In So Many Words with Shane Lukas

Hard truths for nonprofit and mission-driven communicators.

You didn’t take this job to maintain the status quo. You took it because you wanted to see things change. Somewhere along the way, the words got safer than the mission.

In So Many Words with Shane Lukas is a solo podcast about nonprofit communications strategy — how the language of this sector changed, who decided, and what it cost. One argument an episode. One framework you can run that week. No guests, no panel, no both-sides.

Most of those changes were real decisions, made under real pressure, to keep staff safe and the doors open. This show is about what happens next: when a choice made in fear gets left in place long after the fear has passed, and the people you serve are still waiting on the thing you exist to do.

Every episode takes a position and hands you a method — how to name what changed without blaming the person who changed it, how to write a decision down so it can be revisited, how to find out who actually carries the risk of the words you publish, and how to keep an objection reaching you while there is still time to act on it.

Made for nonprofit communications directors, nonprofit marketing directors, foundation communications teams and advocacy communicators — the people accountable for what an organization says out loud, and rarely in the room when it changes. If your work touches funder pressure, DEI language, nonprofit crisis communications, advocacy positioning or ethical storytelling, this is built for you.

Shane Lukas is the founder of A Great Idea, a brand communications studio working with nonprofits, foundations and community organizations. Thirty years as an organizer, eleven running the studio, two-time TEDx speaker.

Three episodes land Monday, November 9, 2026, then new episodes every other Wednesday. Produced by A Great Idea. Views are his own; no client of the studio appears in any episode.

Say it in so many words.

insomanywordspodcast.com