← Nonprofit Nation with Julia Campbell
Nonprofit Nation with Julia Campbell
How to Improve Your Nonprofit’s Message with Lynn Bohart
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- [00:00]
Julia Campbell
You pour your heart into every single fundraising appeal. You juggle a dozen different tools trying to piece together a clear picture of your supporters. But what if your fundraising platform was built with a deep understanding of those challenges? That's the difference a purpose built giving platform like Bloomerang can make. Bloomerang customers aren't just fundraising. They are seeing a 27% larger one time gifts than the industry average. They're growing their supporter base by an average of 12% year over year. And that's the confidence to know who to ask and when. It's the joy of seeing your community rally behind you with greater generosity. It's turning passion into unstoppable momentum. Your purpose is limitless and your fundraising tools should be too. Learn how you can start raising more@jcsocialmarketing.com bloomerang that's jcsocialmarketing.com Bloomer B L O O M E R A N G All right, on to the show. Hello and welcome to Nonprofit Nation. I'm your host, Julia Campbell, and I'm going to sit down with nonprofit industry experts, fundraisers, marketers, and everyone in between to get real and discuss what it takes to build that movement that you've been dreaming of. I created the Nonprofit Nation podcast to share practical wisdom and strategies. You confidently find your voice, definitively grow your audience, and effectively build your movement. If you're a nonprofit newbie or an experienced professional who's looking to get more visibility, reach more people, and create even more impact, then you're in the right place. Let's get started. Hello. Hi everyone. Nonprofit Nation, hopefully your favorite podcast. With your host, Julia Campbell, we're going to talk about something that is very near and dear to my heart, which is the fact that in today's incredibly noisy digital world, we really have very short attention spans. How can we grab attention? How can we stop being the best kept secret? And how can we get our message across? And this week, Lynn Bohart, author, former nonprofit executive and founder of Little Dog Communications, joins us to unpack how nonprofit professionals can dramatically increase fundraising results through stronger, more persuasive messaging. Now, Lynn is a seasoned nonprofit professional turned author and writing consultant. And with over 35 years of experience in the sector, she now leverages her expertise to help organizations enhance their messaging and storytelling strategies. Something that I love. Today we're going to talk about Lynn's book, Raise More Money Through Better Messaging, why so much nonprofit writing falls Flat and what to do instead. So, Lynn, welcome to the podcast.
- [03:13]
Lynn Bohart
Thanks so much, Julia.
- [03:14]
Julia Campbell
It's nice to be here. Yay. So you open your book. Let's just get started with a very bold fact. The human attention span is down to eight seconds. So what does that mean for how nonprofits communicate with their audience today?
- [03:34]
Lynn Bohart
Well, if you think of how we live in our everyday world, you know, we live in a sound bite world. Now, I'm old enough to remember when USA Today, the new newspaper, came out. Very different style newspaper. It was almost like sound bites on the front page. And then if you wanted to continue, you would, like, turn the page and go inside. And we have gone from that to now Twitter and X. And everything is done so quickly that on average, we spend 30 seconds on a webpage. If we don't see what we want, we move on. So what it necessitates as fundraisers is if we don't grab people's attention somehow, they're gonna just skip by us. They're just gonna keep going. And for the most part, when you think about it, people aren't looking for fundraising. They're not like, oh, please, flood me with fundraising requests. That's not what they're doing. So you've got to find a way to break through, as you said, the noise. Otherwise, it's really hard to get attention. And there's so many other nonprofits out there, so you also have to stand out from the crowd.
- [04:45]
Julia Campbell
So we were talking a little bit before I hit record. You spent 35 years in nonprofit leadership, but then you pivoted into writing full time and focusing on helping organizations with messaging. So kind of what inspired you to make this pivot, and how did you make this transition?
- [05:05]
Lynn Bohart
Well, I started write. I'm a mystery author too, so I. I have 11 mystery novels on Amazon.
- [05:10]
Julia Campbell
Well, fundraising can be a mystery. It's a very good tie in.
