I was at a meeting last night of people who all have a connection with a local nonprofit organization. We’re not on the Board, and we’re not even those important people who always seem to be around the Board, or talking to the Board, or hanging out with Board members. We care a lot—we’re just not in charge. Furthermore, we were a little miffed that the items that we thought were important weren’t being noticed by others in the community.

As I thought about it, it seemed clear: the reason people don’t care, is that they don’t see the people in charge caring. I’ve written about "who’s in charge," and my article was inspired by a book by Art Kleiner called Who Really Matters. In that book he argues that organizations have a core group, and that the organization will go in the direction the core group wants to go, or (and this is important) in the direction people THINK the core group wants to go.

I think we forget about that last piece, particularly when we are part of the core group. The core group—particularly when it is made up of a diverse group of stakeholders—tends to spend energy getting clear on where it wants to go. That is a tall order sometimes. But then they put much less energy into communicating that to the rest of the world, and that defeats the purpose of getting clear in the first place. Because if people don’t know, they’ll make it up. And usually what they make up is worse than the truth.

It is entirely possible that the core group of this nonprofit sees completely eye to eye with our little group on what’s important. But they don’t talk about it in their public appearances. They don’t want to look biased towards our little constituency. So they don’t mention our issue. So people don’t hear them mention our issue, and the issue never gains traction in the community. You really need to choose carefully what you say, and for the direction that you REALLY want to go, you’ll need to say it a lot. That means saying other things less. But you have to choose.