Claiming Your Role in the Social Impact Ecosystem

Every social impact leader believes in their mission.

Funders assume that too. What they actually want to know is why you, specifically, over the ten other orgs working the same issue, or the bigger name with more reach and a longer track record.

Most leaders answer with passion, good programs, being impactful. Genuine things that still don't add up to a strategy.

In this episode, Jonathan and I dig into a framework we use with clients constantly: naming your organization's exact role inside a broader social impact ecosystem, specific enough to defend, credible enough to believe, and clear enough that funders, staff, and partners all describe your org the same way.

Jonathan brings Seymour Center into it as a live example, working through the question in real time.

Episode Highlights:

[00:00:46] Why differentiation is the one thing social impact leaders don't spend enough time on

[00:03:25] Why "we do good work" isn't enough to win over savvy funders

[00:04:45] Jonathan's own evolving answer to what role Seymour Center plays in Santa Cruz

[00:06:38] The vague language and buzzwords that quietly sink an organization's positioning

[00:21:24] Mapping the ecosystem: the first exercise Cosmic runs with every client

[00:27:41] The moments that call for revisiting your role, from new leadership to ecosystem disruption

Notable Quotes:

Eric Ressler [00:19:20]: "Passion is not a strategy. It's not a position. It's not a role. We can't compete on being the most passionate, because who's going to claim otherwise?"

Jonathan Hicken [00:17:45]: "Someone's like, I love the ocean, I want to save the ocean, so we're going to create a museum to save the ocean. But that's the vagueness we're talking about."

Resources & Links:

- Seymour Marine Discovery Center: https://seymourcenter.ucsc.edu/

- The Nature Conservancy: https://www.nature.org/

Hosted by Eric Ressler, Founder & Creative Director of Cosmic, with co-host Jonathan Hicken, Executive Director of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. New episodes every Tuesday.

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→ Work with Cosmic: designbycosmic.com

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Thank you for all that you do for your cause and for being part of the movement to move humanity and the planet forward.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Maybe if you don't have a good sense of your spot in the ecosystem, you're talking to the wrong funders. They may be interested in a very specific piece of the work that you might actually do, but if you're not able to articulate that that's your role in it, then you might miss out on that partnership.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

I think passion is a powerful force and not one we should try to snub. Diminish. Right, right. But passion is not a strategy. Right. Like that is not, that is not a, and it's not a position, it's not a role. We can't compete on being the most passionate. Because who's gonna who's gonna claim it otherwise? Right. I'm Eric Ressler. I'm Jonathan Hickon. And this is Designing Tomorrow. Jonathan, there's something that I wish that social impact leaders and social impact org spent a lot more time thinking about than they do. There's actually a couple things, but for today's episode, there's one thing I want to focus on, and that is call it what you want. I'm gonna call it differentiation. Okay. And let me go into some detail around that. And I'd love for you to kind of grill me on this and poke holes in my thinking. That's my favorite thing to do. That's like what the show is, right? So here's how I think about this. And I have a better metaphor that I that I use that seems to make more intuitive sense to folks. I'm gonna make a claim here that if you are doing work in the social impact space, and especially if you're doing work that is systems level, big and tractable work, that you are part of a social impact ecosystem. There are many players in the space, collaborators, maybe sometimes competitors, there's forces working against your issue at times, and that it's a complex, moving, fluid ecosystem. And the way that I think about this, and that I wish more people would think about it, is that you need to be able to clearly name and claim your role in that ecosystem. For who? For yourself as an organization, and and this will connect the dots here a little bit, for the people that you need to power your mission, whether that's funders or staff or supporters or volunteers.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

I mean, I think this is something I actually think a lot about right now, like with Seymour Center as a museum and sort of one of these like public spaces, but also as an environmental organization. And I think a lot about like how are we positioning ourselves within this whole ecosystem and the different categories we might fit into. So I mean, I think it's a valid thing to dig into today.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

So I'm gonna do something that I know nonprofit people love and I'm gonna compare them to not nonprofit organizations. Um, but you know, my background early on was working in Silicon Valley with B2B startups and B2C startups, and like those folks think about this every day, right? Even before they go to market. It's just like how are we going to differentiate within the market? Yeah, I was in B2B SaaS for years, and that was, I mean, every executive meeting had that theme in it. So we've got like two white dudes talking about B2B SaaS. I'm now bald, which is even better, right? Like now we don't just have a two white dude podcast, we've got one of them being bald. Like, we're just checking all the boxes. I have two podcasts. Yeah, so you've got two.

unknown 2:53

All right.