- [05:14]
Lynn Bohart
Well, I have. I have a presentation I give called Killing People for Fun and Profit. Anyway, I. I had already published a number of my books, and when I retired in. In 2018, I thought, oh, I'll just. I'll just write full time. And then I realized you writing full time would be really isolated. My daughter is already grown and out the door, and so I thought, you know, why not put my nonprofit experience to use? And I spent months studying up on persuasive writing and core messaging. And then I launched my company to work with nonprofits, and I started out on Fiverr and as a freelancer and working with nonprofits. I worked with a woman who trains elephant trainers in Thailand to train them with more humane methods. You know, things like That, I mean, people are doing some of the most amazing things around the world when it comes to nonprofits. But I also realized that they, you know, so many of them are startups. You know, they're. They're grassroots organizations. They don't have a lot of money to hire professional writers, and so they struggle with writing. So that's one of the reasons I thought, you know, this is a really good, good place to. To focus some energy now.
- [06:32]
Julia Campbell
They absolutely do struggle with writing and struggle with messaging and positioning and getting their message across in a way that is compelling. What I love is that you have said that this book is not a typical fundraising book. So the book is called Raise More Money through Better Messaging. I love that. It's very clear. The message is very clear. So what gap did you see? Because I've read a lot of fundraising books in my time, and I would say it is definitely interesting in that it's very niche and it's filling a very specific need rather than just being sort of like fundraising on A1. But what gap did you see in the existing literature that you wanted to fill?
- [07:19]
Lynn Bohart
It's more that, I mean, there are a million books out there. Not a million, but a lot of books out there on, you know, special event fundraising or donor centric fundraising, or plan major gifts, things like that, what have you. But the reality is, is that so many nonprofits, they understand that they need to have a connection, make relationships with donors. And then I think what happens is that when it gets to, like, putting out their newsletter or their annual report or their website copy, they don't worry about it anymore. They don't think of that as a way to connect with donors. It's information. We're just putting information out. And that's what I think is the mistake. So when you just put information out, what you're doing is talking at people. It's like sitting in on your college lecture where the professor's just lecturing at you. People glaze over at that. They stop listening to that. That's not engaging. So I thought, okay, then, then we need to turn the tide, because marketing people have known this for eons. They don't just talk at you. They needle you to the point where you. You absolutely believe I need that widget. Yes. Even though I have no use for it. I. I better buy it, because trust.
- [08:37]
Julia Campbell
Me, that's me on Instagram looking at the ads and saying, oh, I didn't know I needed this.
- [08:42]
Lynn Bohart
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, we think that they're ruthless in. In doing that. But. But the reality is that it works. And I'm not suggesting that we do that kind of messaging to our donors, but I was very taken with the book, Simon Sinek's book, starting with Wall.
- [08:59]
Julia Campbell
Yes. And listeners. My listeners know I love that book. I absolutely love that book.
- [09:06]
Lynn Bohart
But you'll know that it's written more for board members, staff, volunteers. It's asking you, as the person who's working with that organization, why am I so devoted to this organization? So core messaging takes it a step further to say, why is the organization there? And too often, and some of the organizations that I work with, they just keep making these mistakes over and over again. They constantly talk about themselves. You know, they put the newsletter article out, and it's, how much did we raise at the gala last weekend? You know, how many people did we serve? That's not what. You know, donors have this information that's good information. And funders, especially grant funders, want that kind of information. And I sort of blame grant funders for writing the way that we do, because I'm old enough to remember Dragnet, the old show where it was just the facts, ma'. Am. But that's the idea that they want all this. This data. Right. The normal individual donor out there won't listen to that. It'll just clog up their brain and they'll move on. What they do listen to is emotion. They connect with the human element of whatever you're doing to make life better. And too many times, fundraising staff, the default is to go back to the information and not to just stop for five minutes and say, okay, I have to get this information out. How could I do it in such a way that people will connect with it and pay attention?
- [10:51]
Julia Campbell
Right. So that gets to the point that you're teaching in the book. People only read what they're already interested in. Oh, my gosh. I love that because it's so true. And oftentimes we try to bang, you know, a square peg in a round hole with our messaging and our marketing. So how can we frame our messaging to meet people where they are?
