With a name like Movement Builders and a simple mission of helping you to build powerful, long-lasting movements, I know the answer you expect.  But we’re not going to say that.  The truth is that building a movement is not right for every organization.

Will a movement help achieve your mission?

The first question you need to ask is whether a movement will make your organization more effective at achieving its mission.  If your business or nonprofit is already at (or past) its capacity, creating a sudden increase in demand for your product or service shouldn’t be your top priority.  Or if your mission isn’t related to inspiring action in your audience, such as a foundation which already has adequate applications for its grants or the public works department of a city, building a movement won’t help.  And if a movement wouldn’t aid your organization in achieving its goals, stop reading here.

Are you willing to avoid a meatball sundae?

For the other 90% of you, the next question is whether you are willing to avoid a meatball sundae.  Seth Godin, one of today’s most influential marketing experts, explains this concept in his aptly named book, Meatball Sundae.

A meatball sundae is the unfortunate result of mixing two good ideas. The meatballs are the foundation, the things we need (and sometimes want). These are the commodities that so many businesses are built on. The sundae toppings (hot fudge and the like) are the New Marketing, the social networks, Google, blogs and fancy stuff that make people all excited. The challenge most organizations face: they try to mix them. They attempt to slap new marketing onto old and end up with nothing but a failed website.

Though Godin is focused on marketing for corporations and we are focused on movement building for companies, nonprofits and campaigns, the same idea holds true.  Godin observes that many companies take boring products and mundane brands (meatballs), add on the latest, hottest, hippest marketing strategies (whipped cream and chocolate), and expect “magic” results.  The trouble is that these companies aren’t changing their fundamental value proposition and so the new means for communicating that value just don’t work.  Instead of ambrosia you get a meatball sundae.

The solution, Godin argues, is to be willing to revisit your basic recipe and see what can be changed to make it work with those tasty new toppings. No matter how good your marketing campaign is, if your product remains humdrum no one is going to talk about it; no one will tell their friends; no one will blog about you.

This insight is essential for movement building.  As long as you are offering the same old meatballs as everyone else, no one is going to get excited about you.  To become the locus of a growing movement, your organization needs to offer something that people can become passionate about.  That could be as simple as framing your organization in a new light or a small innovation that sets your organization apart.  (For example, Godin recounts how a failing paint manufacturer met with success just by redesigning their paint cans to include an easy to hold, easy to pour handle.)

But at times this change needs to run much deeper. It may require asking whether your audience really has an interest in the products or services that your organization offers. If not, building a movement will involve intense soul searching to understand just how your mission and your audience’s passions overlap.  Only after you have identified that common ground can you develop a strategy to capitalize on it, building an identity so exciting that your audience will spread it for you, online and off.

It is the challenging nature of this exploration, Godin explains, that keep so many organizations from ever building powerful, long-lasting movements.

More often than not, movements come from out of nowhere, from small companies or impassioned individuals.  That’s not necessarily because they are better qualified to do the work the New Marketing requires.  In fact, in many cases they’re not.  The reason big organizations stumble is that they can’t make the commitment.  They want both strategies — they insist they can have a meatball sundae.  They’re wrong.

Is a movement right for your organization?  It usually comes down to whether or not you are willing to avoid a meatball sundae. If your organization is dedicated enough to the immense benefits of a movement that it is willing to undertake an honest evaluation of itself — and implement the needed changes that it discovers — then building a movement will be one of the best choices you ever made.