My new boss, Jim, started on Monday of this week. He’s a storyteller by nature, so we’re going get along very well. It’s always nice learning new things from people, but if I’ve learned anything so far from him, it’s that it’s impossible to think too big.

Listening to his stories about the people and places and projects from his life, it’s clear that he goes big.

It’s made me realize that I (and many, too many of us) think small. We try to work within the limits, the confines, the parameters of our world. My last post discussed the $20 million exercise where participants brainstorm what they would do if money were no issue.

Jim told us stories where he pitched business titans, famous names we’d all recognize, and ended up working with major brands throughout his career. And the way he tells it, he didn’t earn it through his reputation – he earned it through dreaming big and taking risks.

It reminded me of my first company, when my business partner and I pitched a big client. We were sitting across the boardroom table from the CEO of a $100 million/year company telling him we could solve his problems. We were maybe 23 years old, but he told us he was impressed that we had the balls to even be there. That’s what landed us the business, our fearlessness.

There’s a Japanese proverb that goes, “the nail that sticks up gets hammered down.” It speaks to conformity. This attitude stifles creativity. If you’ve been pounded down so many times that you can’t be creative, that you defend yourself as pragmatic, realistic, and practical, then you’re missing opportunities to do big things. There’s a time and place for all that, but when it comes to doing great things, those words aren’t in the recipe.

Over the next few weeks I’ll share some techniques to think bigger, to explode your creativity. Some will be useful in strategic planning. Others are key to marketing success.

Sometimes I buy a lottery ticket, usually when the jackpot is something ridiculous like $200 million. I don’t expect to win, of course, but I enjoy the fantasy. It’s entertainment (for only a buck and it puts me in a good mood). But it’s also informative – what would you do if you suddenly came into a bunch of money?

My favorite strategic planning exercise for nonprofits is the same question: What would you do if someone walked in and donated $20 million to the organization?*

This question allows you to set aside all the mundane stuff and stop playing the devil’s advocate. You can dream big. You can have fun with it. But more importantly, your answers are also revealing. If money was no object, what would your organization try to accomplish?

If your answer isn’t the same as what you’re doing now (just on a larger scale), that’s important. Can you find a way to do that instead? Does your mission line up with your current activities? Do have a plan to get to where you’d rather be?

• If you’re in a much larger or much smaller organization, you can adjust that number until it’s sufficiently large yet not too large to find a use for.

My dream for the summer camp

Summer camps are closing left and right. Even the ones that have loyal campers and seem to be doing well are disappearing. They often belong to organizations that are struggling in other areas, the ones that need funds to focus on other programs. So they sell their camps, which disappear forever. Getting a bunch of land to create a new camp is expensive and rare. It’s not like the first half of the 20th century, when land was cheap and creating camps was a fashionable thing to do.

Yet these camps still provide value. I see it every week in the summer. I once received a letter from a camper whose life had changed as a result of his experiences at camp. I couldn’t even read the letter without choking back tears. The thought of our camp disappearing one day makes me sick to my stomach.

So my dream is to raise enough money to:

1. establish an endowment that would support the ongoing (and increasing) maintenance costs of operating the camp and
2. use that endowment to establish a permanent, legal protection of the camp property.

In essence, my dream is to preserve the camp forever. I want my great-great-grandkids to know the experience of camp.

I’ve shared this dream with our board of directors. We’ve even come up with a number we’d need to raise, and it’s not unreasonable. I even worked with some donors and volunteers on a plan to make it a reality. Unfortunately, that stalled out for a variety of reasons.

It’s difficult, especially for an organization without a long track record of stability and fundraising success. We still have a long way to go, even though the last few years have been tremendously successful. We need to repair relationships and build trust.

We need this vision to become a dream we can share. Because people buy into dreams, they believe in them. As the CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi Kevin Roberts noted, Martin Luther King, Jr. didn’t say “I have a vision statement.” He had a dream.

Last week I posted about the word “support” being overused and abused after seeing it mentioned in a list of words to avoid.

I’m fascinated by these lists, and each year they seem to grow. Last year, I saw a list that mentioned the phrase “at the end of the day.” As in, “at the end of the day, your actions define you.” I realized I had been using that phrase a TON and once you become aware of it, you notice it everywhere. My co-workers were dropping that left and right.

Here’s a compilation of words from a variety of sources, called the Essential Word List for Lazy PR Writers and it has some good ones for nonprofits.

My favorites:

Leader, leading, leading edge, leading provider, market leading – Don’t tell people you’re the leader. They’ll know it from how you work, interact, and relate. They’ll know it before you tell them. Leadership isn’t dictated, it’s demonstrated. If you have to tell people you’re the leader, then you aren’t.

Epic, excited, thrilled – I’ve made this mistake myself. These words are about your feelings. As in, they’re about you, not your donors, beneficiaries, or customers. Your writing (especially in public relations) should tell stories about other people, not about you.

You can find the whole Essential Word List for Lazy PR Writers at bulldogreporter.com.

In my new job at Notre Dame, my focus has shifted more to fundraising and away from the broader marketing work. I recently met my my boss, who starts in a few weeks. He shared a few things he feels pretty strongly about, and one was that he hates the word “support.”