- [11:19]
Lynn Bohart
You know, it's interesting. I use the example in the book that if you wrote an article, you know, or read an article that saw the headline and it was, you know, how to make your sleep better. Well, if you didn't feel you had trouble sleeping, you would.
- [11:31]
Julia Campbell
Right.
- [11:32]
Lynn Bohart
Bother with it.
- [11:32]
Julia Campbell
Right, Right. Or like, how to get a baby to sleep in five minutes. Okay, well, I read that 10 years ago after I had my second child. But why would I read that now.
- [11:41]
Lynn Bohart
The title is Meh. You know, but if it said how to have a better sex life because you sleep better, or how to lose weight when you sleep better, or how to almost do anything if you sleep better, suddenly you've expanded your potential reader base by thousands. So I use that example to say, okay, so look at your own organization, your own writing. To say, if you're going to write a newsletter article, let's say you, you're a transitional housing organization. To talk about the mechanics of traditional housing is not going to grab people's attention. But if you tell a story about a woman who maybe a mom of a four year old who got divorced, lost her house, ended up on the street, was scared to death because she was there with a four year old and you know, men were looking at them or, you know, you tell a story, all of a sudden, as a woman, as a, as a mom, I'm like, oh my God, that's horrible. And then you say, hey. And we helped get her off the street. Now she's in training or she's in junior college or whatever. The four year old is safe. And so it's the difference between just sort of blasting information at people and turning it into a story or turning it into a concept of emotion that they can relate to. I talk about common ground emotion in the book the Story of Child, Children's Institute of Learning Differences. You know, I'll never forget this. I went to their luncheon. They help learning disabled kids, the kind of kids who get kicked out of public school because they're so disruptive. And they teach them, they're a school, but their goal is to get them back into the public school system. So they help them manage, they help the kids and the parents manage the behavior. And in some cases, these kids can be violent. I mean, when I was there, I would see kids walking around with helmets on because when they would get upset, they'd be slamming their heads against the wall. And they had a panel of parents at this fundraising luncheon talking about how Child had helped them. And at the very end, a woman said, I just want to tell you a quick story. It's a room of like 300 people. And she said, my son Tristan has been in Child for, you know, like a year and a half. And a few weeks ago he got invited to a birthday party. And it was the first birthday party he has ever been invited to.
- [14:14]
Julia Campbell
Oh my gosh.
- [14:15]
Lynn Bohart
And the whole room did just what you did. You could hear on gas. And it just hit me. It I realize it's because we could all relate to that.
- [14:24]
Julia Campbell
No. Yeah. No one wants that isolation for their child. So we can relate.
- [14:29]
Lynn Bohart
Yes. I mean, it's like I. I had gone. I had just retired and I had gone in saying, I'm going to spend X dollars. That's it. Because I got to be careful with my money. I immediately doubled my gift. And I knew him. I had worked with them for years. So I call that the secret sauce. If you can find out, you can really kind of ratchet down the organization that you run and say, what's our common ground emotion that would resonate with a whole bunch of other people. You know, whether it's hunger or shelter or learning kids who need summer books because they'll fall behind and maybe they won't graduate or whatever your nonprofit is. Get down to that core essence of what you do and the emotion behind it. Then you start talking to people in that way, and they bond with you. There's an automatic bond. So that's. That's that whole concept.
- [15:30]
Julia Campbell
I think this. This statement needs to be reset. Again, people only read what they're already interested in. I think it resonates so much with me because I teach digital marketing and social media, email marketing, websites and. And social media platforms and how to manage them. And so much of it is like, well, we have a great message and we need to, you know, just get it in front of the right people. And it's like, well, no, you need to reach people that would or may potentially be interested in what you do. You cannot force someone to be interested in ending homelessness. You can't force someone to be interested in food insecurity. You can't force someone to be interested in domestic violence. You know, they might have a curiosity or they might want to read more, but you cannot force people to pay attention or to be interest. Well, you can force them to pay attention. You buy enough ads, but that's not quality attention. You know, they. They need to be interested in it. Yes.
