Messy Work

I had the privilege of working with our area community foundations during their regional retreat on Tuesday, focusing on marketing and community storytelling.

I was tempted to go in slinging a PowerPoint, but thought it would be fun to get back to my roots in the classroom: slap a bunch of messy thoughts on some post-its and go in with the goal of making them do most of the work.

I challenged them to explore three questions through conversations with each other that could not only uncover a stronger brand, but uncover a deeper mission based on storytelling and humanity.

Who am I?

Who are you?

Who are we?

Who am I as a person? Can I tell my story to another person, and in doing so, discover what motivates, discourages, and inspires me to do work that can change people’s lives?

Who are you as an organization? Can you define yourselves not in adjectives and in what-my-boss-wants-me-say, but by telling a single story of someone you have helped…and what does that story say about you?

Who are we as a community? Are we just “doing things” or are we trying to meet the unique needs of our individual communities?

I think answering these questions are the first steps in creating transformative communication. How can we effectively tell our story if we don’t know what it is? How can we run an organization without knowing, on a deep level, the people inside it? How can we help others if we haven’t talked to them about what they need?

An absolute privilege to do some “messy work” with so many who care so deeply about our communities.

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Phil Eich