Who pays your salary

Your audience - your field - your responsibility is to serve those who give, buy, subscribe.

But your mission statement says nothing about them - neither does your vision or values or code or tagline or your orientation or training materials.

It’s as if money just magically appears - or your customers and supporters are really ATMs - or your nonprofit’s dream is to be fully funded - or your business doesn't need customers.

As in, your hope is to be unaccountable.

But we really have an entirely 'other' field of service - another cross-cultural community or context you’re responsible for.

Solving the problems of those who give - those who support the nonprofit is our marketing mission. To understand and empathize with their needs, their concerns, and their desires.

And it’s not just about legacy and naming rights to a building or toilet stall.

The reason naming rights are important to some is because these things mean something for certain people in certain circles (the 83 year old widow who sends $10 a month - every month doesn’t understand and doesn’t need a building named after her - it doesn’t even occur to her that it means anything for her).

But she wants her faithfulness recognized - as quietly and faithfully as her giving.

And on and on and on... Your mission suffers from a shameful omission - the people who make everything possible... including your salary.