March 26, 2013 | Tom Suddes
Shortly after reading THE VALUE OF A GOOD VISUAL at HBR, I’m reading my new Fast Company for April and came across THE VISUAL SHIFT.
Article leads with: Facebook Acquiring Instagram for $715M. Pinterest hits 2.5B monthly page views. We are living in an image-obsessed times.
Just think about these words from the ‘Creative Visionary’ Joe Stewart, Partner and Global Creative Director at HUGE, a New York Based Digital Agency.
“The ability to instantly communicate through IMAGERY (my caps) now seems to transcend everything for businesses, for content-creators, for e-commerce companies, for mass brands.”
“Facebook, the most popular website out there, decides that IMAGES (again my caps) are more important than the written word when they put a color photo at the top if its pages.”
“We now understand that humans can parse tons of VISUAL INFORMATION quickly. The ratio of your time to your satisfaction is high.”
A big part of me wants to say, “No kidding!” Again, it’s the ‘picture worth the thousand words’ mantra/epigram that’s been around since Paleo-Man started drawing on cave walls!
I know I’m sounding like the proverbial ‘broken record’. (Not even sure that metaphor works in this day and age, since nobody even knows what a ‘record’ is!)
However, I am not going to pull back from challenging the For Impact ‘Tribe’ to:
- Make DESIGN a big, big part of your strategy.
- Make VISUALS a mandatory part of your Story, Message and Engagement Tools
- Tap into the ‘RIGHT SIDE’ of everyone’s brain … for the absolute fastest way to “You had me at hello”, “I get it”, “I’m in”.
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March 25, 2013 | Tom Suddes
The Value of A Good Visual: Immediacy
Bill Franks, Chief Analytics Officer at Teradata and a Faculty Member at the Institute for Analytics, authored a book TAMING THE BIG DATA TIDAL WAVE.
He posted a powerful explanation of THE VALUE OF A GOOD VISUAL at the HBR Blog Network.
I have been pounding on this idea for years and years … but it still seems like a ‘hard sell’.
There’s a big reason that people use the phrase, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” (As most of you know, in our world, “A ‘napkin’ (visual) is worth 10,000 words.”)
As Bill Franks reinforces, our brains are meant to see in pictures. He uses a really powerful example to illustrate this … a MAP OF THE UNITED STATES.
Think about it. A MAP is one of the most powerful visualization tools ever created! It shows relationships, relativity, and much more.
You can immediately see the size of states, contiguous states, what state is part of what region, etc.
Now just think if we took the map away, as Frank points out, and only had a set of data (text) that talks about location or size or borders or other information.
Read the article to gain a deeper understanding of this … and THEN APPLY IT!
For example:
- Visually capture in the simplest way … your purpose, meaning, vision, reason for existence.
- Create the most compelling and easily understood visual of your business model. (See 3 examples here.)
- Create a visual timeline that shows your founding, start-up, track record and credibility … and your SCALE & GROW plan. (See 3 examples here.)
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March 25, 2013 | Kerry Suddes
Teleseminar: For Impact 101- Changing the Funding Game (INTRO)
"Every organization is perfectly designed to get the results it is getting.”
-Tim Kight
Teleseminar: For Impact 101- Changing the Funding Game (INTRO)
Thursday, March 28, 2013 @ 1:00 ET / 10:00 PT
Investment: $45 / Free for first 100 registrants
Paying attendees will receive an MP3 copy of the seminar audio.
Using this quote as a framing device we’ll explore the design you need to change or drive results … we’ll reference stories and practical nuggets you can implement based on 30 years of in-the-field experience, $1Billion+ raised directly and $1Billion raised indirectly through our coaching clients.
We’ve prepared this free training opportunity to augment the For Impact workshops and WOW emails. It’s a great way to review the For Impact message and share the workshop experience with others. Space is limited.
In this seminar we share:
- How to communicate your return-on-investment
- Ways to leverage the board and champion support
- How to simplify fundraising
- Ideas to help you ask for $1M
- How to generate more (qualified) prospect names
- How to answer the three double questions of every major investor
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March 22, 2013 | Tom Suddes
Don’t Fix the Present, Create the Future.
Interesting article from ROARING OR BORING’S Kevin Daum at Inc. The title of this comes from author and futurist Watts Wacker. Daum’s five critical concepts for success:
1. Collect People Not Things
2. Find the Economic Model to Do What You Love
3. Gain Through Giving and Gratitude
4. Put Your Ego in Your Wallet Where it Belongs
5. Be Responsible for Your Own Experience
Daum has short paragraph under each of these five concepts. Take a look.
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March 20, 2013 | Tom Suddes
Forget the Mission Statement. What’s Your Mission Question?
If you’ve ever attended a For Impact LIVE EXPERIENCE, you have most likely been encouraged to CHANGE YOUR VOCABULARY.
