Language Lessons
Working at a busy foundation involves a lot of reading and listening to smart people who are working hard to improve the world we live in. One thing comes across loud and clear: how little value added is being contemporaneously realized from the definitional leaps of our unsustainably complex verbiage.
In other words, it's time for us nonprofit people to learn to MAKE IT PLAIN.
We could go on (and we often do, alas), but a better idea is to introduce you to Tony Proscio and Andy Goodman, a couple of smart, entertaining writers. If we take their messages to heart, we're much more likely to succeed in the important work we're trying to accomplish.
Tony Proscio: A plea for plain speaking
Proscio, a successful writer and nonprofit consultant, is a recovered newspaper journalist. The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation has published three of his terrific essays, available as free downloads. Each essay covers different ground, and it's worth your time to read all three. Below are some excerpts:
From In Other Words (2000):
"The temptation to use elegant fudge-words to camouflage vague meanings is a special affliction of the foundation world.... [They are] the scholarly and political equivalent of sweet nothings.... [Grant applicants] naturally feel bound, understandably enough, to parrot whatever verbal fads sweep the funding world at the moment. When foundations raise or lower their verbal hemlines, much of America swiftly follows. The results (as with hemlines) are not always pretty."
About the word "systems" and related uses such as "systems thinking":
"The trouble with systems is that it has too many friends, and it is constantly being lured into bad company. The mere fact that a process is complicated, has many parts and participants, or serves multiple purposes doesn't make it a system...."
From Bad Words for Good (2001):
"...Mystifying vocabulary produces pleasant side effects. Warding off criticism is a happy achievement, even if the price is warding off understanding. That price may not seem terrible at first, but it grows far worse over time.... Make obscure points in vague and self-important language, and you can expect to be greeted with suspicion."
About the modifier-based:
"On Sunday mornings, fresh from my faith-based institution, I stop at the community-based deli for a caffeine-based beverage. After a thought-based interlude, I select an information-based publication from the rack, and the knowledge-based attendant accepts an income-based emolument in exchange for his customer-based service. I return to my home base wishing I could de- base this language for good. But in at least one sense, it is already as debased as it can be."
From When Words Fail (2005):
"Sometimes, when ideas are genuinely complicated, a rich vocabulary — can be a real plus. But if so, ‘rich' would have to mean more than just lofty and abstruse. Most of all, it would have to mean precise, concrete, and frank....”
“Some foundations, mostly those of a more conservative bent, have lately figured out that plain speaking is a more effective, compelling way to pursue philanthropy and public policy.... Pick up nearly any publication of the Heritage Foundation or the Cato, Manhattan or Hoover institutes and you are likely to be treated to a thrilling or infuriating (depending on your politics) take on the public issues of the day. Click your way over to comparable reports supported by the majority of foundations at the center or left of the political spectrum, and the effect is far more likely to induce drowsiness or, worse, bewilderment.”
Andy Goodman: How to tell our stories well
Andy Goodman was a successful radio and television scriptwriter before he founded the Environmental Media Association in Los Angeles in 1993. Now a successful communications consultant to public-interest groups, he makes funny and illuminating presentations about the value of clear, plain language. His publications include Why Bad Presentations Happen to Good Causes and Storytelling as Best Practice.
“Ask someone from a typical nonprofit to tell the story of The Wizard of Oz, and you're liable to hear something like this,” Goodman said at the 2006 Council on Foundations annual conference. “An at-risk youth from a blended family in the farm belt is rendered unconscious during an extreme weather event. When she awakens, she undertakes a long, hazardous journey in which she is aided by an assortment of variously challenged adults while also being pursued by a person of color [green]. Upon reaching her destination, she learns that her journey was all a dream and wakes up in her own bed with a newfound appreciation of the importance of family and community.”
Goodman also publishes a newsletter, free-range thinking, that offers best practices and resources. It's free for nonprofit staff; sign up for it at www.agoodmanonline.com.
From Why Bad Presentations Happen to Good Causes: “Watching dozens of presentations (at nonprofit-sector conferences), I have also learned that Albert Einstein was right: Time can slow down. In fact, I have witnessed presentations where it has stopped entirely. Why are so many of our colleagues — decent, well-educated, well-intentioned folks — so good at being so boring?.... We can do better. We certainly should expect better. Let's get started.”