It will soon be two months since our last #NPMC Twitter chat, which feels like forever to me! I’ve been ready and excited to tackle this month’s topic – nonprofit key messages – since it came up way back in June when discussing our July chat topic.

For July, community member RoiAnn Phillips had requested a chat on working successfully with spokespeople; this great idea resulted in an amazing, informative chat. You can see for yourself by reviewing the July chat transcript. When planning the conversation, RoiAnn posed a number of questions about core – or key – messages and I’ll get to those below.

 

But first: what do we mean by ‘nonprofit key messages’?

According to Dan Gunderman at Big Duck in his post, What exactly are key messages, anyway:

“The purpose of developing key messages is to identify the elements that any description of your organization must include, to use these elements to build a structure for your story, and to offer sample language for telling that story.”

 

How do we develop key messages for nonprofits?

There are a number of useful resources on the topic and here are a few to get you started:

 

How are you putting key messages to work for your nonprofit?

Resources such as those listed above help with developing key messages, but some of the questions around practicality still need to be answered – and #NPMC chat is just the place to answer them!

Here are more questions about developing and working with nonprofit key messages that we can answer together:

  • How have key messages benefited your organization?
  • Have there been any disadvantages or pitfalls?
  • How do we tailor our core messages to a variety of audiences?
  • How did you bring other staff and external stakeholders on-board?
  • Who delivers your core messages?
  • Where are these core messages most frequently used? (e.g., online, by phone, with media, in public presentations…)

 

Join the conversation during September’s #NPMC Chat

If you, too, are curious about how to really make key messages work for your nonprofit, please join the conversation during this month’s #NPMC Twitter chat. Just follow #NPMC on Twitter on Thursday, September 25, 2014 at 1:00 p.m. E.T. to listen in and to share your insights.

Hope to see you there!

Marlene Oliveira

Marlene Oliveira

Communications advisor and copywriter at moflow
Marlene Oliveira is communications consultant and copywriter at moflow and founder of the Nonprofit MarCommunity blog. Having worked in the nonprofit sector since 1999, Marlene specializes in working with capacity building and grant-making organizations, advising on communications strategy, and writing stories and other content.
Marlene Oliveira

@mo_flow

Marlene Oliveira