When you’re just starting an organization, the need for funding always feels urgent. But you can’t ask funders to support you if you can’t articulate your mission and why it matters. When we’re working with emerging organizations, we almost always spend time first on messaging–before jumping into fundraising. It’s the story of the change you want to see that will move funders to action. 

If you’re passionate about something, it feels like explaining your mission should be relatively easy–but that’s not always the case. When we first started working with Makoce, organizational founder Nick would often get focused on the statistics and the economics behind his mission. Those details are critical, but they weren’t the heart of the story. We encouraged him to start with why he personally felt driven to launch a nonprofit–and then to provide a high-level view of his vision and mission. Drawing out that narrative gave us the baseline to create needed tools for fundraising, from a case statement to share with funders to a new website and social media content.