 We'd love to welcome all of you. Thanks so much for joining us to another episode of The Nonprofit Show. Julia's gonna pull up the sponsors for me because we like to start every day with extending our sincerest gratitude. I know you can see them behind both Julia and I, but these sponsors, I like to say, they like me and Julia, but they love you. They love the work you're doing. They're here to support you. They're here to lift you up and give you some support to support your cause and your mission across the globe and in every corner of your community. So give them a shout out, check them out online. Give them a like, a love, some follow. Again, they're here for you and support you and your mission and all the good work that you do. Julia Patrick joins me today as she does every morning unless the cat's away and then I get to play, but today she's here with me. So Julia Patrick is the CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy and I serve alongside Julia as the co-host of The Nonprofit Show. I'm Jarrett Ransom, also known as the Nonprofit Nerd, president and CEO of the Raven Group and I am really excited. And so for those of you that joined us in the Chitty Chat Chat, I was like, we have got to get started because I can tell that Erica Mills Barnhart has got such a plethora of wisdom to share with us. And Erica joins us from the Pacific Northwest and she is with Klaxon Marketing. Erica, welcome and thanks for being our guests today. Oh, thank you for having me, Jarrett and Julia. I'm really excited to be here talking about my favorite topic. Well, you know, it's my topic as well. I love this and I think it is such a powerful thing given what we've gone through across this globe and the last, you know, several years. As Jarrett always reminds us, we've really had a lot of pandemics. We've had, you know, the health crisis of COVID-19, we've had political pandemics, we've had social strife, just a lot of different things and words matter. And so we want to pull this back in and get your advice on this of how we can change our world with words. So talk to us about how words impact our missions because that, I think we write a mission statement and then we kind of put it in the drawer somewhere. Yeah, which is so sad, right? So when people ask, if you work for a nonprofit and somebody says, what do you do? The response you want to actually give them is something that speaks to probably your mission, right? And unfortunately, the way that mission statements are developed is a total bummer because they're like developed by a committee. And then everybody has to see their words. So that comes to a beautiful place. They care so deeply about the work of the organization. And then you end up with these mission statements that are like 54 words long with semicolons and M-Defs and whatnot. And so nobody can remember it, right? Right. And then that's what you're kind of putting out to the world is like your everything. And when you tell people your everything, they remember nothing, right? So a lot of the work about increasing impact of your words is by kind of like getting cozy with the idea of sequencing, right? And really like being okay with the fact that your thing may not be everybody's thing, which is kind of hard for people to care so deeply about the work to make peace with. But you're much better served by getting really clear. And Julia, you were saying, I mean, we've had so many pandemics. So we really are in a moment in time where one of the externalities that's come out of this is kind of like an intolerance for anything that is not essential. Wow. You know, that's a really interesting concept. Yeah. So whereas before there was me now, maybe non-profits would get a little more latitude, you know, you could kind of whatever. But the work is too important. And I mean, nonprofits have stepped up in this just phenomenal way. It's not a sustainable path forward. I want to go on record of saying, just phenomenal. So the work needs to continue and it needs to be funded at a higher level. But also meanwhile, when we think about words and people hear words, we often very much are thinking external. However, you need really strong internal alignment before your words that you put out externally to the world are really going to land and resonate. So it's like the coming together of these things that is so important. And when I work with organizations, so I have two hats that I wear. And I am a consultant, and I've been a consultant for a really long time. And then also I'm an associate teaching professor at the University of Washington with the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance. So I teach and do research around language and words. And then I also, I like to think of it as I keep grounded and real. I mean, the other school is very practical, right? But you know, it is helpful to students having been walking and say, well, you know, I was doing some work at the Gates Foundation or whoever the client is at that moment in time. So to have those real world life examples happening. So when I work with clients, what I say is, you know, you wanna think about your words a little like we think about chemistry. So you may recall in high school chemistry class, there was a lot of, there was elements and you compacted elements for different contexts, right? And so where a lot of us get kind of like caught up in things is like the mission statement and we try to make the mission statement do all the jobs, like communicate everything there is to know about the organization. That's not your mission statements job, right? So every organization