This entry was posted on Monday, April 10th, 2006 at 10:18 am and is filed under Fundraising, Nonprofit Communications. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Nonprofit Communications
Written for do-it-yourself nonprofit marketers and one-person nonprofit communications departments.
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How to Write Your Elevator Speech
Wake Forest University’s business school held its Seventh Annual Elevator Competition this weekend. Teams of business school students from around the country got two minutes on an elevator ride to pitch their million-dollar idea to a venture capitalist. The winners get a cash prize, free professional services, and a real meeting with a potential investor.
Wouldn’t it be great if the nonprofit sector had a similar contest? The winners could get meetings with program officers at some of the nation’s biggest foundations.
Philanthropy Journal offers the next best thing, I suppose. On their website and in their e-newsletters, the editors allow nonprofits to tell their story in 50 words or less. It’s a great opportunity and a valuable exercise for all nonprofits to try.
Here are a few tips for writing a 50-word blurb, or creating your elevator message. Remember, you only have 3-4 short sentences in total.
Don’t just repeat your mission statement. Mission statements are often “pie in the sky†or full of buzzwords that don’t actually say what you do.
Tell us what you do and who you do it for. Donors want to know how their support makes a difference on the ground.
Share a quantitative result. How many people did you help last year? How many acres did you save? Whatever it is you measure, throw in a stat about your accomplishments.
Provide some perspective. Put your work in context, in one sentence. Why is what you do so important? What’s the scale of the problem?
Spell out the opportunity. Complete this sentence: “With some additional resources, we could . . .â€
3 Responses to “How to Write Your Elevator Speech”
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April 27th, 2006 at 1:46 pm
[…] I freely (and often) admit I’m an old bleeding heart do-gooder and yet, many non-profits pitches leave me - well - both unmoved and un-bleeding (if that’s a word). So, when I ran across this post, The Nonprofit Elevator Speech, it really resonated with me. Here are her key points: […]
May 21st, 2006 at 10:43 am
I am currently involved in fleshing out the development side of a growing animal rescue group in Atlanta. Of course communications and PR plays a huge role in this endeavor. The advice offered here is wonderful. I think it helps to create a succint, statement that provides a good foundation for a call to action. Thanks!
December 2nd, 2007 at 3:27 pm
[…] 3) Make sure all staff and board members can nail your elevator pitch. Your staff and board members should be able to very clearly and very briefly describe the value of your work and exactly what it is you do. This is NOT memorizing your mission statement. It’s explaining who you are, what you do, and why you do it in three-four short sentences. Here are my tips on writing your nonprofit elevator speech. […]