It showed up again in Katya’s list of 18 mood-killing words to banish in 2012.

After thinking about it, I have to agree. Bridges need support or they’ll fall down. Recovering addicts need support or they may regress. A roaring fire needs support or it will go out.

Nonprofits who rely on “support” are sending the message that they will close their doors if they aren’t constantly sustained through donations. You know the kind of support I mean: keeping the lights on, paying staff, etc.

But asking a donor to support you is folly; donors wear out and can only hold you up for so long. Instead of support, ask for an investment. Organizations (as well as companies) rely on investments to grow or solve new problems. Or perhaps the investment is one that pays interest (e.g., an endowment) which can be used for your “support.”

If you’re not quite there yet, talk to your donors about your plan to support yourself. And ask them to invest in your future and the mission you serve.

In my recent job change, I find myself in the first position where I’m not answering to clients. I’m not billable by the hour. It means fewer meetings and a very different kind of work. But I’ve also had an opportunity to reflect on the work I’m leaving behind. Working for clients has taught me many valuable lessons, which I’d like to share with you here.

1. Research is what gives us insights to make the right decision.

Clients don’t always like paying for research, but they do hate paying for unnecessary mistakes. Research – on our donors, on our programs, on our target audience – makes us more efficient and less prone to wasting our time and money.

2. Strategy determines your tactics.

My favorite line about strategy goes, “tactics are doing things right; strategy is doing the right things.” The world of marketing is very broad – how do you know where to focus your resources? Strategy means thinking about your goals, audiences, and measurement before you decide which tactics to use. If that brochure is there because you’ve “been doing it for years” then you need to look at it again.

3. Trumping someone is a surefire way of losing.

I read an article by a nonprofit consultant recently who made a big stink about internal complainers who didn’t understand direct mail copywriting. In client service, your contact isn’t the only part of the client. You might lose if you haven’t earned trust and buy-in from the internal stakeholders. Sometimes that means…

4. Teach others to defend your work.

Nobody likes having their work crushed, especially by less experienced or qualified people. What I’ve learned is that if you can win one advocate, do your best to educate that person about why it’s good work. And get that person to defend it to the other stakeholders and critics. It helps if you…

5. Identify stakeholders before the work starts.

It doesn’t matter if you’re designing a brochure, generating a strategic plan, or making an individual donor appeal. There are stakeholders to consider. Rarely do people’s actions affect only themselves. Spouses are a strong factor in household giving, and children can be an influence at certain ages or life situations. Think about all those who may be affected and thus, who may have an opinion to lend when the decision time comes.

6. Shut up and listen.

People want to tell their stories, to be heard, to be appreciated. And that simply doesn’t happen while your mouth is flapping. Resist the temptation to show how smart or right you are, and listen instead. Don’t just hear the words they say, but listen closely for meanings and motivations. Find out what moves them and you’ll learn more about what makes them happy.

7. Shut up and wait.

Salesmen will know this one: make your pitch, close your mouth, and the next person to speak loses. Well, “loses” isn’t a great way to put it. In our business, we’re not looking to sucker anyone into making donations. But it still applies that if you feel the need to re-state your case, to defend your position, or adjust your ask before your prospect has even responded, then you’ll appear desperate or ill-prepared. Confidence pays off.

8. Be bold.

If people don’t know about you, they certainly won’t support you. Getting attention is increasingly difficult in a crowded marketplace of appeals, ads, and introductions. It’s not just advertising, either. If you go to an event and meet fifty people, what will make those people remember you (out of the fifty people they also met)?

9. Stand up for what you believe in.

In client service, we’re often asked to work on projects outside of our skill set. If it’s not a core part of our business, we have to learn to say no or we risk spreading ourselves thin, becoming mediocre in many things. Nonprofits face this challenge in other ways. Many organizations apply for grants that don’t match their mission. Sometimes a donor wants to make a restriction that simply isn’t in the organization’s interest or aligned with their mission. In these times, with real dollars on the line, we must say no and hold true to the mission.

10. Thank people all the time.

Every single time I get a thank you note, I read it and smile. The gesture takes only a moment, but it’s a meaningful thing to do. And every time, I think to myself, “I want to be the kind of person who sends thank you notes like this.” Even if it’s just an email or a phone call, find ways to thank people for their time, their contribution, their opinions, etc.

11. Respect people’s time.

People are busy, even when their schedules aren’t full. We all have a lot to get done. So be on time to meetings, use an agenda, and end on time. Don’t answer calls or get distracted by email during meetings. Respect other people’s time and they’ll be more likely to respect yours. Lead by example with this one. It’s a rare enough thing that people will notice.

12. New business comes from referrals, not cold calls.

When I started Birch Lake Studios (now defunct), I spent time each week cold calling – contacting prospective customers who hadn’t heard of me and may not even need my services. These rarely led to a proposal, and those proposals rarely led to an actual project. It was a frustrating waste of time. The easier route, I later learned, is to ask your happy clients if they could please refer you to someone else who is in need of your services. For nonprofits, our happy donors and volunteers are a fantastic source of new donors and volunteers – we just need to ask.