Wuss isn’t a word I use often, but during my drive home from the holidays it came to my mind fleetingly as an appropriate self-description. I started driving in second or third gear with my hazard lights on though there was only the slightest visible dusting of snow on the highway — and car after car kept passing my (usually speeding) red roadster. But despite the weather map and my fellow travelers, I had decided I did not like the feel of the road beneath my snow tires.

Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.
—Benjamin Lee Whorf

I can no longer count on my fingers the number of times I've searched fruitlessly for the perfect, convincing set of facts for changing minds to advance an issue. Really, I should know better. Facts are not what change peoples' mindsets. Frames are.

If you are seeking positive change, you know your language choice matters. Your nightmare is to inadvertently use a word that triggers a frame in opposition to the change you want to see. Worse yet is to witness a counter-productive frame or an outright lie being repeated over and over again. Let’s look at why repetition matters, why what changemakers focus on matters, and what you can do to be sure you are advancing your mission rather than hurting it.

 It is easy to feel conflicted when you're marketing for good. Many nonprofits and public agencies feel the tension. On one hand, you know your organization’s sole purpose is social good rather than personal gain or profit. On the other hand, what you know of effective marketing and advertising is, to put it gently, not so good. You are what we refer to as a "reluctant marketer." There is an antidote for your discomfort — and it is called “social marketing.”

With the trees in full leaf on the hillsides, lush and green are the signs of May in Vermont. Abundance is an apt term for the fodder published last month for thinkers and leaders of change too. Here, ICYMI, are our top picks from what we were reading (and watching) in May.

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit.

Are you interested in what happens in the next sentence?