It’s a new year, but your nonprofit or small business still has the same mission it had last year. You have only so much to say about it – and maybe you feel you’ve said it already.

These are not problems.

• It’s good that your organization still does what it does. You continue to do it because you are good at it and you thereby do some good in the world.
• It’s good that you have only so much to say about what you do. Your message is consistent. Both you and your audiences know who you are and what you do.

Your problem as a clear, effective communicator is that you can get tired of saying the same thing all the time.

You want a new way to deliver the same old messages. Here are five suggestions, illustrated by my own e-letters.

1. Rip from the headlines.
You can write about the same thing over and over again – and people will read it, over and over again – if you start with a different angle. The news is a great source for angles. For instance, I write about the importance of focusing on our audiences’ needs all the time. After the Republican National Convention last year, that favorite topic became “How to Talk to an Empty Chair.”

2. Use what you’ve done this week – at work or elsewhere.
Some people get great material from their interactions with spouses and children. My search for a home for my dead friend’s dogs gave me an e-letter on the need to keep website technology and design current.

3. Wrestle with a problem.
What’s bothering you today? Writing about it not only will give you a newsletter story but may also help you solve the problem. Guess who was having a hellish week and didn’t have her e-letter started when she wrote Have One in the Can?

4. Look around.
Literally. Look around your office, focusing on individual objects. (That’s how L. Frank Baum came up with Oz. Maybe.) Take a walk down the hall or out the door to see what you can find out there. I was visiting a friend when a monogrammed item gave me the idea to write about personalizing e-mail communications.

5. Ask.
Go to a few trusted donors or clients: What would they like to know more about? What problem are they wrestling with today? What one great thing happened last week? Or just ask outright, “What should I write about?”

The topic for this very e-letter came directly from my Facebook plea for new topic ideas. After I responded that I had already covered the ideas my friends threw out, one brilliant subscriber wrote, “How about something about keeping your message ‘fresh’. . . how to say the same things in a new way….”

(I was going to give you #6, make fun of Starbucks, but that would be wrong.)