Global Washington 2013 Conference
You’ve just spent the last few years of your life working hard to get your non-profit up and running. You’ve invested a couple hundred dollars to attend an international conference filled with your non-profit peers. Now you’re standing up in front of hundreds of them, basically a room of strangers, and you’re told you have two minutes to tell your story.
Go.
That was the scene earlier this week when a group of nine intrepid spokespeople lined up before a luncheon crowd at the Global Washington Annual Conference at Seattle’s Bell Harbor Conference Center. It was billed as the Fast Pitch Presentations.
Reps were there from a local micro-enterprise non-profit, a development group, a reproductive rights organization, a sustainable fishing group along with a handful of other advocates. Almost all seemed a little nervous but when each got the “go” sign … there really wasn’t time for nerves. There was just 120 seconds.
The audience felt for the plight of the group of nine who lined up near the stage, waiting for their two minutes. But the
exercise illustrates a deeper truth. Very often, you don’t have that much time to grab someone’s attention and tell your story, no matter how important you think it is. We live in a world of short attention spans.
Bell Harbor Conference Center – Seattle, WA
Seattle’s Randi Hedin went first. Hedin is a corporate lawyer by training. Today she’s the founder for Seattle buildOn, an international nonprofit organization that runs youth service after school programs in United States high schools, and builds schools in developing nations.
photo courtesy: buildOn
Hedin volunteered, “because I’m working hard to get the word out.” She says she wasn’t nervous because she was prepared and knew her talking points. She says she didn’t feel hurried either. “I worked hard with classmates” (in a Substantive International Law masters class at the University of Washington Law School).
Randi Hedin
buildOn Board Member
Her preparation showed. She’d picked a catchy title: “Who Ate My School? The Compelling Need for Schools in Developing Countries.” In the two minutes she had, Hedin focused on the need to keep schools in the developing world from falling into such disrepair that cows would graze on the weeds and grass growing on the property. The title of the talk grabbed attention, the pitch was short and to the point. She got a big round of applause.
Was it hard to capsulize the length, breadth and mission of an international non profit in just 120 seconds? “No”, says Hedin. “I just picked a piece of the puzzle and told that part of our story.” Hedin says it was a great way to organize because it forced her to focus on the “most important messages.”
There’s a lesson in the Fast Pitch.
1. Know your story.
2. Focus on the most important points.
3. Keep your pitch short
4. Know when to get off the stage.
Sometimes all you need is two minutes to tell your story. Sometimes, that’s all you get.
the repurposed journalist 