Oct. 12, 2025
How to Use the Power of Vision to Help Decisionmakers Commit to You on a Greater Scale
There's a huge problem happening all over the Nonprofit universe and beyond right now, and that's fundamentally the problem of fear. In fairness, it's a pretty scary time. And fear is not unfounded for sure. There are genuine threats facing Nonprofits individually and the sector more broadly. And there are a lot of decisionmakers in all different roles who are also feeling under threat in one way or another. The thing we often don't take into account is that a lot of decisionmakers are ...
There's a huge problem happening all over the Nonprofit universe and beyond right now, and that's fundamentally the problem of fear. In fairness, it's a pretty scary time. And fear is not unfounded for sure.
There are genuine threats facing Nonprofits individually and the sector more broadly. And there are a lot of decisionmakers in all different roles who are also feeling under threat in one way or another.
The thing we often don't take into account is that a lot of decisionmakers are really kind of operating from fear as well. And each of those sets of fear-based operations are causing enormous problems for so many Nonprofit leaders.
Because here's the thing. When we're feeling under threat, when we're feeling fearful, it feels easier to play it safe and stay small. Avoid perceived risk. Stay out of the limelight. Don't do anything big and attention getting, and hopefully we'll get through. The problem is, that carries enormous risk as well.
I would submit that vision, and specifically a bold and compelling vision, is the cure for a lot of those problems and a lot of those fear-based operations. And that involves choosing to lead from vision and to enroll decisionmakers in that vision. Even when, or maybe especially when, there's all sorts of scary things going on all around us.
In this episode, we share:
- How the environment of fear and uncertainty is affecting decisionmakers’ thinking and their actions
- How your big and bold vision can help move decisionmakers out of fear
- The six essential ingredients to a vision that makes decisionmakers want to be part of it
- How to build the story of your vision that will captivate and compel decisionmakers
- The brain science-based strategies that will shift decisonmakers from fear to big-picture thinking that supports your vision
Help spread the word! If you found value in this episode, I’d be grateful if you would leave a review on iTunes or wherever you listen. Your reviews help other nonprofit leaders find the podcast. Thanks!!
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You're listening to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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In today's episode, we share how to use the power of vision to help decision makers commit to you on a greater scale, so stay tuned.
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If you wanna have real and powerful influence over the money and policy decisions that impact your organization and the people you serve, then you're in the right place.
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I'm Kath Patrick, and I've helped dozens of progressive Nonprofit leaders take their organizations to new and higher levels of impact and success by building powerful influence with the decision makers that matter.
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It is possible to get a critical mass of the money and policy decision makers in your world to be as invested in your success as you are, to have them seeking you out as an equal partner and to have them.
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Bringing opportunities and resources to you.
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This podcast will help you do just that.
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Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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Hey there folks.
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Welcome to another episode of the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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I'm your host, Kath Patrick.
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I'm so glad you're here for today's episode because there's a huge problem happening all over the Nonprofit universe right now, and actually beyond that as well.
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And that's fundamentally the problem of fear.
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In fairness, it's a pretty scary time right now, and fear is not unfounded for sure.
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There's a lot of uncertainty.
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There are genuine threats facing nonprofits individually and the sector more broadly.
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And there are a lot of decision makers in all different roles who are also feeling under threat in one way or another.
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The thing we often don't take into account is that a lot of decision makers are really kind of operating from fear as well.
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And each of those sets of fear-based operations are causing enormous problems for so many Nonprofit leaders.
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Because here's the thing.
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When we're feeling under threat, when we're feeling fearful.
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It feels easier to play it safe and stay small, avoid perceived risk.
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Stay outta the limelight.
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Don't do anything big and attention getting, and hopefully we'll get through.
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The problem is that carries enormous risk as well.
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And what I would submit is that vision, and specifically a bold and compelling vision, is the cure for a lot of those problems and a lot of those fear-based operations.
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And that involves choosing to lead from vision and engage decision makers in that vision.
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Even when, or maybe especially when, there's all sorts of scary things going on all around us.
