Did you know the average human sees over 5,000 advertisements a day?  How many thousands of grant requests does a foundation receive each year?  Each ad, each grant request, hopes to catch attention and inspire a change in thought or action.  With all this clutter, how can you make your message stick?
 
Shock and awe…or data?
 
Some use the shock factor.  You turn the page of a shiny new magazine and see a picture of crying child with a cleft palate.  The irony of that image printed on a glossy page draws you in and you reach for your wallet.  Or you gloss right by it (pun intended) because it makes you feel bad.
 
Some use the celebrity factor.  You turn your head walking down the street because some beautiful photograph of a celebrity is plastered on the side of a building encouraging you to fight breast cancer, invest in AIDS research, support local farmers, etc. etc. etc.  You think about the movie they just starred in and wonder when you’ll have time to get to the theater next.
 
Others use the data factor.  Ah, now you’re expecting me to say that these organizations are the true poster children.  They have it all figured out.  Well, I hope you won’t be too disappointed.  In fact, I think many of them don’t have it figured out.  Not yet, anyway.  
 
The trouble is…
 
Data can be boring.  How many times have you viewed an annual report that contains a page with a list of “impacts” in the back?  Those one-sentence blurbs that attempt to encapsulate the results from the prior year?  Unfortunately, those numbers are often meaningless to outsiders.  They blur together and people don’t understand them or don’t care to take the time to understand them.  
 
Consider:  An organization helped 140 people get jobs.  Sounds nice.  Is that a lot?  How many did they serve last year?  Is that a drop in the bucket or is that solving the unemployment problem in their neighborhood?  Were they minimum wage jobs or are the jobs putting people on track for sustainable financial future?  Then people get cynical and assume that the data represent average performance at best.
 
Nonprofits must push themselves up the extra step.  Gathering performance data is a necessary and important first step.  But just having data is not enough anymore.  Donors and funders care about impact, yes.  But they need help translating that impact into messages they understand.  Communicating results is what matters now.
 
Context is the glue.
 
Context makes your messages sticky.  For data to translate into powerful messages, it must be communicated in language that matters and makes sense to the reader.  
 
For example, the Chicago Transit Authority authored one of the 5,000 ads that I saw this weekend.  Standing on an el platform, I casually read… "The CTA has invested in 228 new hybrid buses that are 20% more fuel efficient." I thought that sounded decent - good job CTA. Then I continued… "That saves enough fuel to drive an average car around the world 300 times."  Wow - that's impressive! 
 
What the CTA did was not rocket science.  They found two pieces of data – miles/gallon and the earth’s circumference – and made a simple calculation.  But this calculation is exactly what made me remember the message!  What if more organizations could translate their data (i.e. 228 new hybrid buses) into powerful messages (i.e. around the world 300 times)?  
 
They can.  You can.  Identify your audience.  Consider what they care about.  Connect your results.  Translate your message.  Or continue to capture, at best, 0.02% of your audience’s attention.