Go tell it on the mountain: 5 questions to get your social impact heard

As a social entrepreneur, scaling your social impact is important to your business. Perhaps it is as important as scaling your business growth, right?  I work with social entrepreneurs as a leadership coach and trainer.  One of the things I remind them is that not only do they have to do the work; but they must also promote it.  Your ability to communicate correlates to your impact.  You have to be thinking about your communication from both the strategic (what and why am I communicating?) and tactical (how am I communicating it?) levels.

As a fellow entrepreneur, I know that amidst everything else that we have to do we may want to push communications to the side. But, we cannot.  Social change cannot afford that.

From the beginning

Recently, I was reading a report by two Duke University academics, Paul Bloom and Aaron Chatteriji that outlined seven drivers that can help social entrepreneurs scale their social impact.  They were: staffing, communication, alliance building, lobbying, earning replication and stimulating market forces. While an entrepreneur should be working on each of these drivers throughout the life cycle of their business; I think that drivers such as communication and alliance building should be focused on from the beginning.

In their report, they define communication efforts as “the ability to persuade key stakeholders that your change strategy is worth adopting and/or supporting”. This is different from the normal marketing advice that focuses on moving products or services. Your business communications have to also be about changing attitudes, behavioral patterns or social conditions.

Harder? Sure. Worthwhile? Yes.

Want to share your social impact from the mountains?

Answering these 5 questions will help:

1.What is the story that you want to tell? Your story has to be able to explain your vision, your change strategy, the assumption you will dispel or the behavior you will change.

2.What is your message or unique value proposition about the social impact you want to have? Share what you are doing that is different from the status quo. It will entice others to join you.

3.How do you communicate with your beneficiaries, volunteers, staff, consumers, board, investors/funders and your community with language that encourages them to keep investing in your enterprise? At any given time, you are in contact with each of these groups. Each needs to hear a variation of your success that resonates with them and their priorities.

4.How much have you studied the beliefs, attitudes and behaviors of your target audience? Making it a regular practice to learn more about the beliefs, attitudes and behaviors of those you serve is a great way to keep honing your message.  Focus groups and surveys can help with that.

5. How pervasive is your media strategy? In sharing your work, think about whether there are sector blogs or publications that need to hear from you.  Think about being pervasive by expanding your communication strategy to include sharing your message with your sector (i.e. nonprofits or for profits) and your industry (i.e. banking, construction, human resources) as a way to spread the impact of your work.

Waiting to hear from you

Your work is important. The impact you are making is important. The way that your business is redefining your industry is important.  It’s not bad to let us know that.  So go ahead, tell it from the mountain and see how many of us listening and ready to help.

In social change,

Ericka

Helpful pieces to read:

1. Communicating your mission
2. Which comes first: your business message or your social mission?
3. Best bits – communicating your mission

pic credit: David d’O, flickr, creative commons