SPEAKER_02 2:54

Okay, so all that to say, like I still believe, I and I wish that more people would spend time in the social impact space thinking about this. And the reason is I think it's too easy to gloss over. And it's like we get stuck in this mindset of like, well, we're doing good work, our programs are successful, and like we're impactful even. Maybe even we're doing pretty well from a fundraising standpoint. But I say like, not enough. And I also say, usually, if you haven't done this work, those first few things are likely not to be true. And so when you go into a potential funder meeting, one of the things the funder is going to be asking is like, why support you? Right. And and I think a lot of times folks in this space think about that as like, why support me? Like, what's my credibility? But I actually think most, especially savvy funders, are thinking about why are you the right fit to solve this problem against other people also working on that problem?

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Yeah, this is this is interesting because I do a lot of the fundraising and major donor foundation, et cetera. And, you know, I often think about myself as like a philanthropic matchmaker. Yeah, exactly. Right? Where I'm like, I just want to match this funder with whoever's gonna do the work that delivers the most impact. And like there is some, there is some some genuine authenticity to that where I'm like, it doesn't matter if it's me.

SPEAKER_03 4:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

But also, if I don't have a good answer to why their investment in me might more have more of an impact or the kind of impact that they want than somebody else who's in the ecosystem, then like brass tacks, I might lose out on that opportunity to bring in funding. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

So so here's I've actually I'd love to ask you like as you've been evolving your leadership and your position within the broader social impact ecosystem here in Santa Cruz and in the environmental and climate space, like how do you think about naming and claiming your role? Have you thought about it from that perspective before?

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Yeah, when I when I first started, Seymour Center was viewed as one of the museums.

SPEAKER_02 4:52

Yeah, one of the museums in Santa Cruz.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

One of the museums in Santa Cruz, right? And one of the decisions I made pretty early was to align more with the environmental work in town rather than with the other museums to position myself as hey, we are an amplification force for this environmental work happening here. Although lately I've been actually thinking about do we position ourselves more as like a science communicator, right? As opposed to an environmental work. So this is a question that I'm like actively toying with.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

And all and and all of those are role-based questions, right? Are are we playing the role of a museum? Are we playing the role of environmental org? Are we playing the role of an of a communications org?

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Well, I mean, there's role, but I but I also say it's sort of like our our position in the ecosystem. Yeah. Right? Right. Because in each of those ecosystems, we could occupy or claim a particular spot within it. Yes. Right? Like within the museum space, we could be the science museum. Right. Within the environmental space, we could be the storytellers. Within the science communication space, we could be the local solutions amplifier, right? So in each of those ecosystems, we would play a role. But but yeah, this is, I mean, this is a question I'm I'm thinking about like literally this week.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