One of the first changes from old words/old thinking to new words/new thinking is changing from MISSION STATEMENT to MESSAGE.
In other words, your MISSION STATEMENT is written by a committee, with a thesaurus, politically correct and isn’t remembered by anybody in your organization (including those who wrote it).
New thinking is around your MESSAGE. Your VISION. Your PURPOSE. Your MEANING.
Here’s another take on this idea from Warren Berger at Fast Co. Design.
FORGET THE MISSION STATEMENT. WHAT’S YOUR MISSION QUESTION?
This article is a preview of his forthcoming book A MORE BEAUTIFUL QUESTION.
I encourage you to read the article.
Here are his “five questions that today’s forward thinking companies should be asking”:
1. Why are we here in the first place?
2. What does the world need most that we are uniquely able to provide?
3. What are we willing to sacrifice?
4. What matters more than money?
- (Hint: It’s a ‘blue’ word that begins with I and ends with T!)
5. Are we all on this mission together?
All of these questions apply to your For Impact Organization.
Some great stories and examples in the article. Worth your time.
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March 19, 2013 | Nick Fellers
A few months ago we published a guidebook: How to Get a Visit.
This is a nugget about the story to secure a visit. Really though, it’s a reminder about WHY we are trying to get a visit in the first place. (Hint: it’s not about the money.)
Perhaps your process to get a visit goes like this:
[A phone call or email from the ‘development officer’.] “Could we come and see you to talk to you about our annual campaign?”
There IS a story here… But it’s a BAD (VISIT) STORY.
- Development
- Annual Campaign
- No ‘WHY’. No ‘IMPACT’.
Here are some thoughts to help you create a GREAT (VISIT) STORY.
- Go back to our core message: Impact Drives Income. WHY are we visiting? WHAT are we trying to do [IMPACT]? WHY do we want this person’s time? Is it to ask for money? Or, is it to help change lives, save lives and impact lives?
- “We are visiting with people to talk about HOW to transform education in our community.”
- “We are engaging key stakeholders in a conversation about the future of health care in our community.”
- “This is a movement; you are part of it. We have light years to go to change [insert cause]. This is an important conversation and we hope to have thousands more like it throughout the country…. “
- “We will be sharing where we’re going and asking for your help.”
- The story you tell yourself is AS important – if not MORE important – than the story voice. You must BELIEVE this is a phone call to change and save lives. If you believe this, your SPIRIT will trump any script. If you don’t believe this, a script will not help.
- Be Assumptive.
Nobody wants to have a visit to talk about money.
Nobody.
And yet, some $300 Billion is given away in the US each year.
Why is this?
Because just about everybody wants to make a difference. Just about everyone wants to help.
Everyone your meeting with (or hoping to meet with) WANTS TO CHANGE THE WORLD! They want to have exhilarating discussions about making a difference. They just don’t want to have a meeting about ‘giving money’. Giving money is a means to an end.
- Don’t make decisions for the prospects! Just a reminder.
- Bonus thought: Part of the STORY is about the PEOPLE on the visit.
This is a great team-selling tip.
YOU are a cool person!
Have a board member or natural partner help to open the door with this story, “You’re going to really enjoy spending 30 minutes with Stephanie. She’s a rock star… one of those people that makes us all want to do more to change the world. Stephanie and her team are amazing social entrepreneurs. “
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March 18, 2013 | Tom Suddes
Follow-Up to Dan Pallotta’s TED Talk
I hope you had a chance to view Dan Pallotta’s TED talk. This was center stage with an introduction from Chris Anderson, TED Founder and Chief Aggregator.
I got some great feedback on this talk. Almost all said, “THANKS FOR SHARING.” Many people weighed in on Pallotta’s message, which came across (to the For Impact Tribe) in many different ways
- Contrast between the business world and the not-for-profit world.
- Need to spend money to make money.
- If you really want to scale and grow, you need to be willing to spend large dollars.
- 40% on fundraising or admin is okay … as long as it’s a function of how much more money you can raise.
- ‘Overhead’ is a bad word.
Here is my take. Dan Pallotta is a really good presenter! Captured audience’s attention. Great visuals. Contrarian. Provocative. Causes you to think. In other words, everything a TED talk should be.
As all of you (who have been involved in this For Impact movement and thinking) know, however, my thinking on this is different in many ways:
- IMPACT drives INCOME. (If you really get this, all of the above is not as important.)
- To SCALE and GROW your IMPACT … you need to be able to ARTICULATE your message, purpose, etc. really well!
- We don’t even use the word ‘overhead’. As I’ve said to so many organizations and audiences over the years, “Of course, your investor’s money goes to ‘salaries’! It’s your ‘people’ that deliver your service and provide the impact. There’s not a philanthropist or entrepreneur or business person in the world who thinks that you can HAVE a huge IMPACT … or SCALE and GROW your IMPACT … without PEOPLE. Those PEOPLE require INVESTMENT.”
