Jun 18, 2026 · 39 min · 9 segments
Part 1: Who you are and who you're for If a stranger asked why your organization deserves to exist, could you answer in one sentence? No grant-speak. A real answer, one that stops them in their…
Lee WochnerHost
Whenever we start working with a new nonprofit client or check back in with an existing one when something feels off, when engagement is dropping or a campaign just isn't landing the way it used to, or when things have changed with their organization, and Lord knows there's been a lot of change, we run them through a discovery process, in this case, a discovery questionnaire, 19 questions in five parts.
It can be, hands down, the single most important block of time we spend with a client because everything that comes after, the website, the campaign, the fundraising appeal, email newsletters, blog posts, the social calendar, it all gets built on top of whatever comes out of that conversation.
Skip it or rush it, and you can end up with marketing that's technically competent and strategically hollow and maybe not so heartfelt.
Nice-looking graphics wrapped around a message that not everybody actually agreed on or bought into.
So today and next episode, I'm walking you through that questionnaire, start to finish, in the same order we use it with clients.
Our goal is to prompt your thinking and to help condition you to putting your best foot forward in introducing your organization and what you do in order to get more supporters.
We do this process on site with clients, and sometimes we do it remotely via video meeting, and the results are always illuminating.
We all have mirrors, and in, and this process is intended to help you look in the mirror and help you look and sound your best before you go to that prospect meeting, that board meeting, that presentation you're going to make so that you know what your message is and you frame your communications around your core message.
So this episode covers the first two parts, who you are and whom you're actually talking to as an organization.
In next episode, we get into the harder stuff, um, what's broken, what's not working quite as well as it did, what tools you've actually got versus what you think you've got, and what winning looks like 12 months from now.
Whenever we start working with a new nonprofit client or check back in with an existing one when something feels off, when engagement is dropping or a campaign just isn't landing the way it used to, or when things have changed with their organization, and Lord knows there's been a lot of change, we run them through a discovery process, in this case, a discovery questionnaire, 19 questions in five parts.
It can be, hands down, the single most important block of time we spend with a client because everything that comes after, the website, the campaign, the fundraising appeal, email newsletters, blog posts, the social calendar, it all gets built on top of whatever comes out of that conversation.
Skip it or rush it, and you can end up with marketing that's technically competent and strategically hollow and maybe not so heartfelt.
Nice-looking graphics wrapped around a message that not everybody actually agreed on or bought into.
So today and next episode, I'm walking you through that questionnaire, start to finish, in the same order we use it with clients.
Our goal is to prompt your thinking and to help condition you to putting your best foot forward in introducing your organization and what you do in order to get more supporters.
We do this process on site with clients, and sometimes we do it remotely via video meeting, and the results are always illuminating.
We all have mirrors, and in, and this process is intended to help you look in the mirror and help you look and sound your best before you go to that prospect meeting, that board meeting, that presentation you're going to make so that you know what your message is and you frame your communications around your core message.
So this episode covers the first two parts, who you are and whom you're actually talking to as an organization.
In next episode, we get into the harder stuff, um, what's broken, what's not working quite as well as it did, what tools you've actually got versus what you think you've got, and what winning looks like 12 months from now.
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