Storytelling For Complex Missions

Too many social impact organizations are stuck trying to explain everything they do — and in the process, end up saying nothing that sticks. When your mission is complex, how do you distill it into a clear, compelling story that actually resonates?

In this episode, Eric and Jonathan dig into the storytelling struggles that come with multifaceted missions — and offer a practical framework to help you cut through the noise, focus your narrative, and connect more powerfully with your audiences.

➔ The one question every leader should ask before blaming the messaging.
 ➔ How to tell an emotionally compelling story without oversimplifying your mission.
 ➔ Why most orgs don’t have a storytelling problem — they have a focus problem.
 ➔ What to do when “just one story” feels impossible.
 ➔ A simple test to make sure your message really matters to anyone outside your team.

If your communications are feeling muddy, scattered, or just too complex to explain, this episode will help you zoom out, refocus, and tell a story people will actually remember — and care about.

Don't try to say it all. Say the one thing that matters most.

Episode Highlights:

• [00:00] - The complexity trap: “How do we take these complex missions and weave simple, compelling emotional narratives?”
• [01:33] - First things first: Is this actually a storytelling issue—or a lack of focus?
  [02:50] - The everything-all-at-once problem: How pride in breadth can dilute clarity.
• [04:15] - Non-profit existentialism: “What am I doing with my life?” as a strategic tool.
• [05:44] - The theory of change litmus test: Can you explain how your work creates change?
  [09:11] - The problem behind your problem: Defining your challenge before crafting your message.
• [10:33] - Unique qualifications: What makes your organization the right one to do this work?
• [13:24] - The “So What” test: Distill your purpose with this 3-step drill-down exercise.
• [15:25] - You don’t need to tell it all: The danger of overexplaining.
  [18:34] - Different stories for different audiences: Why stakeholder-specific storytelling is essential.
• [21:18] - Start with the simplest story: Lead with what’s most intuitive—expand later.

Notable Quotes:

• “We’re tasked with figuring out how do we take these complex missions and weave simple, compelling emotional narratives around them.” - Eric Ressler [00:00]
• “I feel like a lot of nonprofits need to have a ‘What am I doing with my life?’ conversation.” - Jonathan Hicken [04:37]
• “We ask what I call the ‘so-what’ test. We ask people to tell this story, and then we say, so what?” - Eric Ressler [13:24]
• “I am talking about our work differently to each of those audiences based on deeply understanding what success looks like to them.” - Jonathan [19:21]
• “Pick the one that people are going to most intuitively

Resources:

• Article - How Your Purpose, Vision, and Mission Can Guide Better Brand Storytelling
• Article - Defeat Mission Creep and Master Your Nonprofit's Messaging to Maximize Impact
• Article - Use Your Niche to Supercharge Your Mission
• Article - Your Theory of Change isn't finished until your Grandma can understand it.
• Podcast - The Last Messaging Framework You’ll Ever Need
• Podcast - We Are For Good — Nonprofit Trends That Matter in 2023: Marketing is Mission

Transcript 

Eric Ressler [00:00]:

We're tasked with figuring out how do we take these complex missions and weave simple, compelling emotional narratives around them.

Jonathan Hicken [00:08]:

Ultimately, we're doing the same work once it gets back to the Seymour Center, but I'm positioning it in a way that's going to appeal to the different audiences.

Eric Ressler [00:16]:

If this is a problem of yours, I think it's important that you do deeply consider, is this a storytelling problem or is this actually a problem with having an unfocused mission?

Jonathan Hicken [00:25]:

Unfortunately, most people don't care about everything we do, so we got to get it down to that one thing that matters most.

Eric Ressler [00:33]:

Jonathan, I've been thinking about today's podcast topic a lot lately, and I'll get into why in a second. But one of the things that a lot of social impact organizations struggle with is how do you tell a story when you have a really complex mission? And this is something that maybe because of the nature of the types of clients that we tend to attract and work with is very top of mind and something that we have to work through a lot. And sometimes I even get a little frustrated by it. I'm just like, Hey, why can't we get a Charity Water in the door where it's just the mission is simple, it's clear. The story basically tells itself no shade to the charity water marketing team who do overall an incredible job. But we tend to attract these complex, nuanced missions, and then we're tasked with figuring out how do we take these complex missions and weave simple, compelling emotional narratives around them.