The reason why I think this is so important to spend time thinking about if you're a leader in this space, is because it is it is kind of this like upstream unlock that makes all kinds of other decisions a lot easier. And here's here's what I've noticed. People get like 70% of the way there, but they don't do the like hard work of getting the rest of the 30% of the way there. Well, what is that? What does that look like? Yeah. It looks like vague language about describing who they are. It looks like glomming on to buzzwords that sound good, but like kind of confuse people. And what that means is that you end up being able to justify all kinds of activities and investments and partnerships that are not in your sweet spot. So another way to think about this is like what is our sweet spot as an organization? Like, where are we at our best? Where are we uniquely positioned to make the biggest impact given the constraints, given the state of play, given our skill set on our team, given our background? And like a lot of times when we're helping orgs through this, we go all the way back to the origin story. Like, what is the core part of your DNA as an organization? Like, who even are the founding team? Because a lot of times, even for orgs that have been around for quite a while, that DNA like carries through in the culture, in the skill set, and who they hire into like what the team members on the team are actually like well versed and good at. And I'm not saying you should never pivot or you should never grow or you should never upskill. But what I am saying is that you need to have a very clear sense of like what is our sweet spot.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Let's unpack like the implications of doing this well versus doing this poorly. Okay. So, so I mean, the the you you alluded to one already. Like, are you missing opportunities to bring in funding? Where my mind goes on that is like maybe if you don't have a good sense of your your spot in the ecosystem, you're talking to the wrong funders.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

Might be talking to the wrong funders, yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

Right? That that they may be interested in a very specific piece of the work that you might actually do, but if you're not able to articulate that that's your role in it, then you might miss out on that partnership. So that's one flavor.

SPEAKER_02 8:14

Yeah. Another flavor is you are talking to the right funders, but they don't know it and you don't know it, right? In the sense that, like, okay, I can see a potential here, but you don't ever quite get over the finish line. You have a lot of conversations, those feel good, but you never get the check, or you get a check that's uh, you know, a third of what you wish it could be. Because there's not enough clarity around like what funders want is they want confidence and clarity that their investment is going to lead to an impact, right? In the best case.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

So, you know, one of the things that goes through my head just in my executive director roles is like I have to find this balance between like painting this big vision, right? Painting this big reason why our work matters. The risk in doing that, of course, is that you go so big or so vague that actually you lose the clarity in what impact you're actually delivering and what your role in that ecosystem is. The risk of going too small is like, well, that problem doesn't sound like it matters too much.

SPEAKER_03 9:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

So so for you, where does where do you draw the line in terms of claiming your spot in the ecosystem when it comes to sort of the spectrum of size of problem, if you will?

SPEAKER_02 9:21

Yeah, there's a framing art there, I would say. It needs to be rooted in truth, right? Like at the at a at just a baseline. Like I'm not suggesting that listeners takeaway from this is like I'm gonna go find the biggest, boldest way to tell my story and like stake a claim. Because like there is a believability element to this, and this especially becomes relevant if you're working on a complex systems-level problem where the solution or the desired future state is this major thing that's gonna require multiple organizations, you know, public-private partnerships, sometimes even like multiple states or communities to come get to come together to solve. So, what I would say is it needs to be rooted in truth, A. And the story can go something like this: like, hey, we envision this kind of world, don't you also, funder, or whoever we're talking to? Yes. Well, we see one problem in us getting there is this particular thing, and we tend to be really good at that. That's our focus. We believe X, Y, Z, and this is the solution to that. There's other partners that matter in this, and by the way, we're doing this cool initiative with that partner who's really good at this thing. But this is the thing we're uniquely positioned to do. And we need to now be able to make a case, and now we're kind of coming off the dialogue here for our listeners. We need to be able to make a case that like this part matters, it's important, and it's distinct enough that like we can make a meaningful, believable claim that like we are positioned to do that part better than anyone else.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

So it's actually not like my framing of this is like the size of problem spectrum, it's not is actually kind of a red herring. That's not really the way you're thinking about it, right? It's like with clarity in your role in the ecosystem, actually delivers, delivers meaning, like delivers weight, delivers sort of a sense of real possibility in the impact.

