This is a post about how a simple Sunday afternoon activity reminded me that stories are extremely important to consider in both business and nonprofit organizations.
Billy and I were shopping in downtown San Francisco because I wanted to buy a new shirt for BUILD’s Business Plan Competition. Normally I don’t shop at J. Crew, but I had a gift card there, so that’s where we found ourselves. Here we were in the J. Crew men’s section, and I felt so out of place. So completely out of place. It seemed like all of the clothes were nonchalantly pointing out that I didn’t belong there. I don’t know if any of you frequent J. Crew, but their latest fashions included various Nantucket/Martha’s Vineyard-inspired leisure-wear including light blue seersucker short shorts, a variety of rustic-looking polos in shades of aquamarine, and bold striped ties that sell for about $50.
My gift card had $20 on it, and thus I was trying to find something in that price range (which at J. Crew is hard to do), and I found a belt on sale for $19.99. The belt was cute and red with little sailboats, and Billy said, “Um no. You’re not going sailing anytime soon, and you’re a not a kid.”
And I said, “W0w, you’re right. I’m not going sailing, I don’t have a yacht nor do I have access to one, and neither do my friends. And there is no sailing or yachting anytime in my near and even distant future.”
And that’s when I realized that the J. Crew story and my story were not aligned. Their story, while there’s nothing inherently wrong with it, just was not resonating with my personal value system. Or as Karla eloquently said, “Cause you’re not white and working at Deloitte?”
Pretty much.
Organizations, whether for-profit or non-profit, tell stories. I personally think that it’s a little bit easier for for-profit businesses to tell stories because 1) they only have to appease to customers and 2) there is only one determining factor to which business is measured: profit. When nonprofit organizations tell stories, however, they not only have to speak to their customers (clients), but they also have to use that story to engage funders, volunteers, board members, employees, and other stakeholders.
Your nonprofit organization has to create that story and pretty much build it into every detail. And that story has to align with your core audience of clients, funders, volunteers, board members, and employees. Luckily, nonprofits inherently have interesting and remarkable stories, but they are not all created equal.
People who can identify with BUILD’s story may not with a Teach for America’s or College Summit’s. In fact, I think it would be an interesting exercise to really figure out the type of person that BUILD’s story really resonates with. I wonder whether or not that story is consistent from the clients (our students) to the volunteer mentors to our funders.
I have a hunch that once the BUILD story and our messaging of that story is tightened up, we’d be more scale-ready.
Oh and by the way, I did not end up getting the belt, and instead I bought underwear. I figured that underwear is always necessary, and I wouldn’t have to promote the J. Crew story since it’d be hiding beneath my clothes.
Does your organization’s story align with the core audience’s stories?