How to communicate your organization’s purpose as a north star

During Ragan’s Future of Communications conference last fall, Carol Cone, CEO and founder of Carol Cone ON PURPOSE spoke about what’s required to practice authentic purpose communications.

Before ensuring that their organization can infuse its purpose into every message and stakeholder, Cone stressed that you must define what the word actually means at your organization. Broadly, she said, “purpose is an organization’s aspirational reason for being beyond profits, grounded in humanity.”

Here’s what we learned.

Purpose resonates with employees

Having an aspirational reason for being is important, but authenticity is at its core. Purpose-washing, or engaging in gestural purpose campaigns, can undo years of reputation building with one inauthentic campaign or initiative.

Cone cited a study from Deloitte that found “purpose-driven companies grow three times faster than competitors, while achieving higher workfroce and customer satisfaction.”

Her own research with the Harris Poll in 2022 “Purpose Under Pressure,” found that purpose matters to employees today more than ever. A majority 84% of employee respondents said that they’ll only work at purpose-driven companies, while 88% said they believe purpose-focused companies are more succesful.

The 3 Cs