- [16:29]
Lynn Bohart
And, Julia, it gets back to what I said earlier is before I had my daughter, I could have cared less about voting for school bonds, you know?
- [16:38]
Julia Campbell
Right. And I'm on the school committee, so I'm very interested.
- [16:41]
Lynn Bohart
Because, you know, I didn't have. I didn't have skin in the game when I had my daughter. I paid attention to that. And that's what that story with child did for me. I didn't have a learning disabled kid, so I didn't relate to the parents until that story. And I was, oh, My God, it.
- [16:58]
Julia Campbell
Was like a universal thing everyone could relate to. So what are some other storytelling mistakes that nonprofits make? Like, how can we fix the mistakes that we're making already?
- [17:10]
Lynn Bohart
So I also teach storytelling for, for non or for fiction authors. And yeah, I have a whole. I have a. I'm creating a whole series of writing books for. For fiction author. Like, like micro ebooks. You know, when we read stories, we read stories to. Because of the conflict and the emotion. That's what we get connected to. Even literary. Doesn't have to be murder mysteries like mine. It could be literary, novel, historic, whatever. We connect with the story, with the, the conflict that's going on and whether the protagonist is going to overcome that conflict. It could be minor. It could be. I use the example of the King speech, in fact, in even in most of my books, that, that was an internal, you know, he was stuttering. He had to make a speech to the entire nation of Britain and he stuttered horribly. And he had to overcome that. It was a great movie. Even though it wasn't like a volcano erupting or a mass murder or something like that. That was an internal conflict that he had to overcome. And we get in, we get connected to that and we start rooting for them. It's the same thing for nonprofit storytelling. The Better Fundraising Company is really good. They've got some really good.
- [18:22]
Julia Campbell
Oh, I love them.
- [18:23]
Lynn Bohart
Steven screams yes, Some free tools on their website.
- [18:27]
Julia Campbell
And the Better Fundraising Company, they have.
- [18:29]
Lynn Bohart
A couple storytelling videos, in fact, that you can watch. But the whole idea is when you. Even if you're telling a story about volunteers, how many times I used to do this, you'd start for the newsletter, it's like, let's have a volunteer spotlight article. And it would start out, Rosie's been with us for five years and she says it's the best time of the week when she comes to volunteer. Yeah, who cares?
- [18:58]
Julia Campbell
I know, right?
- [18:59]
Lynn Bohart
You know, you need to tell us about who Rosie is. Why did she come and how is she benefiting the people or whoever that your. Your organization benefits? That's what we want to hear. So I think so much of the. Again, we get back to things like newsletter, website, annual reports, brochures, fundraising appeals. We tend to just want to push information at our readers instead of the emotion. If they could make that one switch, they would see a difference. And I'm not. I remember and I mentioned this in the book, that I was giving a presentation on core messaging, and in the back of the room, this woman raised her hand she was a grant writer for a big nonprofit, and she said, yeah, no, we can't do that. Our board, basically, they've told us we can't just get really into emotions. And I thought, okay, but why? I mean, you don't want to offend people. You don't want to get so gritty and gory.
- [20:07]
Julia Campbell
Yeah, there's a line between exploitation and emotion. But I think, like, you're saying, like, we're adults, we can figure it out.
- [20:15]
Lynn Bohart
And I use examples. I got permission with some advertising that I use examples in the book. And one of them is WaterAid, where it's a little poop. It's a little graphic of a poop. And it's the whole idea of so many communities around the world that don't have safe sanitation toilets and things like that. And then they get waterborne diseases because of that. And so they're talking about poop. And we're not offended by that. It's the reality. It's life. So I just really encourage people to experiment with words, experiment with some descriptive language. Try it out on some people in your organization first, and try it out on some of your volunteers or your donors if you're nervous about it. But start talking about your core message and why you exist rather than just what you do. It's not. Nobody cares about what you do and how you do it.