SPEAKER_02 11:07

I think that's right. And I mean the the scale of the problem is highly dependent on what kind of org you are, right? Like, even to use the Seymour Center as an example, you've made a strategic choice to kind of draw lines around Monterey Bay as like kind of the and and like Santa Cruz specifically to a degree, the scope and scale of your focus as an organization.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

On your shirt right there. That is literally the scope of of what we're doing, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:32

Solution Santa Cruz for people who are listening. So uh thanks for the shirt, by the way, man. Hey, you're welcome. Looks good on you. So it kind of fits, right? We're like, hey, um, okay, so in that way, though, like you do have impact outside of this role you have here. Yeah. But like that's your that's part of your sweet spot, right? It's one element, one ingredient to how you claim and name a role within a broader ecosystem. You're saying part of that is our region, a regional focus, which can be totally legit.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

You brought up this idea of um, or you alluded to a moment ago, this idea of like the other players in the ecosystem. And I think what's unique about social impact versus say the private sector, yeah, is that it's actually important, I believe, to be in dialogue with the other people in the ecosystem. Yeah. Right? Because those funders are talking to everybody. Yep. 100%. And and if if in talking to everybody they don't actually like put the pieces together for your role in it, it actually you have this risk of being less credible because you're not it you don't exist in a vacuum in these funding conversations. So you need to make sure, in fact, in some ways, that your partners in that ecosystem are also bought in to your role in it all.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

Yeah, which I think this is an interesting distinction between like, yeah, the private sector and and the social impact sector is like we're not really competitors. Like, even if we're competing for money, we're all ideally working towards the same thing. Now, there's exceptions to that when you're on different sides of any kind of like issue where there's like anti-climate people or anti-whatever issue. That's a good point. But when when you're talking about allies, let's just use that term, yeah. I think that's a good heuristic is like to think about okay, what if the funder I'm talking to also talk to everyone else in our space? What are we gonna say that everyone else is also gonna say? Great, might might not even be wrong, right? But how can we help a potential funder or supporter make the best decision, right? And that might even sometimes be, oh, well, we need to fund the Seymour Center and this other org, right, because they're intersectional or because they're collaborative or whatever it is. But it's such a more compelling story, a more honest story, and I think a more persuasive story when you can say, hey, this is the thing, this is the role we are best at, we're uniquely qualified for. And it takes you out of this mode of this like trying to impress, right? This like talk yourself up or look at all of our impact and all that stuff matters too, right? You want to be good at impact storytelling and having credible proof points and all that good stuff. But like, if you have this framing of being clear and convicted about your particular role and your the way that you think about that role and you can you can tell that story to a potential funder, I think it's a way more powerful story.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

I mean, I have some theories about why we don't always do that. Always do this. Yeah. But from your seat, having talked to however many dozens of organizations you've worked with, like why do you hundreds? Yeah. Why do you think that happens? Or like what do you think is the main the main block for an organization going where you need to go?

SPEAKER_02 14:36

Well, what I'll say is there's this is not a universal problem, but it is a pretty persistent one. Um like I see it, I see this pattern a lot. And I see it with orgs who are new, and I see it with orgs who are like by many metrics, like pretty successful and have been around for a long time. So for the new orgs, I feel like it is um, or maybe like a new chapter of an org or whatever, it's an uncertainty. It's a like unprovenness. It's like we don't actually know what our role is yet. We're still figuring that out. Like, here's what we've done in the past, um, even maybe on different teams, we're starting this new org, or it's like we this the space is changing, so we don't quite know what our role should be. Maybe the role it was is no longer like relevant. And then for orgs who have been around for a long time, what often happens is they start to see the full intersectional scope of the problem, and they tend to try and solve more and more and more of it. And I think that that sometimes can work if you're a big enough org and you start to break it down into divisions with like multiple teams where you're almost like a federated or like a multidisciplinary org that has like unique teams for unique programs or or portions of the role. So you have to also like to me, like one litmus test of this is just like believability for the size org that you are and the the level of ambition that you have and the scape, the scale and the scope of the problem. Is it credible for you to claim that role? And because like at some level it has to kind of pass that litmus test. A savvy funder is gonna be like, okay, you're a X million dollar a year org in this space saying this is your role. Does that pencil out? Like, does it pencil out for me? Do I believe that you can do that? Hey friends, real quick before we continue today's episode, I'm Eric Ressler, founder and creative director at Cosmic. Cosmic is a creative agency purpose-built for nonprofits and mission-driven organizations. For the last 15 years, we've helped leaders like you nail your impact story and sharpen your strategy. But we're not here to just leave you with a fancy slide deck and a pat on the back. We roll up our sleeves and help you bring our ideas to life through campaigns, creative, and digital experiences. Our work together helps you earn trust, connect deeply with your supporters, and grow your fundraising and your impact. If you value the thinking we share here and want it applied to your biggest challenges, let's talk at designbycosmic.com. All right, back to today's conversation.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

