Want more donations? We’ll show you how to check your messages, ditch boring words, and tell clear stories that get people to give.
How can your team stop using vague, safe words and start talking in a bold way that brings in steady money? You've got to check all your communication, get rid of boring, inside-baseball words, and tell stories that feel real. If you do that, you'll create a message that donors immediately get and remember.
Who should check their nonprofit's message and why?
Everyone in charge of getting money and sharing your mission—like the executive director, the marketing person, and the fundraising leader—should do a message check. Think of your message like a secret password. If your team keeps talking using inside words and acronyms, it's like changing the password all the time without telling anyone. Your work is super important, but your outside messages get boring, stiff, and don't inspire people who want to donate. It's time to stop wearing the "beige uniform" that makes you blend in with everyone else.
A planned check helps you find your organization's special way of telling its story again. Instead of sounding like every other nonprofit, you can build a clear, memorable way of talking that gets noticed in a noisy online world. This check makes sure that every email, social post, and request for money you send out helps people connect with you even more.
What are the main steps for changing your message?
To make your brand voice much better, your team needs to follow a simple plan. This plan challenges the old, safe ways people think about "professional" writing.
Check What You're Doing Now: Gather examples from everywhere you talk to people and see if they sound too much like a stuffy business.
Break Down the Boring Words: Take out the complicated, passive words, the vague phrases, and the buzzwords that a committee probably approved.
Rebuild Around the Curve: Put your group's unique personality, what you value, and your special style back into the writing.
Establish Long-Term Guardrails: Create simple checklists to prevent future message drift.
Step 1: Gather all your messages and look them over
Start by finding your recent donation requests, newsletter stories, website pages, and social media posts. Read them one after the other, like you're a critic. Look for places where your team cared more about sounding "proper" than sounding like real people. If your writing sounds like a textbook, you've found a huge problem that's stopping people from giving again and again.
Step 2: Get rid of confusing words and inside talk
This part requires editing without mercy. You've got to remove words that hide the truth of what you do every day. For example, instead of saying "marginalized demographics," use clear, human words to describe the neighbors you help. Unlike business writing, good fundraising needs real things you can touch or see (concrete nouns) and action words (active verbs). If a sentence doesn't help a donor picture a problem or a solution clearly, you must cut it out.
How do you keep this special way of talking going?
Once you've fixed your messages, you've got to put simple rules in place so everyone on your team stays consistent. Make a one-page guide that clearly shows how you should sound. Point out good ways to say things, how long sentences should be, and the words you've banned forever from your group's vocabulary.
Check this guide every time you hire new staff or add people to your board. That way, no matter who’s writing, your brand always sounds real and focuses on connecting with people. It’s like building a strong fence around your mission’s garden: it keeps out the bad weeds (jargon) so your message can grow strong, deepen people’s trust, and get you the funding you need.
