Narrative IP Part 3: Unapologetically claiming your place i n the world
Your nonprofit’s difference matters. Failing to define and advocate for it can leave your mission vulnerable to forces beyond your control.
On July 1, the State Department absorbed USAID, effectively dissolving the international agency, which at its peak disbursed over $40 billion around the world to save lives threatened by famine, HIV, childbirth complications, and more.
William Herkewitz, a former director of communications at the agency, recently penned a piece in the NY Times reflecting on how such a exemplary and indispensable organization met a sudden and untimely death.
“I worked for U.S.A.I.D. in East Africa over the past eight and a half years, selling the story of American foreign aid to people in Rwanda, Ethiopia and Kenya. Our inability to tell this same story to Americans is our great failure. It is what put the agency into the Department of Government Efficiency’s wood chipper first. It’s what allows Secretary of State Marco Rubio to get away with insisting that lifesaving humanitarian aid would continue while the administration drastically slashed its funding. And it’s what I fear will let this presidency cast the deaths from the next preventable catastrophe as unstoppable or inevitable.”
The agency’s greatest failing was that it did not advocate for itself and the immense impact that it had on human life. When you refuse to speak for yourself, you create a vacuum that can be filled by bad actors who will co-opt and mangle your story to serve their own needs. In today’s unpredictable political climate, you could go from storied to dispensable, from paragon to lavish, from one day to the next. By then, there will only be time for regrets:
“I wish we had been clearer about the value of our work.”
“I wish we hadn’t been so quiet and what we do and why we do it.”
USAID is a stark example of how a well-intentioned culture of humility or complacency—something that plagues the nonprofit, philanthropic, and development worlds—can backfire. Let’s examine how these principled but ultimately self-defeating stances can take even the most recognized organizations from hero to zero.
Why nonprofits resist defining their difference
If you’ve been following me until now, then you know we’ve arrived at part three of Narrative IP. In the first two installments, I wrote extensively about defining the broken status quo and articulating a compelling alternative. These first two pieces do the hard work of setting up the backstory and stakes, making way for the third act, when the protagonist enters the scene: you, the nonprofit.
Did you cringe? I get it. No nonprofit wants to be the hero. At the heart of every mission-driven organization is a desire to be of service and centering oneself feels antithetical to that. But I use the word deliberately because I want to challenge the belief that talking about oneself—even when done with the right intentions and goals—is a distraction from or is misaligned with the mission. Over my 10 years working with nonprofits and foundations, I’ve encountered a host of myths that stop organizations from rightfully advocating for themselves and their work.
“Our size and resources speak for themselves.”
There are many well-known, well-endowed, well-networked organizations who believe that their reputation will do all the work for them. And it is true, money, legacy, and name can open doors and command respect. But when those things stand alone, unattached to any values or meaning, they can be easily be diluted, corrupted, and co-opted by others. USAID is a case in point.“The positive effects of our work are hard to quantify and we don’t want to overstate our impact.”
Change is complex and can take years, if not decades to materialize, and understandably organizations want to avoid a positioning statement that may force them to claim more credit than they can prove. But the unpredictable and slow nature of change does not mean you should step out of the story entirely.“We’re part of a big ecosystem and we don’t want to take too much credit or overshadow others.”
Many organizations who see themselves as part of a movement or a larger field of actors don’t want to position themselves as being better than for fear of appearing self-serving and uncollaborative. But in collective efforts, defining your lane and strengths clearly doesn’t overshadow or take away from anyone else, it just allows them to contribute in productive ways and strengthen the ecosystem as a whole.“Our work is too complex to distill into a single positioning statement.”
Some organizations believe their work to be too complex and too nuanced to be boxed into a simplistic positioning statement. They would rather provide a laundry list of their programmatic areas to show off how much they do rather than doing the hard work of distilling their unique role into a clear, powerful positioning. A powerful positioning won’t erase your complexity. It will only translate it into clarity. Because people don’t want you to do everything. They want you to do a few things, really well.
