The elevator speech.... In the nonprofit world, the elevator speech is the 1 minute description of what your agency does, how it impacts people and hopefully, at the same time, generates interest in the audience to want to find out more about your organization. It's pretty similar to coming up with your own personal elevator speech or perhaps the speech you've been coached on for the organization that you work for.
If you asked any nonprofit leader, staff member or board member, they are all well versed and able to share their elevator speech with you. Vital, important information is delivered in a concise format. Many organizations have them typed up to share with new staff and board members. It is important to have everyone associated with your organization relaying the same message. It is Basic Marketing 101.
But truthfully, most elevator speeches are pretty dry and overly factual. They are filled with statistics. I am not saying this way is wrong or awful – it is all important information to share. However, people want to get involved with organizations and their causes because it makes them feel something. Maybe because they have a personal connection or they are angered by a social injustice. Either emotion is a powerful motivator. So you may agree, facts and figures don’t generally put a fire in someone’s belly...
So, I have been thinking about our elevator speech. We talk about all of our services:
- Financial assistance
- Medical supplies and equipment
- Nutritional supplements
- Cancer patient navigation
- Emotional support
- Healing arts programming
We talk about the fact that we serve anyone that lives or works in Hancock County who has a cancer diagnosis, regardless of income. And we are proud to be the only local agency that provides direct support to cancer patients. All true information. All factual. I can even give you some lovely statistics. But it doesn’t really touch you on an emotional level, right?
So I am proposing a new speech…and it is much shorter:
Have you been recently diagnosed with cancer? Are you scared, confused, worried about your recent cancer diagnosis? Come see us at Cancer Patient Services…..we give hugs to chase away those bad feelings...
If you want to know more about how or why we “Give Hugs”, send me an email….give me a call.
I would love to share some emotional stories about some of the people we have helped. Because, we are real local people helping real local people and thank goodness #wegivehugs ! <3 <3 <3
If you asked any nonprofit leader, staff member or board member, they are all well versed and able to share their elevator speech with you. Vital, important information is delivered in a concise format. Many organizations have them typed up to share with new staff and board members. It is important to have everyone associated with your organization relaying the same message. It is Basic Marketing 101.
But truthfully, most elevator speeches are pretty dry and overly factual. They are filled with statistics. I am not saying this way is wrong or awful – it is all important information to share. However, people want to get involved with organizations and their causes because it makes them feel something. Maybe because they have a personal connection or they are angered by a social injustice. Either emotion is a powerful motivator. So you may agree, facts and figures don’t generally put a fire in someone’s belly...
So, I have been thinking about our elevator speech. We talk about all of our services:
- Financial assistance
- Medical supplies and equipment
- Nutritional supplements
- Cancer patient navigation
- Emotional support
- Healing arts programming
We talk about the fact that we serve anyone that lives or works in Hancock County who has a cancer diagnosis, regardless of income. And we are proud to be the only local agency that provides direct support to cancer patients. All true information. All factual. I can even give you some lovely statistics. But it doesn’t really touch you on an emotional level, right?
So I am proposing a new speech…and it is much shorter:
Have you been recently diagnosed with cancer? Are you scared, confused, worried about your recent cancer diagnosis? Come see us at Cancer Patient Services…..we give hugs to chase away those bad feelings...
If you want to know more about how or why we “Give Hugs”, send me an email….give me a call.
I would love to share some emotional stories about some of the people we have helped. Because, we are real local people helping real local people and thank goodness #wegivehugs ! <3 <3 <3
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