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So let's start by talking about how the environment of fear and uncertainty is affecting decision makers.
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First of all, I know you're seeing the effects of it all over the place, right?
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They're conserving their resources.
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They're inclined to let less money out the door, inclined to not make any big commitments to anything, whether it's in the policy arena or the money arena.
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And there's a reason for that.
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When people are operating from fear and uncertainty, they tend to start thinking as small as possible, and they become even more risk averse, and they wanna be very conservative in their actions.
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They almost can't help it because their brain, all of our brains are wired for exactly that.
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Our brains are primarily wired to detect threats and to keep us safe.
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And so when things feel chaotic and uncertain, the subconscious perceives threats, and it says, Oop, the best way to stay safe is to be as small and invisible and conservative as possible.
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That's the way to stay safe.
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Don't change anything.
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Don't go out there and draw attention to yourself.
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That's unsafe.
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Don't do anything bold.
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That's unsafe.
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It's really a double-edged sword because we have to be aware of that in ourselves and take steps to counter that, and we have to be aware of it and how it's operating with decision makers.
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Because we're all humans and we're all stuck with the same basic brain functions, and they work how they work.
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And the vast majority of people are not aware that they're doing these things.
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They're also not aware that there are some excellent neuroscience explanations for why those things are happening.
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When we understand the brain science, it really does help us get a better grip and deploy strategies to help us manage our brains and to help manage decision makers brains.
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One of the important things about vision is that it acts as a counter to the default mechanism of focusing on threat detection and avoidance.
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Vision activates other parts of the brain and tends to override those subconscious impulses.
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It doesn't get rid of them completely, but it puts them in the backseat.
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Absent vision, those very hardwired bits of subconscious that are trying to stay always focused on finding the threats and keeping us safe.
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Those are in the driver's seat.
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So part of our challenge is to invite that aspect of the decision maker's brains to take a backseat for a little bit and to become invested in something more exciting and more compelling.
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And vision is the way we do that.
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And in fact, there are some very specific ways that we can use vision to get decision makers to make a bigger commitment to our work, especially right now.
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Your compelling vision of a better future, of a thing that doesn't exist yet, but that could.
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That would solve the problem, that would make things better.
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That would represent a really important positive shift.
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That compelling vision helps a decision maker think bigger and see the bigger picture.
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And when you can get them in that mode, when you can get their thinking brain in that space and when you can engage their emotions around it.
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You can help them break out of the fear-based thinking.
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Engaging their emotions is critical because as we know, 80% of decisions are grounded in emotion and only 20% are grounded in the logic brain.
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And typically what occurs in decision making is that the emotional center has already made the decision and then the Logic Center comes along and makes up reasons why that's what we're gonna do.
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We think it's the other way around.
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We act as if it's the other way around.
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But it's one of the fatal flaws that I see happen all the time with nonprofits trying to engage decision makers.
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They're focusing entirely on the logic piece, and that's not what drives decision making.
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You wanna give them that so that they can hang their decision on it.
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Cause they are very devoted to believing that their decision making is 100% logic based.
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But the reality is because they're humans, they got the same brain set up that everybody else has got.
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Which is that the emotional centers drive decision making, and then the logic center plays catch up.
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Now, that doesn't mean that logic plays no role, but it is principally driven by emotion.
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And so if we fail to engage the emotional center of the decision maker's brain and get that fully invested and fully involved, the chances of our getting them to commit to anything, much less something that's big and bold and ambitious, goes way down.
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It's 80% of the success equation is engaging those emotional centers.
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So there's the vision itself, and then there's how you communicate it to the decision maker.
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And that communication, that messaging piece is everything because that's how you're going to go about getting them fully invested in the vision that you're sharing with them.
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The ingredients of both your vision and the way you are communicating it, the messaging you have around it, need to do a number of things in order to achieve the level of emotional engagement that we need.
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And to trigger all of the wonderful brain chemicals that help facilitate buy-in.
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Lots of dopamine going on.