[01:33]:

And so I have a lot of thoughts around how to best do that, and I'm hoping that some of our listeners have struggled with this because I do think a lot of people do struggle with it. So I'd love to get into it today. Are you down? Let's riff. Okay. If you identify as an organization that has a complex mission and there's different levels of complexity, but let's just say distilling your mission down into something that feels simple and intuitive and compelling, if that's a struggle of yours, regardless of how complex your mission actually is, I'm hoping that some tips today will be fruitful and helpful for you in your mission as a social impact leader. But first, I want to challenge our listeners to do a little bit of internal thinking and testing on this. Is the mission actually complex? I have a series of questions that I think would be a good litmus test for this. So first of all, is this actually a problem with mission creep or mission drift? Meaning is your mission not complex, but is it unfocused? Are you trying to do too much all at once? The everything all at once problem, which I think is a pretty common problem in the space, at least from my perspective. And do you just essentially kind of lack focus as an organization? Have you seen that before?

Jonathan Hicken [02:50]:

Oh, yeah. I mean all the time. I would say actually as executive director, as development director at other nonprofits, as board member of some other nonprofits, I don't know that I've ever been in an organization where I didn't experience this to some degree. Now, some of the reasons that I think I saw those things might be a little different, right? For me, I observed this happening when people in the organization took so much pride in every little thing that was being done that it felt important to them to include all of that in the storytelling.

Eric Ressler [03:26]:

Yes, absolutely. So we'll get to that in a little bit more detail in a minute, but I think that's the first question you have to ask yourself. And man, that is a tough question to ask yourself, especially if you are honest with yourself and you really start to look at, is all of this the right thing to be focusing on as an organization? And that could be really hard when you've put a lot of time, energy, effort, money, people power behind some of these moves. And when you look at it with clear eyes, you're like, I don't know if this is something we should continue. And I think a lot of people almost avoid that question because they're afraid of the answers. But if this is a problem of yours, I think it's important that you do deeply consider, is this a storytelling problem or is this actually a problem with having an unfocused mission? So that's my first tip. Yeah, go ahead.

Jonathan Hicken [04:15]:

Yeah, so I mean, honestly, what's coming to mind is this, I'm 38, I'll be 39 in May. I have this question sometimes of what am I doing with my life? This is a little bit, and you kind of unpack what are all the components, what's important to me? What am I doing? And I feel like a lot of nonprofits need to have, what am I doing with my life conversation?

Eric Ressler [04:37]:

I would agree. I would say, don't do my move, which is to have that midlife crisis roughly every six months. That's maybe too often, but more than once every five years is probably good too. Okay. The second tip is do you actually have a defined theory of change? Do you have even a theory around how the work that you're doing is actually going to lead to change? And I don't care how you do this. I don't care if you have a crazy complex academic diagram or you have a comic book version of your theory of change, or you can just tell me what it is. If I ask you what your theory of change is, any of those, check the box for me. But I am surprised by how many organizations cannot answer a question about what is your theory of change or even let to take it out of the academic speak. How does your work create change in the world? It seems like you should be able to answer that question as a social impact organization. If you can't, I think that's a problem too, and might be part of why you can't tell this story in a compelling way. So I'm going to put you on the spot, man.

Jonathan Hicken [05:44]:

Yeah.

Eric Ressler [05:44]:

How do you create change in the world? At the Seymour Center,

Jonathan Hicken [05:47]:

We create scientists who solve our coastal problems through education and community activation.

Eric Ressler [05:53]:

You've got that dialed now. Could you have answered that a year ago?

Jonathan Hicken [05:58]:

Hell no.

Eric Ressler [06:00]:

So do you think you had a theory of change issue at the time, or did you have a messaging issue at the time?

Jonathan Hicken [06:05]:

No, I had a theory of change issue, and it stemmed from a shift in vision and how we were going to deliver on that vision and what were the necessary components. Now, actually, as a result of doing this podcast, I've been able to articulate that better.

Eric Ressler [06:22]:

And so at the time, did you think you had a theory of change or vision issue, or did you think you had a messaging issue?

Jonathan Hicken [06:28]:

I thought I had a messaging issue.

