YEAST’ for your ORGANIZATION’S 6-WORD MESSAGE.
• One of the best MESSAGES ever:
SAVE LIVES. REDUCE INCIDENCE. IMPROVE QUALITY.
This is the American Cancer Society’s WHY.

Here’s their 6-Word WHAT and HOW.
HOPE. PROGRESS. ANSWERS.
RESEARCH. EDUCATION. SERVICE.

*It doesn’t get any better than this. You can have a conversation/dialogue for hours around the 6-Word WHY and 3-Word WHAT plus the 3-Word HOW.

• Ohio Wesleyan University
6-WORD PURPOSE:
EDUCATING OUR STUDENTS FOR LEADERSHIP (&) SERVICE.

6-WORD PRIORITIES:
STUDENT LIFE. EDUCATIONAL EXPEIENCE. FINANCIAL STABILITY.

• Colorado College
What follows is 9 words but, still, 3 groups of 3 Words to capture an entire mapping process and agenda for a $300 Million Fundraising Initiative is pretty concise.
RIGOROUS INTELLECTUAL EXPERIENCE.
DIVERSE RESPECTFUL COMMUNITY.
NEXT GENERATION CAMPUS .

The Funding Priorities are then built around:
FACULTY. STUDENTS. CAMPUS.

• A Senior Community Center
TRANSFORM (THE) AGING EXPERIENCE.
(AROUND) HOME. HEALTH. MEALS.

Here are some 6-WORD MESSAGES within FOR IMPACT/THE SUDDDES GROUP:

• CHANGE (THE) WORLD through FOR IMPACT LEADERS
• CHANGE (THE) WORLD by SPEAKING. TRAINING. COACHING.

*Even our FOR IMPACT Point OF VIEW can be summarized in 6 Words:
IMPACT DRIVES INCOME. GO. JUST ASK.

BONUS: Here’s our ENTREPRENEURIAL MANTRA in 6 WORDS:

THING BIG. BUILD SIMPLE. ACT NOW.

*This works for every For Impact Organization, Social Entrepreneur and For Impact Leader.

Postscript: HAIKU. As I was writing out these examples, I was thinking about the similarity of these 6 Words to practicing the Japanese art of Haiku.

Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry consisting of 3 lines, made up 5, 7 and 5 syllables each.

One year ago (August of 2007), Nick and I were in the Grand Canyon rafting the Colorado River… and practicing our Haiku. Here is one of mine that captured the entire day’s activities for 14 straight days.

WAKE. EAT. RI•VER. HIKE.
EAT. RI•VER. HIKE. RI•VER. CAMP.
WRITE. PUS H•UPS. EAT. SLEEP.

Two great blogs also explore the realm of simple poetry. Katya’s Non-profit Marketing Blog held a competition to see who had the best nonprofit marketing haiku. You can see the winning entry here. Nonprofit Quarterly wrote this article on the topic, and more examples are here.

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Tags: 6 words, Communicate Your Case, haiku, mission statement, Simplify. Simplify. Simplify.

2 Comments So Far

Nonprofit Communications » Blog Archive » Mixed Links: Interesting Stuff on Nonprofit Marketing - August 26th, 2008 6:07 pm

[...] For Impact shows you how to hone your message down to just six words. [...]
Donny-MarketingTwin #2 - August 26th, 2008 9:14 pm

We went with a simple 3-word approach for our company:

CREATING | SOLUTIONS | GREATER THINGS

Go to: 1429creative.com to check it out!

Great concept though - SIMPLE SIMPLE SIMPLE !!

[Reply]