What Nonprofit Leaders Are Asking Us About Communication
Last month, I was in Wichita speaking to a room full of arts leaders at the Kansas Arts Network conference about The Awareness Gap.
As we worked through the four reasons good organizations can stay invisible, you could see the lightbulbs going off around the room. The problems people thought they had weren’t necessarily the culprits.
One person had a board that kept bringing her communication ideas and wanted a way to help them understand what good actually looks like. Another had several people communicating on behalf of the organization, but everyone was operating in a silo. Someone else had a board pushing for more Facebook posts — right after we’d looked at data showing how little of their potential audience an average organic post was actually reaching.
And several people zeroed in on the Communications Capacity Scorecard because it gave them something they hadn’t had before: language for describing where their communication was actually breaking down.
Instead of “we need to do a better job of marketing,” they could start identifying whether they had a clarity problem, an audience and relevance problem, a reinforcement and relationship problem, or an implementation capacity problem.
By the end, people were circling which category matched their own organization and jotting down what to fix first.
That’s exactly the kind of learning experience we’re building more of for 2026–2027, including several that community foundations, private foundations, and associations can bring directly to their nonprofit partners and members.
MOST REQUESTED RIGHT NOW
The Awareness Gap: Why Great Organizations Still Struggle to Be Seen
This 45- to 60-minute session helps nonprofit leaders diagnose four common reasons awareness stays low: the outcome is unclear, the audience is too broad, communication stays inside the echo chamber, or there is no real system behind the work.
Participants also use our Communications Capacity Scorecard to start identifying where their own gaps lie and what deserves their attention first.
For community foundations, private foundations, and associations, this works well as a learning session for grantees, nonprofit partners, or members at very different levels of communications sophistication — because everyone can diagnose their own organization and leave with a clearer next move.
Build Your Awareness Engine
For foundations and associations that want to make a deeper investment in nonprofit communications capacity, Build Your Awareness Engine moves from diagnosis into implementation.
The experience begins with a half-day workshop, delivered in person or online, where nonprofit leaders work on their own organizations as they build a clearer, more repeatable approach to communication.
The workshop is followed by two one-hour virtual Launch Labs, giving participants a chance to put the work into practice, come back with questions and challenges, and get help moving their plans forward.
Rather than sending nonprofit leaders home from a workshop with a notebook full of good intentions, the format gives them some structure and support for actually getting started.
Activating Your Board as Ambassadors
Board members usually want to help. The problem is that they aren’t always sure what to say or what useful communication support actually looks like.
This session gives nonprofit leaders practical ways to equip board members with the language, tools and confidence to talk about the organization clearly and naturally in the community.
OTHER 2026–2027 LEARNING TOPICS
Why People Want to Work There
How mission-driven organizations can communicate culture, purpose and identity in ways that attract aligned staff and volunteers.
Building the Participation Pipeline
How to move people from passive awareness into deeper engagement with programs, mission and opportunities.
The Difference-Makers Method
A 12-month storytelling system that helps organizations build awareness and trust by sharing two strategic stories each month.
The Storytelling Content Lab
A hands-on session where participants turn one real organizational story into social, email, website and other useful content.
Build Your Brand Foundation
How audience profiles, brand archetypes and core messaging work together to shape a brand people understand, remember and trust.
Bailey Ramsey and I are booking these learning sessions and workshops for 2027, with a few dates still available in late 2026.
If you’re thinking about what kind of capacity-building or learning opportunities to offer your nonprofit partners or members next year, reply to this email. We can talk through what you’re trying to accomplish and which format would make the most sense.
Lori
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