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And a few other wonderful brain chemicals that get triggered by certain aspects of imagery and how you're communicating your vision.
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The vision you're communicating needs to be specific and clear and memorable.
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We talk all the time about how you wanna paint a picture.
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You're painting a picture of this future that doesn't yet exist.
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You want your vision to be bold and achievable, and you have to be able to connect the dots for decision makers about how it's achievable.
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You have to show them that, because it may feel not achievable to them.
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So you have to be able to show that and paint that into your picture.
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So you've got those ingredients that make it achievable.
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And connected to those are milestones that will help you all know when you're getting to the vision, so that progress becomes visible and rewarding as you move toward it.
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And that becomes super important because you don't have to just motivate and engage decision makers for the initial commitment.
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You have to keep them motivated and engaged throughout the process as you move toward the vision.
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And you ideally want them engaged fully with you as partners.
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So you need strategies not just to get them to say yes, but to get them to say, we are in this with you, and we are coming along for the ride.
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As you're doing all that, the more vivid and sensory rich you can make this picture, the better.
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And we've talked about this quite a bit in recent episodes, about how you engage emotions, how you engage the senses.
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And the more that you do that, the more it lights up the entire decision maker's brain.
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Not just the little tiny logic center off in a corner somewhere, but the whole brain is lighting up like crazy when their senses are engaged, when their emotions are engaged and they're fully in it, they're in the picture with you as you communicate it.
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And it especially needs to tap into emotion.
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We know always that we wanna engage decision makers emotions, but there's another imperative in this situation for why it has to be so effective at tapping into emotion.
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And that's because they're gonna need courage and inspiration to help them think bigger.
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All of that is emotionally driven, as are the things that are holding them back.
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The fear, the worry, the doubt, the anxiety, that's all emotion.
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So you have to match that and counter it by bringing different emotions that serve you and them so much better.
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Bringing those more powerful and positive emotions to the fore.
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You wanna communicate your vision in a way that taps into all the feelings that you wanna summon and strengthen in the decision maker.
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Courage, inspiration, passion, hope, feeling good about being able to do something good in the world to counter all the bad that's out there right now.
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And the best way to do all those things together is through story.
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But that doesn't just mean client stories.
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That's a piece of it.
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But when you're painting a vision you're telling the story of how things will change, what the world will look like when this vision becomes real.
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That affects your clients for sure, but it affects a lot more than that.
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And you wanna be able to tell that whole story.
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Of all the transformations that will occur and how they're all gonna fit together.
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And then at the same time, you want to be able to bring it down to something very specific, like that means that an individual person, an individual client, will be able to do X instead of having to deal with Y and Z every day.
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So this is the story of what the problem is right now.
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And the story of the transformations that will occur when the problems are solved for real.
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When your big vision is realized.
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What does that beautiful, rich, amazing painting look like?
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Now, when we do that, remember we gotta bring them along.
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It's not just a one and done.
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When we're pulling people into a big vision and bringing them along, they need to hear this a lot.
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They need to hear this in a lot of different ways and keep painting the picture.
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Keep telling the story.
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And tell little pieces of stories all the time.
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Every chance you get, every time you go anywhere near them.
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In all your communication keep building that picture.
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Keep investing their emotions and keep enrolling them in the vision.
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And if you can create a slogan or an image, a metaphor, something that is clear and simple and powerful that sticks in their mind and helps them shorthand down that big, amazing, beautiful painting of the vision.
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To shorthand it down to a few words, or a symbol, even better.
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Because then those few words or that symbol can appear everywhere all the time.
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And each time they see it or hear it, they will be reminded.
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They will be reminded not just of the idea, but of the emotions that idea, that vision generates in them.
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And then the other big thing is, as you're enrolling them in this, part of the reason that you've created those visible milestones in the progress is to make it feel more achievable.
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But also so that you can celebrate every little piece of progress toward the milestones, toward the great vision.
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And that you celebrate it with those partners who've committed and invested with you.