- [21:13]
Julia Campbell
I love your example of the volunteer spotlight. I do teach storytelling as well, and when I talk about it, I give an example of my two kids. And we used to really love the Berenstain Bear books, and that's definitely dating me. But, like, my parents read them, I read them. We've all read them. My kids read them, and I'm saving them for my kids. Kids. But the thing with the Berenstain Bear books is there was always there's stakes, right? Like, sister bear can't clean her room, so she's gonna lose her favorite stuffed animal. Or brother bear cheated on his homework and now has to tell Papa Bear. So there were stakes, there was conflict. There was sort of like something happening. And then they moved. Then once Stan and Jan Berenstein died, someone took over, maybe the publisher. And now the books are literally just a recounting of things that happened. Like, the Berenstein bears went to the aquarium. They went to the aquarium, they saw the whales, they left. Maybe not whales, but whatever. So that's just a recounting of things that happen. And, like, what you were saying with the volunteer spotlight, so much of the storytelling we do is Just that it's like, this is rose. She is 37. She's been volunteering with us for 10 years. I've seen some storytelling, you know, in my work with domestic violence, that it's really compelling. Volunteer spotlights often, you know, could start off something like, I was terrified that I was not qualified, or I was so worried I would say the wrong thing. And then when you read that, who has not been worried they would say the wrong thing? Right.
- [22:47]
Lynn Bohart
Okay. So you just. You just moved into the concept of a hook.
- [22:52]
Julia Campbell
Yes, the hook. Oh, let's talk about that.
- [22:54]
Lynn Bohart
Talk about in the. In the book, because I have a whole.
- [22:57]
Julia Campbell
Yes, the opening line. The hook.
- [22:59]
Lynn Bohart
My. In my novel, writing, a hook is a sentence, a couple of sentences, or even a paragraph at the beginning of whatever you're writing that is designed to grab people's attention. And you do it by something unexpected, surprising. It could be a joke. A major statistic that they've never heard.
- [23:18]
Julia Campbell
Right, A statistic. Oh, I think I just read some statistic in an email about the number of hours that the average child lives in foster care. It was from an organization that I support. It was a shocking number of hours. And I don't want to get it wrong, but it grabbed my attention.
- [23:33]
Lynn Bohart
Well, or it could be question. And I often do this. You know, I'll start something out by saying, did you know that 400,000, you know, foster kids in our state age out and end up on their own with no place to live or, you know, whatever.
- [23:49]
Julia Campbell
Exactly.
- [23:49]
Lynn Bohart
You know, a question. And I use this in the middle of articles, in the middle of speeches, I'll all of a sudden ask a question, because our brains are designed to answer it. If you asked us a question, we immediately switch to, huh, what? Oh, you know, and you try to answer it. So those little techniques can really change how people read your copy, your written copy. And I just think that most. And I. Man, I just. I relate to this. I was a single office for a long time when I ran a community foundation up here in the Seattle area. I was the only person in the office for the first four years. I think I didn't have time to really sit down and strategize a whole lot of stuff. And I know that that's true with so many people. It's like, oh, my God, I gotta get the newsletter out. So they sit down in an afternoon and they do it and it's done. And if they could just take an extra 10 or 15 minutes to think about, how could I approach this particular article? A little bit differently. How could I open it differently with a different hook? How could I frame it? I use framing a lot. I talk about that in the book. The idea that, you know, you start out with maybe a tagline or something that says, you know, kids just need their wings to soar, and then you end the fundraising appeal or whatever it is with, you know, with your gift. These kids will soar. You know, it's that complete thought. So I just encourage them to read through the book. And I know I overwhelmed people. There's so much information in there, but to just pick two or three things that they think I could do, that I could add that to my writing and make a difference, you know, and that way they're not overwhelmed.
- [25:40]
Julia Campbell
Right. You just answered my question. One or two techniques from the book people can start using right away, I think just simply reflecting on what you're already doing. Because I do agree, nonprofits that are stretched thin or one person like you were at the community foundation, they tend to think they don't have the time to add new things and learn new things, but it's simply just reframing, looking at what you're already doing. Let's talk about industry speak and jargon. I love this section of the book because this is by far one of my pet peeves and something that I talk about with all my clients because, without fail, I see it in their marketing. So what are some phrases or what are some ways we can avoid this?
- [26:25]
Lynn Bohart
I've just seen so much of this.