Eric Ressler [06:30]:

That's what everyone thinks, but when you start to dig into that messaging issue, you realize the problem is usually deeper if you, and we'll get through some more tips, and I think if you can answer all of these tips, the messaging will sort of write itself. Not totally. You still need to wordsmith it, and there's ways to package it better, but you will be able to answer these questions to a copywriter or to an agency or to your board in a way where they just kind of get it, even if it's not the most polished answer. Your answer was really polished. Kudos on that, but I know you've been refining that, right? And even I remember three months ago or something, you had a similar answer. It took you maybe a minute and a half to get through instead of that nice little 32nd soundbite you just had, but you had the theory of change. You didn't have mission and scope creep in what you were trying to do. You didn't have it dialed, right? You didn't have it practiced in the messaging, but the ingredients were there. So that's my second tip is do you actually have a theory of change for the work that you're doing?

Jonathan Hicken [07:29]:

Yeah, let me reiterate that because it actually, I put in the work, I did the reps to get to this place where I could articulate that clearly. And so I think I just want my peers to know that this doesn't necessarily just going to come to you as in a dream one night, it takes work, it takes reps. You got to put in the work to be able to articulate that.

Eric Ressler [07:53]:

And I think when you say reps, not just saying it enough times, so it sounds good, but reps, in terms of hammering these tough questions and thinking deeply about 'em, not just saying bumbling through it and being like, well, I technically, yeah, I have an answer to that, but does it really pass that just kind of surface level test to someone who's not within the space? I think a lot of times people are like, well, people who aren't in the space just don't get it. It's like, well, that's a problem. And even if it's mostly people in the space you're trying to reach, I don't think that's always true. So let's keep going. I have some other points that I think will help round this out a little bit, and we talk about this a lot, but it's worth repeating. Do you know what problem you're solving that you're actually solving?

[08:39]:

Because if you can't define that problem, if you don't think about that problem in a way that's even distinct from how you frame that problem, that might actually be the messaging issue that you're facing, the storytelling issue. Maybe you don't clearly understand the problem that you're trying to solve or you think you do, you kind of intuitively get it. But if I asked you as a social impact leader, what's the problem that you're trying to solve? And you bumble through an answer and you don't have a clear answer to that, then I think that in and of itself is a problem. More hot seat questions. What's the problem that you're solving at the Seymour Center?

Jonathan Hicken [09:11]:

So this is one I actually need to work on articulating, because I actually think there's a couple different problems to solve, and this gets into the complex mission and storytelling piece. So if we want to workshop this live, great. If not, I think there's a couple of problems that we're solving. A is, I think actually it came out of a conversation on this podcast that young people are anxious about climate change and the environment and the earth. And since our mission is to create scientists, we want to create scientists who are empowered and excited to be solution makers, not scared of this problem. So that is a problem that kids are anxious about climate change,

Eric Ressler [09:54]:

And we'll get to this more in a little bit, but there's almost never one problem. I know we talked about this on a recent episode, and we'll link to that in the show notes, but I think we need to choose a problem, and we'll get to this in more detail around how to tell stories later in the episode, but this is actually one, I'm glad you brought this up. This is one of the issues that I see is people have answers like, well, we don't just solve one problem, or we don't just do one thing. How can we possibly tell a story about all these things all at once? And we'll get to the answer to that, but I just want to put a little pin in that one.

[10:33]:

So the next question you should be asking yourself if you're struggling to tell a story about a complex mission is are you uniquely qualified to actually solve that problem as an organization? And I think this is one that a lot of people, when I ask this question and I try to ask it respectfully, is how are you uniquely qualified as an organization to solve this problem? I get a lot of blank stares, and I think there actually usually is an answer to that in many cases. Not always, but people haven't been asked that, and they don't have a solid answer to that. So I guess, Jonathan, I'll just ask you, how are you uniquely qualified at the Seymour Center to solve the problems that you guys are solving?

Jonathan Hicken [11:13]:

Yeah, look, I mean early on, I took stock of Seymour Center's assets and cross-referenced that with our audience's needs. And it revealed to us some ways that we were uniquely positioned to solve these problems. And some of them have to do with literally the building.

[11:31]:

We have this beautiful building where people can come and be together and learn and act. We have this incredible location with a beautiful view of Monterey Bay, a place where people actually want to be. We have a big parking lot, so you can get there easily. Not to mention the staff of people whose whole jobs are to tell stories about science and the ocean and whatnot. So yes, when we looked at the environmental sector in our sphere of work, we were the only people who had that unique set of advantages.