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If you've enrolled them in the vision and convinced them that they're part of bringing that vision about, then every time there's a piece of progress, you are celebrating with them.
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Once again, increasing their emotional investment, increasing their buy-in, and releasing lots of dopamine for them.
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Which if you ever doubted the power of dopamine to drive behavior, um, have you checked social media lately?
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Or a video game.
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Their entire business model is built on tiny little dopamine hits that happen every few minutes.
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Leverage that for all it's worth.
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I'm working with a one-to-one client who's using this entire set of strategies right now with a broad group of decision makers across a number of different categories, government, foundations, et cetera.
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They have a big vision of how to scale their services to potentially reach everyone in their state who would be appropriate for those services and who would benefit greatly from them.
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So they have this vision of scaling their work dramatically.
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That would require not only maintaining the level of service for the clients they have now, but also building out the organization's capacity.
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Both in terms of physical plant and in terms of personnel.
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And it involves significant policy change at the state level in order to build those services into a very large existing infrastructure of funding.
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And they have this mapped out.
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They know what the finished thing looks like.
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And it's a big vision.
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It's a big and bold vision and it's awesome.
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So they set about communicating this vision with these different decision makers.
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They started with the funding decision makers because so much of this is about capacity that has to start on the front end.
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And then they also need the advocacy capacity to influence the policy makers who will make the structural changes.
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It's a multi-pronged path to this big vision.
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But the vision itself is super compelling.
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And so that's what they paint the picture of, is what it looks like when this is done.
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And how it transforms the wellbeing of the people in their state.
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That's the vision they painted.
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In the middle of the chaos of 2025.
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And everybody's saying There's no money, and everybody's saying It's too crazy out there and da da da da.
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We can't do anything big and bold.
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And they're like, no, no.
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Right now is exactly the time when we must be bold, when we must think big, when we must solve serious problems and work together to do that.
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And if we all band together and work on this, it's achievable.
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Their vision is of this final finished thing and of the key elements that would be in place in order to make that possible.
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So they've made sure that it is specific and clear enough that decision makers can actually visualize it in detail.
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To make it memorable, they picked some images and metaphors that would help stick in the decision maker's brain as markers, as symbols of this big transformation.
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They've just begun their engagement work.
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But I will tell you, it is resonating with decision makers.
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So what might this look like for you?
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You probably already have your big vision.
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But as you start thinking about, well, how can we actually make that vision real?
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What would it take?
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What would our policy and money partners need to do to buy into this, to contribute to it, to commit to it.
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What would that look like?
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What would we need from them?
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Because we have to be clear always about what the ask is ultimately going to be.
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As you begin to think about all that, quite naturally, the first people you would talk to are the people with whom you already have the strongest relationships.
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And you can test drive some of your visionary messaging with them.
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But even then, even with those closest partners, this will be more than one conversation.
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This is big stuff.
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But here's something that's really important.
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And it might feel like, oh, well that's all very nice, but we got emergencies left and right here.
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We're just trying to keep the doors open.
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We're just trying to survive here.
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I hear that.
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I get that.
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But a couple things to consider.
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I have no doubt you can craft a compelling message to decision makers about why keeping your doors open and continuing the services you have is critical.
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I have no doubt that you can create compelling messaging around that and to get decision makers emotionally involved in that.
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But will they be inspired by it?
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Will that help take them out of thinking small playing small, playing not to lose?
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Will asking them to help you survive, take them out of that?
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Probably not.
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I recognize this may not be for everybody right this minute.
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But I hope you'll at least consider that the power of vision to elevate, to elevate the conversation, to elevate the thinking of decision makers, to get them thinking big and bold, has perhaps never been more important than right now.
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Because one of the goals of the forces that are trying to tear stuff down is to make everybody feel like that's the only option.
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Like the only option we have is to hide and hope they won't notice us and hope they won't hurt us too bad, and maybe we'll live to fight another day.
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That is not a winning strategy.
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History tells us that that's not how you overcome that kind of regime and that kind of attack.
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The only way you overcome it is if you fight it.