needs these core messaging elements which I refer to as identity statements, right? So mission, vision, values, purpose, okay? And then in order to externalize you need to bring in grand personality. But if we focus on having a mission statement, a vision statement, purpose and values, right? So often, usually we'll start with the values, right? Cause those, that's, I mean, that is not unique to your messaging, right? It really is how are you going to operationalize what you value and care about most? What do you hold most to your, right? So you start there. When I'm working with organizations, you get three. Three and only three values. And the reason for that is that it's tough to actually operationalize more values. I just found it to be much more effective tool if it's rigorous in that way. So three, and then what do those words really mean to you? What do they really mean to you? So word plus little statement. So the values are the principles that guide your work. Your vision is where are you going and why, okay? Your purpose is why do you as an organization exist? Like if this is where you're going and why, why are you needed? Which can be an uncomfortable question to answer. And then your mission, the job of your mission statement is actually to speak to what you do and how you do it. So what we will often see is some like mission and the purpose statement and then a little bit of maybe mission and the vision and like that's not their job. So you're actually asking these sentences to do a job that they can't do. And this is where we see organizations really struggle. I mean, I see it again, internally and externally struggle to get traction with the pockets and communities and audiences that they care about because the messaging is so kind of fuzzy. Like it lacks that clarity. And when you have that clarity, the other thing is it's very inspiring internally. It brings beautiful alignment, which then you operationalize those statements in a whole bunch of different ways, right? This is gonna inform human resources. It's gonna inform, you know, just absolutely everything, not just your marketing. So that whole absence around the identity statements is very powerful. And that's where I encourage every organization to start. I love the clarity. And I like to say that the other C word that is probably clarity's sister or sibling, I'll say, right, is consistency. Yes. I cannot tell you how many times Erika, I have looked at, you know, an organization's website, their strategic plan, their, you know, profile on GuideStar, a charity navigator, and I see different mission statements in all of these different areas. Oh no, it breaks my heart. Mine too. And it lacks, you know, it's like, there's no consistency. Therefore, there can't be clarity. So I wouldn't think, right? And so it's, you know, coming up with a consistency in all of these areas is really important too. Well, Jarrett, you're raising a really important point. And one, I saw Beth in chat was saying, let me go over these statements again just quickly. Yes, I talk really fast because I really care deeply about this. I, you know, I do so much public speaking and I do so much teaching. And I just have to go on record to say, I can't slow down. It's just never going to happen. Some jokes, like, let me. Well, this is, well, let me stop. This is one of the great things about the nonprofit show. Right. Is that this is, while we are live at this moment in time, this broadcast is archived. So you can always get back to any one of our episodes. We have almost 300 shows and they are all archived and very simple to re-access. Yes. Before we go on your next question, yeah, so before we go on to our next question, because we did have one of our viewers ask us if we could repeat that. So Erica, go ahead and give us your recipe, if you will. Once again. These are the four identity statements. Okay, so values. Those are the principles that guide your work. You want three. Your vision, where you're going and why. Your purpose, which is why you view as an organization exists. And then your mission, which is what you do and how you do it. Awesome. Now, vision, purpose, mission. And I appreciate you doing that, because I think that that is an important frame work to understand. Well, it's also, let me just point something out. Purpose is actually even for me who's done this work for 20 years and I'm, you know, I'm a pracidemic. So I have one foot and both. So I am always trying to evolve in very practical ways the way that we use language. So purpose is actually a new addition. And that happened actually, I just, we have a new dean at the Evans School, Jodi Sanford, and she came in and wanted these statements for the school as a way to sort of start off her time there. So we just work together. And it was, it was just great on so many levels, but through her thought partnership, she was, you know, she made me realize that most nonprofits have a vision, values, vision, mission. And it's just not enough. We're asking the vision and the mission to do a bit too much. And so that, that adding the fourth actually makes them more stable, more yet more flexible and allows you to bring greater consistency. I learned it. Yeah. Now, one of the questions that I was so interested in asking you, and I have to admit, I wouldn't have asked you this question, you know, 12 months ago, but it seems like we have had and the development of a new lexicon because where we are socially. And I'm wondering for those organizations that not that they've achieved their mission, but that we all, you know, across humanity have maybe changed. We