You know your communication is not working, but you do not yet know where the break is, and the break decides the work.
Communication trouble comes in four shapes that need completely different fixes: your message is muddled so people cannot say what you do, you have no compelling case so asks fall flat, you never tell your impact or tell it badly, or you are simply invisible and unheard. This guide sorts out which one you have, confirms it is really about your public communication, tests how outsiders actually receive you against how you assume they do, and hands you a plan. It is a sorting instrument, not a fix. It will not write your message or your case; it tells you which kind of trouble you have and in what order to work it. It takes about ninety minutes, and it asks for the humility to find out how outsiders actually see you rather than how you hope they do.
You cannot diagnose communication you have not laid out: what you say, where you say it, and how the outside world actually receives it. Gather how you currently describe yourself, your website, your materials, your social presence, your last appeal, and note where each says something different. Then write down the honest signs of how you are received: do people know you exist, can they say what you do, do your asks land.
Open the Communication Snapshot →First, make sure you are in the right place. Then place your trouble in one of the four shapes, because the shape decides the guide.
Good, you are in the right place. Answer each statement the way it really is. There is no shame in a low score; that is the whole point of looking.
Leaders are too close to their own message to judge whether it lands, so a rating you give yourself is worth little until an outsider tests it. And two problems look identical from the inside but need opposite fixes: being misunderstood, where people have heard of you but do not get it, and being unknown, where they have never heard of you at all. Ask three or four people outside your organization, separately, what they think you do and why it matters, and compare their answers to what you believe you say. Where the honest answer is worse than you expected, trust the honest answer.
Open the Outside-In Reality Check →Turn the finding into an ordered plan that names your first guide and follows the order communication is actually built: clarify the message, make the case, tell the story, get seen. Where you have more than one, build in that order. You cannot make a case or tell a story from a muddled message, and getting seen with a message that does not land just spreads the confusion faster. Add anything the front-gate surfaced, the mission work if the deeper problem is mission, the impact work if your case needs evidence you do not have. Give the first guide a real start date, and fix the single most visible failure, the confusing website line, the elevator answer, this week.
Open the Prioritized Communication Plan →Your answers stay in your browser on this page and are never sent anywhere. Use Save or print to keep your copy.
Two moments here reach past these pages. If you find you genuinely cannot afford the time or skill to produce polished materials once your message is clear, a designer or a communications professional is legitimate help for the specialized production, and this work will point you there when you reach it, while keeping the thinking yours. And if testing how you are seen surfaces that people distrust you because of something real, a past harm, a broken promise, no message fixes that; the repair is real accountability, not better words. Naming these is not the guide failing. It is the guide being honest about its edge.
Once your communication is clearer, it is worth stepping back to look at the whole organization, not just how it is seen. There is a short whole-organization check-up waiting for you when you are ready. That is not a sales pitch. It is the next honest thing to look at. The whole-organization check-up →