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And one of the most powerful ways that we can fight all of this stuff is with the vision of what's possible, the vision of who we can be.
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If we all come together and work for something so much better.
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There are so many reasons beyond just money and policy to be engaging in big visionary conversations right now.
00:20:45.741 --> 00:20:49.646
People including decision makers desperately need them.
00:20:50.266 --> 00:20:56.026
And most Nonprofit leaders I know are visionaries, so I know you have that already.
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How will you leverage your power to enroll decision makers in your big and bold vision and bring it into reality?
00:21:06.086 --> 00:21:11.576
Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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You're listening to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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In today's episode, we share how to use the power of vision to help decision makers commit to you on a greater scale, so stay tuned.
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If you wanna have real and powerful influence over the money and policy decisions that impact your organization and the people you serve, then you're in the right place.
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I'm Kath Patrick, and I've helped dozens of progressive Nonprofit leaders take their organizations to new and higher levels of impact and success by building powerful influence with the decision makers that matter.
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It is possible to get a critical mass of the money and policy decision makers in your world to be as invested in your success as you are, to have them seeking you out as an equal partner and to have them.
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Bringing opportunities and resources to you.
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This podcast will help you do just that.
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Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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Hey there folks.
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Welcome to another episode of the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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I'm your host, Kath Patrick.
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I'm so glad you're here for today's episode because there's a huge problem happening all over the Nonprofit universe right now, and actually beyond that as well.
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And that's fundamentally the problem of fear.
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In fairness, it's a pretty scary time right now, and fear is not unfounded for sure.
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There's a lot of uncertainty.
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There are genuine threats facing nonprofits individually and the sector more broadly.
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And there are a lot of decision makers in all different roles who are also feeling under threat in one way or another.
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The thing we often don't take into account is that a lot of decision makers are really kind of operating from fear as well.
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And each of those sets of fear-based operations are causing enormous problems for so many Nonprofit leaders.
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Because here's the thing.
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When we're feeling under threat, when we're feeling fearful.
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It feels easier to play it safe and stay small, avoid perceived risk.
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Stay outta the limelight.
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Don't do anything big and attention getting, and hopefully we'll get through.
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The problem is that carries enormous risk as well.
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And what I would submit is that vision, and specifically a bold and compelling vision, is the cure for a lot of those problems and a lot of those fear-based operations.
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And that involves choosing to lead from vision and engage decision makers in that vision.
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Even when, or maybe especially when, there's all sorts of scary things going on all around us.
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So let's start by talking about how the environment of fear and uncertainty is affecting decision makers.
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First of all, I know you're seeing the effects of it all over the place, right?
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They're conserving their resources.
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They're inclined to let less money out the door, inclined to not make any big commitments to anything, whether it's in the policy arena or the money arena.
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And there's a reason for that.
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When people are operating from fear and uncertainty, they tend to start thinking as small as possible, and they become even more risk averse, and they wanna be very conservative in their actions.
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They almost can't help it because their brain, all of our brains are wired for exactly that.
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Our brains are primarily wired to detect threats and to keep us safe.
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And so when things feel chaotic and uncertain, the subconscious perceives threats, and it says, Oop, the best way to stay safe is to be as small and invisible and conservative as possible.
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That's the way to stay safe.
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Don't change anything.
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Don't go out there and draw attention to yourself.
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That's unsafe.
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Don't do anything bold.
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That's unsafe.
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It's really a double-edged sword because we have to be aware of that in ourselves and take steps to counter that, and we have to be aware of it and how it's operating with decision makers.
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Because we're all humans and we're all stuck with the same basic brain functions, and they work how they work.
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And the vast majority of people are not aware that they're doing these things.
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They're also not aware that there are some excellent neuroscience explanations for why those things are happening.
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When we understand the brain science, it really does help us get a better grip and deploy strategies to help us manage our brains and to help manage decision makers brains.
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One of the important things about vision is that it acts as a counter to the default mechanism of focusing on threat detection and avoidance.