I have a theory, okay, and it's actually kind of like the uh the other side of the coin for what I think makes the social impact space special, which is that, you know, we often, we executive directors, whatever, all of us who work in this space, we often approach the work because we care, right? It's that passion piece. It's the this is what makes it so powerful. And I also think the other side of that coin is that passion can sometimes become the sort of the brand story or whatever, right? Where it's like, um, just to use Seymour Center as an example again, and this isn't speaking about me, but hypothetically, yeah uh someone's like, I love the ocean. Yep, I want to save the ocean. So we're gonna create a museum to save the ocean, right? But that's that is the vagueness that you're talking about, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:57

Well, and also like again, believability is a you know, low millions of dollars a year org in Santa Cruz positioned to save the ocean, right? Right, no, no, no, no one org is positioned to save the ocean. So so like that's a ridiculous claim, right? Now you can have a vision for like what does the world look like if you and other players in your ecosystem are wildly successful? Great. Tell me about that. What's that look like? What could our ocean system be in 10 years instead of the doom and gloom narrative that we hear? Cool, okay, I'm on board with that as a funder. Like, I want that too. I care about the ocean. I do want to save the ocean at large. I happen to live in Santa Cruz or have some kind of connection to you. So, Jonathan, like what's your role in that? Right? Like that's the next logical question. Like, how do you create an impact? And and why are you the org that I should fund instead of the nature conservancy or whoever else, like big name org that is more credibly suited to take on a bigger piece of that puzzle.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

But do you think it that this there's like this passion thing that that is the, you know, the maybe what takes us down the wrong path in our storytelling?

SPEAKER_02 19:04

Yeah. I mean, I I think that is a pervasive uh element in this space, is just that and I think it's a good thing overall, as long as we um think about it in the right way. I think passion is a powerful force and not one we should try to snub. Diminish or diminish. Right, right. But passion is not a strategy. Right. Like that is not, that is not a and it's not a position, it's not a role. We can't compete on being the most passionate, right? Because who's gonna who's gonna claim it otherwise?

SPEAKER_01 19:31

Right. And I mean, this exercise we're doing now is like essentially the exercise we invite listeners to go through, right? It's like, well, what is that passion? But then get, you know, drill down all these, all these steps and all answer all these questions.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

So, yeah, for listeners who are saying, okay, I by your argument, Eric and Jonathan, like I need to figure out what my role is. Like, now what? What do I do? I would encourage people to look at kind of their core, depending again on the size of your org and the stage of your org, you know, caveat, caveat, but like, what are those core elements, those core durable truths about your identity individually as a leader and at an org level that will always be true, right? And this is like something I think about a lot as we do our own brand strategy work for Cosmic, for my company. I always come back to like what will always be true no matter what we do, what will always be true about like our organization? And there will always be some kind of design element to what we do, no matter how much deeper we go on strategy, no matter how we change our operating model, our engagement model with clients, like design and design thinking and that mindset will always be part and like true to the core of how we do our work at one element uh in one way or another, right? So that's that's just like one example for me. For you, it may it may be some of your beliefs around like place-based change or or you know, just based on past discussions we've had. But I mean, what what else comes to mind for you?

