Narrative IP Part 2: A vision that moves people
Vision statements often get sidelined as marketing fluff, but they are in fact a very strategic tool.
They help nonprofits stay the course over the long term, align their teams around a common goal, and bring discipline to their decision-making. But because vision statements are misunderstood and underestimated, very little thought goes into developing them well. Too many nonprofits settle for a bland string of words when they could instead be building a powerful tool for communicating their unique and strategic value to the world. It’s time to rethink how nonprofits can harness the full power of a vision statement to tell better stories—about their people, their work, and the better future they hope to create—and ultimately, deepen their impact.
This is part two of my four-part series on crafting narrative IP: a big, simple idea that positions your organization with clarity in the minds of your audience. Narrative IP is supported by a 3-part worldview:
why the status quo is broken
what a compelling alternative could look like
how you propose we make the alternative a reality
Without it, you are just another nonprofit with a forgettable mission and vision. With it, you are a memorable organization with a magnetic point of view that draws in aligned donors, partners, and allies. You can read more about what narrative IP is here.
A compelling alternative
In the first part of this series, I made the case for clearly defining what is broken as a first and non-negotiable step towards developing narrative IP. This week, we turn to the next piece of narrative IP: articulating a compelling alternative. A compelling alternative is my answer to the substandard approach to vision statements. It is a vivid and believable vision of how the world could be different. I call it an “alternative” because it is intentionally positioned against the broken status quo. Too often, traditional vision statements lack real bite because they are generic, disconnected pictures of the future. A compelling alternative, by contrast, has stakes built in, because it is an answer to a question we face in the present, a commitment to repair or remake something that is broken today.
The invisible determinants of success
The first step to articulating a compelling alternative is to understand the larger context you operate in. What macro-trends are influencing your sector? Who are the key players and what role do they play? What unspoken values are influencing policy and politics? Visioning isn't a fluffy, inspirational exercise; it's a rigorous one that requires a sophisticated understanding of the system that you participate in and the forces that keep the broken status quo in place.
Donella Meadows, a renowned environmental scientist and systems thinker, taught that systems reveal our values. Values are the unseen forces that determine outcomes of all our change work, and until we are explicit about what they are, our efforts will remain shallow and incoherent.
There’s a critical lesson here for communicating the vision behind our work. A compelling alternative is in fact a proposal to remake our broken systems, which, Meadows would say, naturally requires us to remake our values. What we care about inevitably shows up in our decisions. So what values got us to this broken status quo? What values and goals could orient us in a more noble direction? While traditional vision statements are often stuck reimagining policies and structures, a compelling alternative shifts our focus from the visible levers of change to the invisible set of values that determine what kind of change is possible at all.
Once you understand that vision statements and compelling alternatives exist in the realm of values and morals, you can begin to apply specific narrative techniques that inspire motivation and action.
The emotional logic of a compelling alternative
A compelling alternative draws its power from its position in the overall narrative IP framework. Positioned directly after the diagnosis of the broken status quo, it creates strategic contrast which both sharpens our understanding and heightens the value. As humans, we don’t perceive things in isolation, we perceive them in relation to something else. A vision of the future feels both more sharp and more urgent when it is contrasted against what is broken or unjust. Contrast spells out exactly what is at stake and makes the alternative more…compelling.
Contrast also exposes the gaping chasm between what is and what could be. When we are forced to face this gap, it creates a sense of restlessness (urgency) and longing (desire) and ultimately motivates us to act to make the alternative a reality.
And finally, the breadth of the gap between the present and our ideal future reveals the breadth of our own ambition. Is our compelling alternative just a step beyond where we are today or does it require a leap of extraordinary faith? An effective compelling alternative is credible—equal parts ambitious and achievable.
To sum it up, a well-articulated compelling alternative:
Reveals the higher values at play
Deploys strategic contrast
Evokes both restlessness and longing
Defines an ambitious but achievable future
An example
To see one of the finest examples of a compelling alternative in action, we have to look no further than Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech. He spends 80% of the oration defining the broken status quo in grueling and gritty detail—the indignity of being refused lodging at a motel because one is black, the humiliation of encountering “Whites Only” signs everywhere. He sums it all up by proclaiming that America has issued a faulty promissory note of freedom to all black people. How can America live up to its ideal?
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. giving his “I Have A Dream” speech to thousands in front of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963. Photo credit: AP Photo via www.wdet.org.
And then he flips the switch: the answer to the fiery question that has been building through his oration until now, his compelling alternative. And it is soaring, visceral, ambitious.
“So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
“This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.”
He calls us to live up to a more noble vision of ourselves and once he has said it, it is hard to unhear. If this is what we as Americans claim to stand for, then how are we not living it?
In this extremely uncomfortable cognitive dissonance, where the gap between our values and our actions are laid bare, lies the power of a well-articulated compelling alternative. This dissonance creates the inner tension that can inspire us to turn our vision into reality.
If you’re struggling to name your big idea, or feel like your message isn’t landing like it should, let’s talk. I help mission-driven organizations uncover and articulate their narrative IP. Reach out to me here.