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Vision activates other parts of the brain and tends to override those subconscious impulses.
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It doesn't get rid of them completely, but it puts them in the backseat.
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Absent vision, those very hardwired bits of subconscious that are trying to stay always focused on finding the threats and keeping us safe.
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Those are in the driver's seat.
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So part of our challenge is to invite that aspect of the decision maker's brains to take a backseat for a little bit and to become invested in something more exciting and more compelling.
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And vision is the way we do that.
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And in fact, there are some very specific ways that we can use vision to get decision makers to make a bigger commitment to our work, especially right now.
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Your compelling vision of a better future, of a thing that doesn't exist yet, but that could.
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That would solve the problem, that would make things better.
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That would represent a really important positive shift.
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That compelling vision helps a decision maker think bigger and see the bigger picture.
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And when you can get them in that mode, when you can get their thinking brain in that space and when you can engage their emotions around it.
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You can help them break out of the fear-based thinking.
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Engaging their emotions is critical because as we know, 80% of decisions are grounded in emotion and only 20% are grounded in the logic brain.
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And typically what occurs in decision making is that the emotional center has already made the decision and then the Logic Center comes along and makes up reasons why that's what we're gonna do.
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We think it's the other way around.
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We act as if it's the other way around.
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But it's one of the fatal flaws that I see happen all the time with nonprofits trying to engage decision makers.
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They're focusing entirely on the logic piece, and that's not what drives decision making.
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You wanna give them that so that they can hang their decision on it.
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Cause they are very devoted to believing that their decision making is 100% logic based.
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But the reality is because they're humans, they got the same brain set up that everybody else has got.
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Which is that the emotional centers drive decision making, and then the logic center plays catch up.
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Now, that doesn't mean that logic plays no role, but it is principally driven by emotion.
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And so if we fail to engage the emotional center of the decision maker's brain and get that fully invested and fully involved, the chances of our getting them to commit to anything, much less something that's big and bold and ambitious, goes way down.
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It's 80% of the success equation is engaging those emotional centers.
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So there's the vision itself, and then there's how you communicate it to the decision maker.
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And that communication, that messaging piece is everything because that's how you're going to go about getting them fully invested in the vision that you're sharing with them.
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The ingredients of both your vision and the way you are communicating it, the messaging you have around it, need to do a number of things in order to achieve the level of emotional engagement that we need.
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And to trigger all of the wonderful brain chemicals that help facilitate buy-in.
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Lots of dopamine going on.
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And a few other wonderful brain chemicals that get triggered by certain aspects of imagery and how you're communicating your vision.
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The vision you're communicating needs to be specific and clear and memorable.
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We talk all the time about how you wanna paint a picture.
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You're painting a picture of this future that doesn't yet exist.
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You want your vision to be bold and achievable, and you have to be able to connect the dots for decision makers about how it's achievable.
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You have to show them that, because it may feel not achievable to them.
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So you have to be able to show that and paint that into your picture.
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So you've got those ingredients that make it achievable.
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And connected to those are milestones that will help you all know when you're getting to the vision, so that progress becomes visible and rewarding as you move toward it.
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And that becomes super important because you don't have to just motivate and engage decision makers for the initial commitment.
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You have to keep them motivated and engaged throughout the process as you move toward the vision.
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And you ideally want them engaged fully with you as partners.
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So you need strategies not just to get them to say yes, but to get them to say, we are in this with you, and we are coming along for the ride.
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As you're doing all that, the more vivid and sensory rich you can make this picture, the better.
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And we've talked about this quite a bit in recent episodes, about how you engage emotions, how you engage the senses.
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And the more that you do that, the more it lights up the entire decision maker's brain.
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Not just the little tiny logic center off in a corner somewhere, but the whole brain is lighting up like crazy when their senses are engaged, when their emotions are engaged and they're fully in it, they're in the picture with you as you communicate it.
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And it especially needs to tap into emotion.
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We know always that we wanna engage decision makers emotions, but there's another imperative in this situation for why it has to be so effective at tapping into emotion.
