Subject: Nonprofit jargon

I thought it would be helpful to copy the list here! It made me think how many times a day I use one of these words or phrases; shame!

• Across-the-piece / Actioned / Advocate / Agencies / Ambassador / Area based / Area focused / Autonomous
• Baseline / Beacon / Benchmarking / Best Practice / Blue sky thinking / Bottom-Up
• CAAs / Can do culture / Capabilities / Capacity / Capacity building / Cascading / Cautiously welcome / Challenge / Champion / Citizen empowerment / Client / Cohesive communities / Cohesiveness / Collaboration / Commissioning / Community engagement / Compact / Conditionality / Consensual / Contestability / Contextual / Core developments / Core Message / Core principles/ Core Value/ Coterminosity / Coterminous / Cross-cutting / Cross-fertilisation / Customer
• Democratic legitimacy / Democratic mandate / Dialogue / Direction of travel / Distorts spending priorities / Double devolution / Downstream
• Early Win / Edge-fit / Embedded / Empowerment / Enabler / Engagement / Engaging users / Enhance / Evidence Base / Exemplar / External challenge
• Facilitate / Fast-Track / Flex / Flexibilities and Freedoms / Framework / Fulcrum / Functionality / Funding streams
• Gateway review / Going forward / Good practice / Governance / Guidelines
• Holistic / Holistic governance /Horizon scanning
• Improvement levers / Incentivising / Income streams / Indicators / Initiative / Innovative capacity / Inspectorates / Interdepartmental / Interface / Iteration
• Joined up / Joint working
• LAAs / Level playing field / Lever / Leverage / Localities / Lowlights
• MAAs / Mainstreaming / Management capacity / Meaningful consultation / Meaningful dialogue / Mechanisms / Menu of Options / Multi-agency / Multidisciplinary / Municipalities
• Network model / Normalising
• Outcomes / Outcomes / Output / Outsourced / Overarching
• Paradigm / Parameter / Participatory / Partnership working / Partnerships / Pathfinder / Peer challenge / Performance Network / Place shaping / Pooled budgets / Pooled resources / Pooled risk / Populace / Potentialities / Practitioners / Predictors of Beaconicity / Preventative services / Prioritization / Priority / Proactive / Process driven / Procure / Procurement / Promulgate / Proportionality / Protocol / Provider vehicles
• Quantum / Quick hit / Quick win
• Rationalisation / Rebaselining / Reconfigured / Resource allocation / Revenue Streams / Risk based / Robust
• Scaled-back / Scoping / Sector wise / Seedbed / Self-aggrandizement / Service users / Shared priority / Shell developments / Signpost / Single conversations / Single point of contact / Situational / Slippage / Social contracts / Social exclusion / Spatial / Stakeholder / Step change / Strategic / Strategic priorities / Streamlined / Sub-regional / Subsidiarity / Sustainable / Sustainable communities / Symposium / Synergies / Systematics
• Taxonomy / Tested for Soundness / Thematic / Thinking outside of the box / Third sector / Toolkit / Top-down / Trajectory / Tranche / Transactional / Transformational / Transparency
• Upstream / Upward trend / Utilise
• Value-added / Vision ­/ Visionary
• Welcome / Wellbeing / Worklessness

Interesting that Third Sector is on there!

Many of these words are useful shorthand but we wouldn't use them when talking to 'stakeholders' or in public documents.

Some are downright confusing - predictors of beaconicity and rebaselining are awful as is anything with a hyphen!

I find the idea of banning certain words rather ridiculous.  It feels a bit too like censorship - and virtually an infringement of freedom of speech.  I don't think the 'third sector' should align itself with thinking like this.

And how can this be sustainable?  Will we need continual updates on the words we can't use as time goes on and new phrases emerge to replace the ones on the last list?

Provided our language is not discriminatory or offensive, why can't we choose the words we feel are best for the job in hand?

We have a rich language and people should be encouraged to use it in all its diverse glory.  That would be a far more positive way to create a culture where we don't have such a reliance on 'jargon'.

I agree with Rachel, banning words is a slippery slope. I do however think that some people within the non-profit sector (more so in the public sector) deliberately use certain words as a defence mechanism for their own lack of knowledge on a subject.

If I hear one more person tell me we all need to "think outside the box"...