- [26:27]
Julia Campbell
Where, yeah, we're like, numb to it.
- [26:29]
Lynn Bohart
It happens a lot with nonprofits that are working somehow in a scientific field. You know, like, they're. If they work with Alzheimer's patients or autistic, you know, individuals or the learning disabled, you know, that then they have. They tend to get very academic in how they talk about what they do and the type of clients they work with and how many caseworkers and case management people. And, you know, they're really into that kind of stuff. That's fine. If I have a neurodiverse kid, I'm gonna go to that, you know, that website that works with autism, and I'm gonna understand most of that, because that's my world, right? If I have a kid that suffers from autism, then I'm really steeped in that. If I'm just a donor coming to that website because I went to their gay law and I was kind of impressed with what they did, and I want to learn more, I would glaze over, and I would close that Website immediately, because I don't understand most of it. I think the difference to me is so often. And again, I think grant funders are partly at fault to this.
- [27:40]
Julia Campbell
I am agreeing with you about the grant funder thing. As a former grant writer, we write.
- [27:45]
Lynn Bohart
For grant funders and we write for the users of our service instead of the potential donors who don't know anything about us. And I think you can do both. I've said before, if you put on your menu bar in your website, services. Right, Our services, that page could be all industry speak if you want it, you know, because that's, the parents are going to go there, the grant funders are going to go there. But, you know, your, your main page that people land on, in my opinion, should be designed for the general public because we are always trying to expand our reach. We are always throwing that net out there, trying to draw new people in. And you're not going to do that if you talk in such a way that just turns them off that they don't get it. So, you know, that would be. When it comes to industry speak, that would be one of my biggest complaints.
- [28:45]
Julia Campbell
Is the web, like, having empathy for your audience, like understanding. Yeah. They go to your website and because they have this strong, maybe visceral reaction to what you do or they heard about something you do, or they're looking like, oh, I heard about this in the news. I wonder if I can help in my community. Those are a lot of the web searches that I see. And then you're right. You go to the website and it's just a bunch of numbers or a bunch of your listing of your services. But it's, it's not speaking to the cause and the mission and the North Star, like the wide.
- [29:19]
Lynn Bohart
Here's a perfect example in my, I belong to a, a fiction writers group because of my, my murder mysteries. And one of the guys in that group is a science fiction writer. He wrote a short story once. And so we all review it, right. And critique it. And there was a bunch of, there was language in there about, you know, a spaceship or something that I didn't understand. And I said, you know, okay, I don't, it's like initials and stuff. I don't get that. And he said, yeah, well, that's okay because anybody who reads science fiction would, would understand it.
- [29:49]
Julia Campbell
Okay, okay.
- [29:51]
Lynn Bohart
I don't read science.
- [29:52]
Julia Campbell
I'm huge in science fiction. And I don't know what that means with letters.
- [29:56]
Lynn Bohart
So the point is, is that, so you're only, you're only Writing for picture, for people who only, who already read science fiction. Because that's what basically what is what he said to me. It's the same thing with nonprofits. Are you only writing for people who already know what you do or.
- [30:11]
Julia Campbell
Yeah, the insider speak. Exactly. Oh, I completely agree with that. And people have to think about search terms as well. What are people searching for, especially on social media or if you're on YouTube or, you know, your website. What is the average layperson that doesn't know anything about you? What are the words they're entering into? TikTok or Instagram or, or Google or whatever search engine they use? Because we tend to get wrapped up in, okay, this is the word, these are the words we like to use. But what are people actually talking about and how are they referring to this mission, this cause? Oh, that's so great. So let's talk about the free companion workbook. There's gifts at the end of your book. Once again, the name of the book. Raise more money through better messaging. Where can people get the book and the workbook and Amazon?
- [31:06]
Lynn Bohart
They can get it on Amazon. And if they read the book and they'll go back to Amazon and leave a review, honest review, if they didn't like the book, then, you know, that's okay. And then take a screenshot of the review and send it to me and I give them my email in there, I will send them the free companion workbook, otherwise they'd have to pay for it. And the workbook is based on the main book, but it gives examples and it gives exercises in there so that they can practice more. Like when I'm talking about core messaging, I used to, in these messaging workshops, I used to, I used to create core messaging maps for nonprofits. Well, there's an, there's a full blown example in there that they can look at and then there's a blank template that they can use.