- Whatever ‘percent’ of your operating budget is labeled under ‘general administration’ or ‘fundraising’ should be driven as if you were a true entrepreneurial organization. You would not want money to go to ‘layers’, ‘middle management’ or roles or responsibilities.
- As an entrepreneurial organization, you should be asking how much of your money goes to products and services? To sales and marketing? To delivery and distribution?
- ***The smaller the organization … the more likely it is that everyone in the organization is involved with delivering impact.
Special Note: In our world, cost of fundraising is a legitimate issue. Too many orgs are spending 50¢ or 75¢ or $1.10 to raise $1.00!!! ‘Special events’ that aren’t special nor events. ‘Donor acquisition’ as a rationale for spending tons of money with little or no return. No major gifts program. No legacy program. No presentations. No asks.
A Nickel. A really strong major gifts program can raise money at 5¢ on the $1. That statement alone ought to cause some conversation!
Thanks to Dan P. for just keeping this Third Sector in front of TED audiences and their viral community!
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March 15, 2013 | Tom Suddes
I’m proud to share our new logo to commemorate 30 Years of Impact for The Suddes Group.
Statistics say that 9 out of 10 ‘businesses’ don’t make it past three years. (I’ve had my share of those.)
I started The Suddes Group in 1983 (#12 of 19 companies).
Cathedral High School in Indianapolis and Fenwick High School in Chicago were my first 2 ‘clients’. (I remember the Chairman of Cathedral saying, “No one will ever pay $2,500 [hundred!] a month for consulting in the not-for-profit world.”)
I also remember calling this company The Suddes GROUP because I really liked the Tom Peters GROUP. (There was no ‘group’ … at least not in the beginning.)
Since then, we’ve managed 400 or 500 campaigns and raised well over $1 Billion for everything from 100+ economic development campaigns to 100+ school campaigns to 100+ social service initiatives.
When Nick and I created For Impact in 2001, it was about the entire FOR IMPACT MOVEMENT and a desire to help change the world through every For Impact Leader and Social Entrepreneur we coached.
A lot has changed over these 30 years, but one constant has been the quality of our TEAM. From my brother John (who was first actual partner/associate) to Jim, Jim, Leo, Terry, Mike, Mike, Rob, Tom, Al, Lisa, et al … to today’s team of Nick, Steve, Kerry, Dick, Jeff, Robb, Mike, Carol, Christi-Marie, Traci, Nicole, Stephanie, Melissa, Georgina, Tim, Wolfie and Phyllis.
A special thanks to all of them … and to the thousands of people and organization we’ve worked with over the last 30 years.
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March 15, 2013 | Tom Suddes
Just did a teleseminar/audio ON BOARD(S). In the middle of the 45-minute session, I was doing a mini-rant on NO MORE ‘BORED’ MEETINGS. Mentioned that I have served on a number of boards early on in my career … and that I would never do it again. I’m a combination of ADD and ACTION-DRIVEN. Board meetings are bored meetings.
Suggested that everyone really shake up their next board meeting and make it a truly MEMORABLE EXPERIENCE!
Suggested that if you’re the hospital or hospital foundation board, you have your next meeting in an operating room.
‘Triggered the following from a wonderful CDO (Chief Development Officer) of one of the hospitals in the CHI system.
What was your most valuable takeaway on today’s call?
- “NO MORE BORED MEETINGS … My next On Board Engagement is going to be in one of our operating rooms at our hospital. That is a fantastic idea and I love it. My board has been begging to get rid of the BORING STUFF we talk about at every BOARD MEETING. Thank you.”
CHALLENGE: Every person in the For Impact Tribe (and anyone else who reads this) needs to re-think, re-design and re-imagine their board meetings (so that they are not ‘bored’ meetings)!
3 Quick Ideas:
- 1. CHANGE the VENUE! (We just had a foundation board meeting in Arkansas up in the press box of the stadium with a view out one side to the field and out the other side to the hospital! It was awesome.)
- 2. SHAKE UP the AGENDA. Anything that can be read in advance needs to be sent out … and read in advance! The Board Memorable Experience should offer huge opportunity for dialogue, conversation, ideas and feedback.
- 3. BRING in GUESTS! Having anyone who has actually been served (student, patient, hospice family, etc.) guarantees a visceral, palpable response.
- ***You might also look at bringing in someone with name recognition (local coach, community leader, etc.) who has ties to your organization.
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About For Impact
For Impact is...
Our Point of View, Our Message, and Our Commitment.We Lead, Facilitate, Train and Coach...Based on 40+ years in this 3rd Sector, 30 years in business, $1 Billion Raised, and $1 Billion Trained and Coached.