Eric Ressler [12:03]:

And then there's others that other people have too that are still important, like expert scientists, connection to the university. So you have expertise in the category on top of all those things. But yeah, I would agree. There's other science-based organizations that are deeply into climate action and have deep expertise around that, but they don't have a building, they don't have a gathering place. So that is not the only, but a really important differentiator or distinction for you.

Jonathan Hicken [12:30]:

Bingo.

Eric Ressler [12:31]:

Okay, so let's go through these four again, because here's what I'm going to say to our listeners. If you're having trouble telling a story about your mission, the first step is to ask yourself these four questions before trying to do any kind of messaging work. So do you have a problem with mission creep or mission drift? Do you actually have a defendable theory of change? Do you know what the problem is that you're trying to solve or that you are solving as an organization? And how or why are you uniquely qualified to solve that problem? Answering those four questions and having a clear answer to those four questions is going to be the foundation of a good impact story or a good mission story around the work that you're doing. So let's start there. And then what I suggest our listeners do is that they get together with either an outside group or an executive team or some kind of committee, and they do their best job at putting a story together around those four things.

[13:24]:

And then we ask what I call the “so what” test. We ask people to tell this story, and then we say, so what? And then we get that answer and we say, so what again? And then we get that answer and we say, so what one more time? And at a certain point, there's diminishing returns on the so what question. But what it allows you to do is it allows you to get down to that distilled purpose, that distilled reason that this is an impactful worthwhile mission to support. So if you're down, could we just workshop this with the Seymour Center as an example? Let's do it. Okay. So give me the elevator pitch mission story for the Seymour Center.

Jonathan Hicken [14:01]:

Yeah, we create scientists who solve our coastal problems. So what coastal communities are experiencing the impacts of climate change, it's threatening culture and economics and education, and I believe it's going to be communities themselves who have the most immediate and profound impact on responding to those challenges.

Eric Ressler [14:19]:

Okay, that's interesting. But so what?

Jonathan Hicken [14:22]:

40% of the world's population lives close to the coast within something like 50 miles, not to mention the economic impact of coastal communities, coastal communities really matter to a lot of people.

Eric Ressler [14:34]:

Great. So that was just a couple of, so whats, and I mean I think all of those answers are part of the story, but I think by doing the so what test we got down to the kind of ripple effects of what you're doing, even though you are focused regionally, and that should be a big focus of how you frame the story, you can see how that connection ripples out to a large swath of the population and an urgent need in the world. So what test is a really nice kind of next step? And even if you don't end up, I don't suggest that you use that last so what as your impact story, but you can see how it really gives you some different ways of thinking about that story. So that's my first tip. My next tip is then to ask yourself, do you need to tell the full story?

[15:25]:

Because this is actually what I see a lot of organizations who find themselves in this situation struggling with if they've done the work to have a clear answer on those first four questions. And that's not the problem if it is just a really complex mission. And there are clients that we work with and organizations out there that do have a really complex mission. They feel this need or this impetus that we must tell the full story as our story. And I want to challenge listeners to really think deeply about, do you have to do that? I think in many cases the answer is actually no, you don't. And so I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on that.

Jonathan Hicken [15:57]:

That was one of the things I referenced earlier was this need. I think it's a human thing. We live and breathe this work. It's so important to so many of us and we feel a certain level of pride or maybe a certain level of import about this work, and we want to include all of it because it's who we are. It's what we do, it's how we spend so much of our lives. Unfortunately, most people don't care about everything we do, so we got to get it down to that. One thing that matters most,

Eric Ressler [16:32]:

And I think this is the trap, right, is if you feel like you must tell the entire story all at once, people are going to gloss over, they're going to lose interest, they're not going to understand it. It's hard to tell those stories. Even if you're a master storyteller, you can't condense a novel's worth of story down into an elevator pitch and expect people to get what it means. And I think that is when you get these mission and vision statements that sound interesting but vague and unclear and you're like, well, that sounds really cool, but I have no idea what that means. I have lots of follow-up questions. It sounds kind of jargony and buzzwordy and it sounds cool, but what do you actually do? So I think part of that problem is if you try and tell the full story, either you get extremely verbose and you get these mission and vision statements that are a paragraph long and full of buzzwords, or they get so vague in an effort to be concise and distilled that they essentially are kind of bad. And I want to just kind of preface this by saying, I don't believe your impact statement or your vision statement or your mission statement is exactly the same as the story. That is one way of telling the story and the story gets told many times, but in many different ways. But I think that that is a kind of a trap or a pitfall here.

