Dear Dreamers and Doers,
This month summer’s officially over, and it’s a shift into a more sober, serious spell of time. “Season” is heating up right as the temperature cools down, and for nonprofits who spend their days sewing the safety net of this country and holding our culture together — the air holds something unsettling. It’s fear. It’s frustration. It’s the low hum of here we go again.
This fall in Florida, we’re staring down a November ballot question that would drastically cut property taxes with no clear plan for where the money for essential and nonprofit services comes from instead. There are lots of complex questions, and no concrete answers, around the massive funding gap this implies. Yet we all want to keep, even improve, our human and cultural services. That’s a value we share.
So why are our values, and our nonprofit missions, always under threat?
Here’s the maddening part: this isn’t a fight among factions. We’re all in agreement here.
Nonprofits are, right now, the most trusted institution in America — trusted more than government, corporations, the media, or even philanthropy itself, according to this year’s national trust survey from Independent Sector and Edelman Data & Intelligence.
In a separate national poll this summer, majorities of voters on the right said they’re more likely to support candidates who work with nonprofits, and nearly half of voters of all stripes said Congress should be listening to the sector more, not less.
So if the public, across the political spectrum, broadly agrees that cause and culture work deeply matters to our wellbeing, why does it feel like futility to get the public will on a ballot or in a budget? What, for crying out loud, do we do? Well, there’s the answer. Cry out loud.
Don’t Shut Up. Speak Your Piece.
Here’s what we tell cause and culture missions in every Bold Brand workshop we teach: a brand doesn’t get remembered for playing it safe. It gets remembered — and trusted, and followed, and funded — when it speaks its piece and stands for what it believes. Live your values out loud. That’s not just what sets a nonprofit brand apart. It’s exactly what this moment is asking of all of us, brand and citizen alike.
None of us has the bandwidth to become a full-time advocate — but we can be vocal. We can vote. We can take an extra thirty seconds when a petition comes around and actually put our names to the things that matter, instead of scrolling past. That’s how the will of the people gets a real shot in the first place — and how leaders start understanding that our nonprofits are off-limits.
Florida Nonprofit Organizations: visit the Florida Nonprofit Alliance to access information and a complete messaging toolkit and templates to address the potential funding crisis related to the proposed property tax amendment on the ballot this November.
Loud and Proud: Protect Your Nonprofits
So this fall, as the season turns more serious, we’re asking: what’s your organization, your community, doing to make sure your values show up where it counts? We’d genuinely love to hear it — tell us, and let’s trade notes.
We won’t be ignored.
Here’s to Speaking Up and Standing Firm,
Surale + Laura + Cheryl
P.S. Need help finding your organization’s voice so you can really use it? Let’s talk. Reach out for a free Happy Half-Hour at hello@thedrmtm.com.