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And that's because they're gonna need courage and inspiration to help them think bigger.
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All of that is emotionally driven, as are the things that are holding them back.
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The fear, the worry, the doubt, the anxiety, that's all emotion.
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So you have to match that and counter it by bringing different emotions that serve you and them so much better.
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Bringing those more powerful and positive emotions to the fore.
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You wanna communicate your vision in a way that taps into all the feelings that you wanna summon and strengthen in the decision maker.
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Courage, inspiration, passion, hope, feeling good about being able to do something good in the world to counter all the bad that's out there right now.
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And the best way to do all those things together is through story.
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But that doesn't just mean client stories.
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That's a piece of it.
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But when you're painting a vision you're telling the story of how things will change, what the world will look like when this vision becomes real.
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That affects your clients for sure, but it affects a lot more than that.
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And you wanna be able to tell that whole story.
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Of all the transformations that will occur and how they're all gonna fit together.
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And then at the same time, you want to be able to bring it down to something very specific, like that means that an individual person, an individual client, will be able to do X instead of having to deal with Y and Z every day.
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So this is the story of what the problem is right now.
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And the story of the transformations that will occur when the problems are solved for real.
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When your big vision is realized.
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What does that beautiful, rich, amazing painting look like?
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Now, when we do that, remember we gotta bring them along.
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It's not just a one and done.
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When we're pulling people into a big vision and bringing them along, they need to hear this a lot.
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They need to hear this in a lot of different ways and keep painting the picture.
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Keep telling the story.
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And tell little pieces of stories all the time.
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Every chance you get, every time you go anywhere near them.
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In all your communication keep building that picture.
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Keep investing their emotions and keep enrolling them in the vision.
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And if you can create a slogan or an image, a metaphor, something that is clear and simple and powerful that sticks in their mind and helps them shorthand down that big, amazing, beautiful painting of the vision.
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To shorthand it down to a few words, or a symbol, even better.
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Because then those few words or that symbol can appear everywhere all the time.
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And each time they see it or hear it, they will be reminded.
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They will be reminded not just of the idea, but of the emotions that idea, that vision generates in them.
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And then the other big thing is, as you're enrolling them in this, part of the reason that you've created those visible milestones in the progress is to make it feel more achievable.
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But also so that you can celebrate every little piece of progress toward the milestones, toward the great vision.
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And that you celebrate it with those partners who've committed and invested with you.
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If you've enrolled them in the vision and convinced them that they're part of bringing that vision about, then every time there's a piece of progress, you are celebrating with them.
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Once again, increasing their emotional investment, increasing their buy-in, and releasing lots of dopamine for them.
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Which if you ever doubted the power of dopamine to drive behavior, um, have you checked social media lately?
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Or a video game.
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Their entire business model is built on tiny little dopamine hits that happen every few minutes.
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Leverage that for all it's worth.
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I'm working with a one-to-one client who's using this entire set of strategies right now with a broad group of decision makers across a number of different categories, government, foundations, et cetera.
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They have a big vision of how to scale their services to potentially reach everyone in their state who would be appropriate for those services and who would benefit greatly from them.
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So they have this vision of scaling their work dramatically.
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That would require not only maintaining the level of service for the clients they have now, but also building out the organization's capacity.
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Both in terms of physical plant and in terms of personnel.
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And it involves significant policy change at the state level in order to build those services into a very large existing infrastructure of funding.
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And they have this mapped out.
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They know what the finished thing looks like.
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And it's a big vision.
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It's a big and bold vision and it's awesome.
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So they set about communicating this vision with these different decision makers.
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They started with the funding decision makers because so much of this is about capacity that has to start on the front end.
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And then they also need the advocacy capacity to influence the policy makers who will make the structural changes.
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It's a multi-pronged path to this big vision.
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But the vision itself is super compelling.
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And so that's what they paint the picture of, is what it looks like when this is done.
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And how it transforms the wellbeing of the people in their state.
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That's the vision they painted.