SPEAKER_01 20:51

Yeah, like we have a beautiful building on the ocean. Yep. Right? Like that will always be true. Yep. Uh we exist in Santa Cruz. That will always be true, right? So so these are just some of the things that that would be the core truths for us.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

So distill down to some of your core truths about your the the elements of your identity and your organization that are durable, that will always be true, or at least for the foreseeable future, will always be true. And and I think start there and kind of build off of that. And then just be real honest. Like when we do this positioning work and brand strategy work for clients, one of the first things we do is we map the ecosystem. We say, okay, who are other collaborators, credible players in your space? And we like to look above and below in terms of size, but we always look at we we literally map this. I think I've shown you these maps before on like a four quadrant or like xy axis so that we and part of it is like, how do we frame even that axis, right? Like what's the X and Y uh, you know, lines that are on these on these graphs. And that in and of itself is kind of a strategic choice because there's limitless ways you can make a graph like this, and some of this becomes performative if you're not careful. But like map the ecosystem and be willing to be. Like brutally honest here because I think sometimes if you want this work to actually make a meaningful difference and not just be this kind of like exercise you go through and you like check the box, you have to be willing to be brutally honest about your strengths and weaknesses.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

And I just be clear when you talk about brutally honest, like where my mind goes is I gotta look at my organization and I gotta identify what's working, what's not working, what are we uniquely good at, what are other people doing. And then the sort of the next thought in that from an executive director's chair is like, what does that mean for my people? What does that mean for my people here? Right? Like, I mean, honestly, that's where it goes because if I'm being brutally honest, what I'm thinking about is programs that should or shouldn't exist.

SPEAKER_02 22:41

Sometimes it's that, right, right, or people who need to be upskilled or who maybe aren't a good fit once you have that clarity. Yeah. But I think honestly, as much as that can be difficult from a leadership standpoint, avoiding that is not a good strategy long term either, right?

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Oh, absolutely not. No, I mean that's that's how organizations get stuck, right? For decades on end, is because they haven't made those. Maybe they're aware of they usually are. Yeah, their ecosystem, but they're but for whatever reason they're not willing to act on it.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

I've I've seen different versions of this, but back to the brutally honest example. Like, so part of it is like, is it the people, is it the programs? I think brutally honest really means like being clear-eyed about where are we actually tangibly, measurably making an impact, and where is it more aspirational, and like where are we on the trajectory of our vision, right? Because usually you're mid-stream on some strategic plan or some kind of growth plan. And I think you need to be brutally honest about like when we think about our unique strengths, our sweet spot, what is truly in that and what starts to kind of like be on the outskirts of that. And I'm not saying you need to focus down to like we do one thing and we do it perfectly, like sometimes that's a good strategy, sometimes it's not. I think about this kind of like a bullseye, like what's in the absolute middle, and then what's in the first rung and the second rung and what's off the board, right? And I think like you need to make a choice as a leader around how big of a bullseye you draw and how big of a board you're drawing, and all of that, too. But to me, like mapping the ecosystem is the first step so you can just compare, like, well, who else out there can make these claims and have that claim either be more true or more credible, or less true or less credible? Because sometimes, actually, often in the space, a lot of people are making a lot of the same kind of claims. And you will know if you're in the space what's real and what's not. Funders may hopefully get to that point too, but it's not guaranteed. So the the better you can be about kind of naming and claiming this role in the ecosystem and doing that with conviction and doing it with clarity, the better you're going to be at attracting the kind of fundraising you need, the team that you need, and even the internal strategic clarity to make the right choices around what moves you make as an org.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

All right. So we've got being aware of and being brutally honest about your core strengths and weaknesses. We've got mapping the ecosystem, what's left?

SPEAKER_02 25:02

So to me, if you have those two ingredients, you've got at least a pretty good start. Now you need to be able to craft some kind of narrative that goes something like this, and this isn't forward-facing messaging, but because we have these core strengths, we can claim this role in the ecosystem. And because we can claim that role, that helps the the the cause at large because XYZ. That's a horrible messaging, but like logically, you need to be able to tell some kind of story like that.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

And I'd say then you need to go, you actually need to go like road test that, right? Like you this is this is where you'd actually go to the people in your ecosystem. Yep. And either directly or indirectly, just like just just pressure test that. Like, is this different than them?

SPEAKER_03 25:44

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

Does this accelerate what they're doing? Or do was what they're doing accelerate what I'm doing, right? And do we have that positive feedback loop?