- [31:52]
Julia Campbell
Oh, I love a workbook accompanying a book.
- [31:55]
Lynn Bohart
I think it's an ebook. So, you know, somebody said to me, that's not really a workbook because you can't write in it.
- [32:00]
Julia Campbell
Well, you can put it in the Google Docs. I, I actually, you know, I like, you could probably print it. I mean, if it's an ebook, you can print it off.
- [32:10]
Lynn Bohart
You're going to work on your computer, you're going to practice your stuff on the computer anyway. So just to me it doesn't really matter, but.
- [32:16]
Julia Campbell
Exactly, exactly. And I think, you know, some people like print, some people like electronic. It's kind of like the best of both worlds. But where can people learn more about you, Lynn, and work with your agency?
- [32:27]
Lynn Bohart
I have two websites. My Little Dog Communications. And it's spelled L I L L Dog Lil Dog.
- [32:34]
Julia Campbell
Okay.
- [32:35]
Lynn Bohart
Because I own dachshunds.
- [32:37]
Julia Campbell
I'm saying we need to know the story of that. Okay. How many dachshunds?
- [32:43]
Lynn Bohart
Two miniature dachshunds. I'm very dog oriented. All my. All my murder mysteries have dogs in them. In fact, my. My cozy mystery series has two miniature dachshunds in a based hunt. My. On my dogs. So that's what I call my company. And it's just www.littledogcommunications.com. and I have some free writing tools on the website that people can just download and they can get hold of me through there if they want to work with me. And then I have my author website, which is www.lynnbohart-author.com. that's a whole other thing because I get into true crime and all my mystery books are on there. There's other free writing sources on. In fact, I have a free hook writing resource on my author website.
- [33:32]
Julia Campbell
Ooh, I'm going to go download that.
- [33:34]
Lynn Bohart
I might have it on Little Dog Communications. I can't remember if I put it both places or not. I'm trying to give people opportunities to practice some of this stuff. I recognize they don't want to take classes. You know, they don't want to sit in on webinars that they don't have to. They need to do it in their own time. And so I'm trying to give them resources, inexpensive resources to do that.
- [33:56]
Julia Campbell
That's fantastic. All right, well, I will put everything into the show notes so everyone can connect with you and get these wonderful resources. Let's just leave with your number one tip on writing for busy nonprofit professionals.
- [34:11]
Lynn Bohart
Focus on the why. And why is not. I think the difference is. Well, there's a great Susan Howlett example in the book where she talks about, you know, working with a nonprofit that helps kids that have been abused. And then finally she says, no, I help kids who have been raped. You know, she. She gets down to the why. And I think so often, you know, we go to conferences and somebody says, oh, what do you do? And it's like, oh, we provide transitional housing. That's not your why.
- [34:43]
Julia Campbell
No, that's a what.
- [34:44]
Lynn Bohart
Create your organization to provide transitional housing. You created your organization to get people off the street, to give them a second chance at being safe and secure and living a normal life. That's your why the transitional housing is the way that you do that. And to me, that's the difference. If I could leave people with that, one thing is set the to do how we do it and what we do aside and start talking about the why do we do it. If that's behind everything you do, I just think that you're gonna you're going to connect with so many more people.
- [35:24]
Julia Campbell
Completely agree. Well, thanks so much for being on the podcast.
- [35:27]
Lynn Bohart
Thank you. I love this. Thank you. I love talking shop.
- [35:37]
Julia Campbell
Well, hey there. I wanted to say thank you for tuning into my show and for listening all the way to the end. If you really enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast app and you'll get new episodes downloaded as soon as they come out. I would love if you left me a rating or a review because this tells other people that my podcast is worth listening to and then me and my guests can reach even more earbuds and and create even more impact. So that's pretty much it. I'll be back soon with a brand new episode, but until then you can find me on Instagram @JuliaCampbell77. Keep changing the world, you nonprofit unic.