A bit late in the day, but my objections to jargon isn't  to stop people from expressing themselves freely, rather it's because it often ends up with people not understanding one another.  At its worst, jargon can be used to exclude others and to promote hidden agendas in such a way that is not easy to challenge.

I fear jargon actually goes against the whole notion of constructive debate and communication.

Agree with Rachel, we are and should be judged on what we do rather than what we say. I find jargon meetings funny and tend to play jargon bingo whenever I can.

Our sector is awash with jargon and it matters because it permeates into charity literature designed for the public.  Practically every mailshot or website asks for a 'regular gift' simply because the sector refers to monthly gifts paid through the bank that way.  Then, horror of horrors, donors who give that way are addressed...'as a regular giver you will...'  Most fundraisers make no attempt to take a donor's view  of their proposition.

When words like capacity building and stake-holders are used (and I could give hundreds of examples) the recipient sees it as patronising.  And there's an unhealthy measure of smug patrony in our sector. 

I agree about jargon that mystifies and excludes people. There is another side to  this debate. Shared words also include peole, and define a community. It does not have to be a smug way of setting up barriers , but a short-hand for linking up with shared interests.

So  I want to put in the voice that says  , let's carry on using the short-hand , AND pay attention to who it might exclude.

Just came across this jargon guide on the BASSAC site.

Here is another twist on jargon. These come from business but I feel that the voluntary and community sector is just as guilty!

Most Annoying Business Expressions from Loren Steffy's Houston Chronicle business blog.

See also  Here is the City

• Paradigm shift - The most overblown euphemism for “change” since “sea change.”
• Sea change.
• Swung to a profit/loss - A staple of Wall Street Journal earnings stories, it conjures images of Tarzan as an accountant.
• Downsize (or its variations including “right sized” or “reductions in force.”) - They’re being fired, folks.
• Sell off - There’s no selling without buying.
  
• Leaving for personal reasons/to spend more time with his family -  Yeah, right.
• The pendulum has swung too far - Based on my understanding of physics, pendulums, by definition, can’t swing too far.
• We are cooperating fully with the investigation -  After which our CEO will be leaving to spend more time with his family.
• Profit taking - It’s called selling.
• Reviewing our strategic alternatives - It’s called selling.
• Merger of equals - The business version of jumbo shrimp.
• Forward-looking statements - Lawyers must get paid by the word. For the rest of us, “forecast” or “prediction” works just fine.
• Quiet period - A legal fiction that grew out of a rule prohibiting companies from hyping their stock before selling shares to the public.
• 'Greed is good' - It’s a misquote, it’s overused, and if you think it’s funny, you missed the point of the movie.
• Pre-owned - A mangling of the English language to avoid the truth: used.
• Pre-approved - A mangling of the English language to hide how lenders see you: a sucker.
• Zero-percent financing/interest - How about 'no interest'?
• The next Enron - There will never be another.
• Organic growth/grow the business - Plants and animals grow. Businesses, at least successful ones, expand.
• The customer experience - I don’t want to have an experience. I just want to buy stuff and leave.
• Going forward - What to remember to do next time, so that you don't [mess] up.
• Negative growth - Shrinkage.
• Involuntary attrition - Redundancies
• Weighted pipeline - An internal and highly secretive measure of the plausibility of the business that the sales team claims to be pursuing over an undetermined future period of time.
• Reach out - Why not simply 'call' or 'contact' ?
• Thinking outside the box - Not thinking at all.
• Synergies - Redundancies
• Human Resources - Personnel

I would ban 'going forward'. It adds nothing to the meaning. Do those people who use 'going forward' not realise that time does not go backward? We all managed with 'from now on' before 2006. We're all going to die, going forward.

My other pet hates are using 'leverage' as a verb and 'enterprise' or 'business' as an adjective to impress people. I leveraged a toothbrush this morning to remove plaque. It was an enterprise brush I did - for the whole of my mouth, not just those molars. I then had a business shower using a leading-edge human faciliities solution. There was business evidence to suggest that I needed to buy some more toothpaste (I had run out of the old tube) so I went to the shops and thought, my teeth need a solution going forward. 

Great article here from Trina Wallace at ngo media about charity jargon. She lists nine words we should avoid in 2011:

• robust
• deliver
• empower
• engage
• facilitate
• impact
• leverage
• roll-out
• service user
• stakeholder

See the full Guardian article including her alternative terms to use in their place.