are more concerned about different aspects. We understand maybe the problem or the cause better. And I'm wondering if you could kind of address how often we change our vocabulary or we funnel it down to make it more successful, but also more current? Or do we land on something and then we just go with it? It depends, is the answer. So I am doing a lot of work with clients right now and certainly integrating it more into my teaching around the question of how do we integrate our commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, access and anti-racism. So if we look even to the word anti-racism a year ago, we really weren't using that term and we certainly weren't very comfy with it if we were, right? And so we're in a very interesting spot where white led organizations, you know, white dominant organizations have had this reckoning. There is this increasing awareness that really that needs to be integrated through absolutely everything and yet we're early days in the actual work. So what do you do, right? Because you want the words that you use to be authentic. So you don't want to be an organization that really hasn't done any of the work, right? You're not maybe not internally doing anything to rectify what has happened in the past around racism and white supremacy and those types of things. So you can't just like smear messaging on things, send them off into the world and then not actually do the work. So this actually is, I would say like a live issue for almost every organization that I am in contact with is this, we're starting to do the work, we know we need to do the work. So something that gets overlooked about words but I think is super important is that language and words are under the umbrella of all of the universal laws of physics and thermodynamics, right? So they have energy, every word has energy, right? Because they're matter, they actually have matter, right? They have physicality to them. So if you think about language from that perspective and what are you putting out to the world, right? So the second law, right? Is for every action there to equal an opposite reaction section to third law, new third law of motion, second law of thermodynamics. And you really bear that in mind. You can use your language to evolve to this future state. You just have to be very attentive, very attentive to not go too far with it, right? And so playing around with maybe for, if you're really early days, maybe that commitment lives mainly in your values and your vision, mainly in your values and your vision. And not yet so much in your purpose or mission because that wouldn't be true to where you're at, right? And Julie, you'd ask kind of quite from this way but like how often do we revisit these statements which is a really great question. And my answer is not that often, right? Like because you don't want to keep showing up and Jared, you were mentioning like you look on a website and there's one mission statement and then I got started, it's different. That creates cognitive dissonance in people's minds and cognitive dissonance erodes trust. So when you're asking your staff, your board, volunteers even to use language consistently, I find it's really helpful if you share that with them. Like what you were actually in bringing consistency to our mission vision values and purpose statements, you're actually building trust. You're building trust. And each of those words is kicking off energy into the universe, which then is gonna come back, right? So I was working with an organization recently and we were going round and around and around. There being this offering of the idea of a radically inclusive world, okay? And there was great energy around that. And then when we really started playing with it, it was like, that's not quite right, radical, even though it means rooted and grounded and thorough. So actually, but there was something about, so it wasn't quite the right word, but people loved the energy, right? So where I was drawing their attention was what's the energy around that? And then how can you, and then which elements need to be fussed with, right? And really breaking it down to the individual word. So in my work, I actually have organizations break things down to individual parts of speech. So we deconstruct and then we reconstruct. So first, if you're looking at purpose and mission, you're gonna focus on your verb first, right? So because verbs represent the action you're taking and those are action focused, right? Whereas your vision is gonna be probably more about nouns and adjectives. And values, of course, by definition or nouns, right? And if you break it down that way, it becomes the whole process becomes much more accessible to people. I mean, the other reason, which again, it breaks my heart, you know, like organizations put all this effort into, mainly they put a lot of effort into the mission statement and then the, like I said, try to make this mission statement do too many jobs. So it can't, it doesn't do any of them well. In the process, right? You had asked Julie about process. You want to be very open. You want as much input from as many people as possible early on in the process, right? And importantly, you need to say, you may not see your word because that's an offering. They're giving you an offering and you wanna honor the offering, right? So your specific word may not show up but know that it is being factored into our thinking. And we're looking for themes. We're looking for the energy, right? And getting the energy right for each of these statements and then them in their totality. So you're managing these