logo
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
    • Collections
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Subscribe
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Complimentary Webinars
    • Premium On-Demand Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

Content Crushes and you and me

Ruth McCambridge
September 5, 2012
Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print

You too can be an NPQ newswire writer!

I get terrible crushes on people who write or speak beautifully. It is my failing romantically because there are plenty of cads with the gift o’ gab but a fine turn of phrase – Whoa Nellie!
 
I watched my friend Bill Schambra of the Hudson Institute talk up a liberal crowd the other day and he lulled them into a kind of a trance and then hit them with a couple of statements about the horrors of welfare dependency. They were already so in love with him that it took a beat or two before someone at my table leaned over and asked me, “Is he serious?”

He used to be a speechwriter. The guy has skills.

I also have a crush on Barney Frank, who can hit a nail on the head with a mere flick of the wrist at fifty feet in a soupy fog…at midnight. He can make me snort or bark instead of laugh. I’d like to live with him—platonically, of course.

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

The thing is, many people take my breath away once they get going on something they know well and feel deeply enough about…unless they are just parroting a bunch of stuff they have heard elsewhere exactly as they heard it fifty times from others. That kind of verbiage is like detritus – nothing alive there.

The reason I am ranting on about this is because I think any of us who have been watching the conventions over the past week have to be struck by the difference between a speech that talks to us and one that talks at us. Part of it, of course, is in the values connection between ourselves and the speaker. But some of it is about your ability to take risks with your energy and an odd turn of phrase or three—the stuff that hangs on long after everything else is gone. The mop to microphone kind of thing.

I would ask you, when you speak to people about your work or when you hear others talk about theirs what is it that works about the way you are speaking or what you are saying?Do you pay attention to what does and does not work?

Do you do us all the service of refining those storytelling and cross disciplinary analytical skills so you can surprise us once in a while?

Here is what I would like to suggest. Hone them here with us. Become one of NPQ’s regular newswire writers. Take a risk. Tell a tale. Have influence.

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
About the author
Ruth McCambridge

Ruth is Editor Emerita of the Nonprofit Quarterly. Her background includes forty-five years of experience in nonprofits, primarily in organizations that mix grassroots community work with policy change. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Ruth spent a decade at the Boston Foundation, developing and implementing capacity building programs and advocating for grantmaking attention to constituent involvement.

More about: Board GovernanceEditor's NotesJournalism

Become a member

Support independent journalism and knowledge creation for civil society. Become a member of Nonprofit Quarterly.

Members receive unlimited access to our archived and upcoming digital content. NPQ is the leading journal in the nonprofit sector written by social change experts. Gain access to our exclusive library of online courses led by thought leaders and educators providing contextualized information to help nonprofit practitioners make sense of changing conditions and improve infra-structure in their organizations.

Join Today
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

Spring-2023-sidebar-subscribe
You might also like
Sharing Ownership Is Sharing Power: Why Media Cooperatives are the Future of News
Kevon Paynter
Hedge Fund Buyout of Tribune Puts More Journalism Jobs at Risk
Steve Dubb
Are Your Organization and Its Board “Access Able”?
Katherine Schneider
What Does Journalism for a Just Economy Look Like?
Steve Dubb
Navigating Succession: Four Exiting CEO Mindsets
Aparna Anand Joshi, Donald C. Hambrick and Jiyeon Kang
Tribune Publishing Sale Opens Door to Nonprofit-Owned Baltimore Sun
Steve Dubb

NPQ Webinars

April 27th, 2 pm ET

Liberatory Decision-Making

How to Facilitate and Engage in Healthy Decision-making Processes

Register Now
You might also like
Sharing Ownership Is Sharing Power: Why Media Cooperatives...
Kevon Paynter
Hedge Fund Buyout of Tribune Puts More Journalism Jobs at...
Steve Dubb
Are Your Organization and Its Board “Access Able”?
Katherine Schneider

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

NPQ-Spring-2023-cover

Independent & in your mailbox.

Subscribe today and get a full year of NPQ for just $59.

subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Copyright
  • Careers

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.