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In the middle of the chaos of 2025.
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And everybody's saying There's no money, and everybody's saying It's too crazy out there and da da da da.
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We can't do anything big and bold.
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And they're like, no, no.
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Right now is exactly the time when we must be bold, when we must think big, when we must solve serious problems and work together to do that.
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And if we all band together and work on this, it's achievable.
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Their vision is of this final finished thing and of the key elements that would be in place in order to make that possible.
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So they've made sure that it is specific and clear enough that decision makers can actually visualize it in detail.
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To make it memorable, they picked some images and metaphors that would help stick in the decision maker's brain as markers, as symbols of this big transformation.
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They've just begun their engagement work.
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But I will tell you, it is resonating with decision makers.
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So what might this look like for you?
00:18:04.828 --> 00:18:06.628
You probably already have your big vision.
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But as you start thinking about, well, how can we actually make that vision real?
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What would it take?
00:18:12.723 --> 00:18:19.244
What would our policy and money partners need to do to buy into this, to contribute to it, to commit to it.
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What would that look like?
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What would we need from them?
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Because we have to be clear always about what the ask is ultimately going to be.
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As you begin to think about all that, quite naturally, the first people you would talk to are the people with whom you already have the strongest relationships.
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And you can test drive some of your visionary messaging with them.
00:18:39.849 --> 00:18:45.009
But even then, even with those closest partners, this will be more than one conversation.
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This is big stuff.
00:18:47.067 --> 00:18:49.227
But here's something that's really important.
00:18:49.727 --> 00:18:55.866
And it might feel like, oh, well that's all very nice, but we got emergencies left and right here.
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We're just trying to keep the doors open.
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We're just trying to survive here.
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I hear that.
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I get that.
00:19:01.037 --> 00:19:02.999
But a couple things to consider.
00:19:03.544 --> 00:19:11.855
I have no doubt you can craft a compelling message to decision makers about why keeping your doors open and continuing the services you have is critical.
00:19:12.401 --> 00:19:18.053
I have no doubt that you can create compelling messaging around that and to get decision makers emotionally involved in that.
00:19:18.553 --> 00:19:20.262
But will they be inspired by it?
00:19:20.803 --> 00:19:26.750
Will that help take them out of thinking small playing small, playing not to lose?
00:19:27.000 --> 00:19:31.040
Will asking them to help you survive, take them out of that?
00:19:31.881 --> 00:19:32.631
Probably not.
00:19:33.247 --> 00:19:36.517
I recognize this may not be for everybody right this minute.
00:19:36.696 --> 00:19:54.015
But I hope you'll at least consider that the power of vision to elevate, to elevate the conversation, to elevate the thinking of decision makers, to get them thinking big and bold, has perhaps never been more important than right now.
00:19:55.096 --> 00:20:02.965
Because one of the goals of the forces that are trying to tear stuff down is to make everybody feel like that's the only option.
00:20:03.326 --> 00:20:11.066
Like the only option we have is to hide and hope they won't notice us and hope they won't hurt us too bad, and maybe we'll live to fight another day.
00:20:11.715 --> 00:20:13.875
That is not a winning strategy.
00:20:14.056 --> 00:20:20.406
History tells us that that's not how you overcome that kind of regime and that kind of attack.
00:20:20.656 --> 00:20:23.537
The only way you overcome it is if you fight it.
00:20:24.037 --> 00:20:33.156
And one of the most powerful ways that we can fight all of this stuff is with the vision of what's possible, the vision of who we can be.
00:20:33.876 --> 00:20:37.876
If we all come together and work for something so much better.
00:20:38.519 --> 00:20:45.105
There are so many reasons beyond just money and policy to be engaging in big visionary conversations right now.
00:20:45.741 --> 00:20:49.646
People including decision makers desperately need them.
00:20:50.266 --> 00:20:56.026
And most Nonprofit leaders I know are visionaries, so I know you have that already.
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How will you leverage your power to enroll decision makers in your big and bold vision and bring it into reality?
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Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