expectations. I see some, you know, everybody has a different approach to this, I see no downside to the more input, the better. Right? And- It's amazing because, you know, there are a lot of consultants that go just the opposite because it's hard to wrangle. Don't narrow in. Right, but this is why it's so important to ask things like, when you think about organization, awesome, let's just make up an organization. What three words come to mind? What three adjectives come to mind? It's like playing Mad Libs, right? Oh, I love me some mission statement Mad Libs. I wish I were in my regular office because what I would do right now is lean over here and show you an activity sheet that I have which is mission statement Mad Libs. That's exactly what it's like Jared and it sounds so goofy almost that you would do it that way. I think it's designed perfectly. It just allows people to be like, oh, adjectives, so that's interesting. And then don't ask them like, you know, write the one sentence. No, you're gonna say, what? Like if we are talking about why we exist, what verb represents that? Right, right. Those are questions that are actionable. And then, and then so you gather, gather, gather, great big open process as much as you can tolerate. Then you distill it down and then you need a petite committee, right? And they are tasked with and given the authority to take all of this and develop the statements because you don't wanna be writing these, you know, that is not a team sport. No, that's hard. You know, speaking of teams, I'm really interested to ask you your advice on getting the team to be rowing in the same direction and using the same language. I mean, Jared brought up a great example of, and we see this a lot, working with nonprofits and depending on where you visit them, you will see different language and oftentimes on things that should be exactly the same. You know, and how do you get your team to, from, you know, the day quarters on your campus to everybody, your board members, understanding that we have to be using the same language. So, one of the things that's important and I would say overlooked is that the reason that that happens is very personal, right? And it's that people, because if you're working with these very crisp, clear, compelling sentences, that's the essence, it's not the everything. So we have to bear in mind that everybody's bit of the organization may not be reflected in that top level messaging. So this sort of what's in with it is personalizing it. And what's really happening is people, you know, fundamentally as humans, we want to be seen and we want to belong and we want to be acknowledged, right? So upfront, right? This is why this work around really explaining why that's so important. We mentioned the cognitive dissonance and building a trust if you are consistent. And then the other piece of that is really honoring and this is particularly important for program folks and the bigger the organization, the more this is an issue because program level messaging is often more appropriate in messaging by audience. So you have your identity statements, you're compounding those in different ways for different contexts and different audiences a little bit, but really then you're gonna drill down, you know, and so our donors need to know this, our board needs to know this, institutional funders need something slightly different, right? And that's when more of the program message will bubble up. That doesn't feel great to your program folks. Right, yeah. It doesn't feel great to them, right? And so really taking the time upfront to say, right, that may not come until a bit later, but what we're trying to do is extend an invitation to other people who care as deeply as you do about our work and we're trying to make it really easy for them to see what we're doing and make a choice about whether or not they want to engage with us, right? So can you allow that to happen? Is that okay? And then we'll get, and then if they're interested, then we're gonna, you know, sequence, sequence, sequence to go along this bunny trail of information that will be interesting to them. I mean, you know, it's a lot of, you're asking permission, a little, right? But managing the expectation of like this where we're going, like the expectation is going to be that we are all going to collectively build trust through consistent messaging, that's happening. We're gonna have the sequencing thing. How's that gonna feel? Every time I start working with the client and I'm like, someone's gonna cry at some point and they're like, okay, whatever. And I'm like, oh no, someone's gonna cry. And inevitably somebody cries. Somebody cries. And they'll cry for two reasons. They'll cry because it resonates so deeply, right? Cause it's great. And that's the awesome cry. And equally awesome and different is somebody crying because sometimes you're taking away the words that reflect their work, right? So a lot of the work I do is actually very much around psychology and the emotion of it. Sure. And you know, that can be, people are like, well, it's very kumbaya. That's like, it's super practical because if you don't do the work, then what you invest all this time and energy, you're asking people to engage in this process and then it doesn't get adopted and used. That's just down to good use of anybody's time, energy or money. Well, it seems like there's a part of this about making it a habit. I remember hearing the story years ago, a very large nonprofit who was coming up on their 100 years, they reformulated their mission statement and it was good. And it was a very clear, you