[17:58]:

The other thing related to that that I wanted to get to is rather than having the story, you often need different stories for different audiences, and you do need the story to some degree. What's going to be on the homepage? You got to make a decision there. And sometimes that means choosing one of the stories and figuring out who's the primary audience for the homepage of the website. But in other cases, I do think personalizing the story or having different stories or accentuating different parts of the story dependent on the audience is a better strategy than trying to tell the same big broad story to every audience.

Jonathan Hicken [18:34]:

The way I think about that is sort of stakeholders in the work for Seymour Center for us, we've got the audience that we're serving primarily, but we also have environmental leaders in town at the city and the county and other nonprofits. We have the university itself and the university administration. We've got funders, we've got all these stakeholders whose needs need to be met through our work. And so I am talking about our work differently to each of those audiences based on deeply understanding what success looks like to them. And that's the kind of story I'm telling to get them to see that either investing in Seymour Center or supporting Seymour Center in some way is going to help them accomplish whatever it is that they're trying to accomplish.

Eric Ressler [19:21]:

And it's not like you're being inauthentic and doing that, right? There's probably a lot of threads connecting all those different stories and a lot of maybe even major components or pillars of that story that are the same, but how you frame it and what you include and what you omit so that you can tell a concise story in a simple story and a digestible story that is really informed by their priorities and preferences more than yours. I think that is the key right there.

Jonathan Hicken [19:48]:

And just to make this concrete, so for the university, the university cares about strengthening the university's relationship with the city. They care about that. So when I'm talking to administration, I'm saying, here's how we are strengthening the bond between the university and the city. But when I'm talking to my peers in other environmental nonprofits or in other environmental work, I'm saying, let us help amplify your work to bring more attention to what you are doing because what you're doing is great and impactful, and we want to tell that story.

[20:23]:

Ultimately, we're doing the same work once it gets back to the Seymour Center, but I'm positioning it in a way that's going to appeal to the different audiences.

Eric Ressler [20:31]:

A kind of metaphor for what you just described is oddly like a fast food storytelling strategy. So when you think about McDonald's or you think about Kentucky Fried Chicken, do they try to tell a story about their entire menu to you? Or do they focus on the main thing that most people are going to understand and want and focus on that story? And then by the way, we also have all this other stuff to offer you too, right? I mean, they focus on that flagship thing. So that leads to pick the simplest version of the story. If you have this complex mission and there's all these different ways that you can tell the story, there's all these stories that are all quite worthy of being told at some point. And you do have to choose, and I believe that you do. My advice is pick the simplest one.

[21:18]:

Pick the one that people are going to most intuitively understand. Even if from your point of view, it feels not comprehensive, it feels like you're selling yourself short a little bit, I still think that trade off is worth it so that people can get it and they can remember you. They can have a way to contextualize the work that you do in their brains, and then over time expand their awareness because you've earned that entry point. You've got that foundation that you can build off of now. And I think that's the big mistake is if you try and tell the whole story at once, nothing will get through. And it's more effective to get something through, even if it's a small part of your impact, and then build on that over time and expand that story over time.

Jonathan Hicken [22:03]:

I think about that for Seymour Center, and we usually lead with youth education A because that's something that the center has done for several decades now. So it's a familiar program, but I also think it's, for most people, it's the easiest thing to understand, changing the life of a young person so that they pursue a science education or career. Most of us understand that pretty quickly.

Eric Ressler [22:29]:

Yep. It's pretty intuitive.

Jonathan Hicken [22:30]:

It's intuitive. And so almost, especially when we're doing sort of broad based messaging, that's what we're almost always leading with.

Eric Ressler [22:38]:

And that's not all you do,

Jonathan Hicken [22:39]:

That's not all we do,

Eric Ressler [22:40]:

But it's the main story. It is the easiest story, it's the simplest story. And then after you get people in the door with that story, you can start to educate them over time around other important stories. And I will also say, some of your story doesn't ever need to be communicated necessarily. We don't need to know how the sausage is made necessarily, and maybe that's good at times. So I think hopefully, if you are struggling with complex missions and storytelling around those missions, some of these tips and these tests are helpful for our listeners here. Jonathan, thanks for getting in the hot seat with me today a little bit.

Jonathan Hicken [23:12]:

Yeah, that was awesome. Thanks, Eric.