SPEAKER_03 25:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:51

And so now let's talk about how do you know if you have chosen right or if it's working? So, how do we measure this when we do this work with clients? Um, like none of this is breakthrough, but it's it still leads to breakthroughs. And what I mean by that is like we will literally interview, we do 360 interviews on leadership and on you know, stakeholders that who are closely tied to the org, you know, board members, partners, etc. And we ask some of these questions. What is XYZ's role in the space? And we look at how much coherence is there in those answers. Now, look, this data is going to be messy. Some people are gonna be off their rocker and just have this weird zany answer that's influenced by their own, you know, whatever, no matter how good you're doing as an org. But you start to see patterns emerge. And the patterns are either um creating something that feels like a coherent blob, or there's like a complete scatter shot or somewhere in between. So when you start to map those, you should start to see some kind of pattern forming. Similarly, we'll run just like basic surveys, even with supporters, and say, like, hey, how do you think about the org? What do they do? What's their focus? Why are they different than other people? We do this all the time. And the answers we get can be like so insightful because you can see how people are perceiving you as an organization. Now, here's a caveat. If they are not perceiving you well, is that because you've not done a good job strategically at being able to name and claim a role in your ecosystem, or is your messaging or your communications or your distribution of that story broken? Both can be true, one or other can be true. So just watch out for that to our listeners.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

How would you how would you rank this? Kind of going back to our like strategic tier ranking, like when do I do this? And is there ever like a good or better or bad time to be doing this exercise?

SPEAKER_02 27:42

So I think anytime you are making major strategic choices as an organization, so like let's let's talk about what some of those moments might be. New executive director coming in, major milestone as an organization, any kind of transformational or pivotal point, new strategic plan, strategic plan being sunseted, new one being built. Like anytime you're making big moves or big choices or decisions, it's worth checking in on this. Hey, is this still our role in the ecosystem? Should it be? The other thing I would point to is like, did the ecosystem get disrupted? Right different. Everyone in the world right now, yeah, yeah. In one way or another, if you're in this space. So, like, is the funding landscape different? Is the is the issue landscape different? Like, anytime there's a disruption to the state of play is the term I like to use. It's worth double checking. Is this still the right role for us to play? And you know, you have to use your common sense and your best judgment around like, I do not recommend that you pivot this role all the time because then you're never claiming it, right? And then people get confused because they're like, wait, I thought you were this org, and now you're saying you're this org, and like you only get to do that so often because part of this is you have to build a reputation. Um, so you have to use your best judgment around like when do I sit still on this and when is it the right time to make a pivot here? How big of a pivot are we making there? But yeah, I would say like any of those kind of like major strategic moments, um, either because of internal pressure or external kind of like state of play change that's happening. All right, so what did we miss? I mean, I would say like if you're about to start an org, if you're a listener or thinking about starting an org, this is in my opinion crucial. Yeah, this is like I mean, this is like kind of step one almost. Step one almost. Like what role and like should I even start an org? Right, right. Are there seven orgs already kind of in this space that I should just be joining or supporting? Or you know, there's a lot of talk right now about like mergers and acquisitions. Like, this is one of the reasons why is like there is frankly a lot of redundancy in the space. Right.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

And you're like, I actually I go through that whole exercise and I don't actually see the role I can claim. Great, like, okay, let's merge or let's sunset or whatever, right?

SPEAKER_02 29:44

Yeah. So I would say like that would be another another time if you're if you're just starting an org where you like really need to look at this. So yeah, I mean, I feel like this is this is really important, and it's you could you could describe this as positioning, you could describe this as differentiation. I've found that the the metaphor of our role in the ecosystem is easier for folks in our space to grok. And I think it's actually a better way of thinking about it. So I'm glad to riff on it with you today. Yeah. There's other uh episodes we can link to around some of these topics, but uh Jonathan, this was fun. Thank you, man.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

Thank you, Eric.

SPEAKER_02 30:19

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