know, catchy thing. And I remember the CEO told me that he took $10, $100 bills and then he marched across the campus and every time he found a staff member, he's like, hey, can you tell me what our new mission statement is? And if they could, he gave them, you know, the $10. And then of course, and he didn't say anything. He's like, this isn't a test. I mean, it was a test, but it's a celebration of change. And it went like wildfire and they had about 350 employees. And then he said, you know, we'll try this again. Just so everybody could know. The next time, you know, we might bump it up a bit. And he did this a couple of times over a period of several months and it was fun. And it was like, who got the 10 bucks, you know? But it kind of got everybody thinking that, hey, it's not just for the suits. It's not just for the board. It's for me and I need to know this. It was such an interesting thing. I've never heard of anybody doing that. That is fun. That is fun. And you could do that even in like a workshop or in a conference. Oh, yeah. That kind of thing. I forget what I was gonna say, but it reminds me, you know, of that we are all advocates for our organization and it doesn't matter the title, right? Titles might all when it comes to, you know, what's on your business card or what's on your door what's on your Zoom link these days, right? And so we really should all be involved and at least be comfortable in sharing that mission. But like you said, you know, we really wanna have it, Erica, in a way that it's clarity, clarity as opposed to 43 words and a couple of semicolon. I mean, I love a good semicolon. I'm not gonna lie. But, you know, it's always nice to be able to use that really powerful punctuation, but it's not always advantageous when you really need to be on the same page. Yeah. Well, the semicolon and these identity statements generally reflects that you haven't done enough work. Right. Right. There's more to that. There's a quote from Antoine Sainte-Tuberry who said, perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there's nothing left to take away. Right. There's nothing left to take away. And that really does apply when it comes, especially to the highest level messaging. The other thing I wanted to mention in terms of adoption, I love Tristan Rodulio about the money. I have organizations and it's like everybody. The other thing I insist on is that staff and board are equal participants in the whole process. And that's to your point, Jared, like we're all in this title, Schmeichel. And so really from the start, but also when we do role play, people are like, are you kidding me? We're gonna do role play. And I'm like, oh, right, because we're gonna do it because humans crave progress and we resist change. And when you are asking people to use different language, that's change. Change. And that's part. So you got to honor it and make it fun. So I have all these different activities that we do around role play every time people are like, oh no. And then they're like, oh, that was kind of fun. Oh, and actually now I have the opportunity in a safe space to personalize these words. And now I can be open to the change. Although that sounds like hell for some people. I'm not gonna lie. 100%. Yeah, I just don't want to work around sort of where you're at in terms of extroversion, introversion, ambivalent. So I'm not comfortable with that. But as an extrovert myself, I'm becoming to more and more at grips of, okay, what I'm comfortable with may not be what everyone's comfortable with. That's why I have a lot of different ways that we come at it. Right. You have been amazing. Erica Mills Barnhart, Klaxon Marketing. Wow, we have learned so much. I love that you've joined us at this point in time with nonprofits and that we are wrestling with so many different changes and we're understanding more and more that words do matter. And so what a great thing. I'm telling you, I'm gonna come and be a student in your Washington courses. Yeah, I mean, just amazing, really, really cool. Again, everybody, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. I've been joined today by my nonprofit nerd, your nonprofit nerd, the nonprofit nerd, Jared Ransom, CEO of the Raven Group. Hey, we wanna take a few moments because our time is almost up. We just launched our book club. Go check it out on the American Nonprofit Academy website. You can also link to it through the Nonprofit Show website. But most of these books, the authors have been on the show. And so it's really cool to kind of get a curated look at where things are right now in our space. Some of these are oldies, but goodies and some of them are brand new, hot off the press. So check those out. We're really into sharing knowledge, getting book clubs going within our teams. And I think this might be a great way to kind of take a look at it. Speaking of words, those are all great words on paper. And before we close up, we've received a couple of words of praise as well for you in particular, Erica. So thank you so much. This has been wonderful. Thank you. And another individual says, great show. Thank you, Erica, Julia and Jared. So so much praise and I really appreciate you coming on today's episode. It was my great pleasure to spend time with you and everybody who is here with us today. So thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Well, it's been great. Again, we wanna thank our sponsors without you. We would not be here. And we want to end our show today as we do every day with our little mantra. Stay well, so you can do well. Thanks everybody. We'll see you back here tomorrow.