I recently completed a stimulating three-year effort with a 100-year-old college. I forget exactly how I got the job, but the Director of Advancement wanted a new approach for fundraising letters to parents and alumni.

When I began conducting deep communications audits about 10 years ago, I was surprised – maybe even shocked – that even sizable nonprofits and foundations didn’t know what they were trying to “sell” via their communications (or sometimes at all, but that’s a topic for strategic planning).

My buddy Larry and I ate at one of those plaza Chinese restaurants two weeks ago. This one, a town away from mine, is squeezed between a hobby shop and a liquor store. The restaurant itself is split into a loud sports bar and a modest set of tables for eat-in diners. Larry ordered chicken chow mein; I ordered fried noodles with vegetables. He hated his dish and said he would never go near the restaurant again. I loved mine and went back for take out last week. Now, if somebody asks me a good place to get Chinese food in the area, I’ll tell them my experience. No doubt, Larry will do the same. My friends will go to the restaurant; his friends will avoid it like the plague. And that’s WOM: word of mouth. Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings at a single bound!

I begin a lot of my work sessions asking, “Who cares?”. Not to be mean, just to provoke attendees to think of their “consumers” more often. When the Community Foundation of Southeastern Connecticut (now serving all eastern Connecticut) was about to celebrate its 25th anniversary, then-President Alice Fitzpatrick asked me how to get the most out of it. “Well,” I said, “who really cares that it’s your – or anyone’s – anniversary?”

I just broke up with an annual report. It was a passionate affair while it lasted. For six weeks, I could think of little else. I couldn't eat; I couldn't sleep.