It is your job to speak for your work with sparkling clarity and searing conviction. And not just about the component parts like the programs, the dollars distributed, the impact numbers, but also the unique and indispensable value that you bring to the world.
Narrative IP: Your Difference
Back to Narrative IP.
In the first and second parts of your Narrative IP, your audiences have been made aware of how painfully broken the world is. They’ve also been fed a heavy dose of hope, a radiant vision of the future. But now the anxiety is starting to set in. Who will make this vision a reality? And how will they do it? In this third part of Narrative IP, you, the nonprofit, the protagonist, have entered. And your audiences breathe a sigh of relief.
So how do you tell your story?
Your story is, what I call, your difference: a combination of where do you sit relative to others in the field (your positioning) and what unique value do you provide to your audiences (value proposition) as a result?
Approaches to defining your difference
There are many ways to define and communicate what makes you distinct. Here are three to consider: your edge, your permission to lead, or your contribution to the larger vision. Each is a different lens for communicating what makes you distinctive and valuable to the larger issue, movement, or field that you belong to.
What is your edge?
This is the most straightforward route to defining your difference: “Where are we stronger, either in capabilities, resources, or relationships, and how does that strength help solve the problem in a way others can’t?” Your comparative advantage only matters if it translates into real value for your audiences and the communities you serve.Where are you best positioned to lead?
Sometimes, your difference isn’t about being the biggest or strongest player—it’s about where you have earned the right to lead. Maybe it’s your deep roots in a community, your long record of trust, or your moral authority on an issue. Identifying your “asymmetric credibility” helps you focus on the space where your voice carries unique weight. This is where you can make an outsized impact relative to your size or resources.What part of the vision can only you deliver?
A third lens looks at your unique contribution to making the compelling alternative real. You don’t have to solve everything, but what piece of the solution are you best equipped to build or accelerate? This approach helps clarify your indispensable role within a broader ecosystem and why others should look to you for this critical piece.
The work of uncovering your difference is not a one hour exercise. It takes layers of research and many rounds of conversation and refinement. Nor is your distinctness a plaque you hang on your wall. As with all things in branding (and in life), your positioning requires consistent execution. It needs to become a rule you live by, a mechanism for filtering what to do more of and what to do less. If you don’t use it as an everyday decision-making tool, it loses its power.
A wake-up call
Here is a very short list of important contributions made by USAID:
Provided $45M in humanitarian aid to Venezuelans fleeing economic crisis
Invested $135M to curb cocaine cultivation in Peru and replace it with cacao and coffee
Saved more than 25 million lives through HIV/AIDS relief in Africa
Strengthened independent media in Central Asian countries like Armenia and Georgia to counter Russian influence
Delivered humanitarian response in Ukraine, funding fuel for evacuation vehicles, salaries for aid workers, legal and psychological support, and tickets to help evacuees reach safer locations
(Source: “From fighting disease to protecting the Amazon rainforest, USAID has big impact across the globe”, AP News, Feb 2025)
If there was ever an organization whose reputation preceded it, it was USAID, long regarded as the gold standard for America’s benevolent presence abroad. Instead, in part due to its inability to advocate for its own value, USAID is now shuttering its doors, relegated to the history books as a relic of the before-times. Let this be a wake-up call: no reputation, no amount of measurable impact, can substitute for clear, ongoing advocacy for your organization.
As a nonprofit, you are busy—distributing critical dollars, advocating for and protecting rights, breaking new ground with influential research, delivering critical front-line services. But in the midst of this important work, don’t forget the equally important work of advocating for your organization. Positioning is not an act of organizational ego. It is an act of service to your audiences, your partners, your beneficiaries—a clear message that helps others understand where you make the biggest difference.
In times like these, your biggest asset is an organizational voice that boldly proclaims your unique value and role in the world.
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.