One of your nonprofit’s most important functions is to express your mission and vision to the world through nonprofit writing. As a nonprofit organization, you will be able to achieve many goals if you are dedicated and committed to following your mission and vision. As a nonprofit organization, you will work to inspire, educate, and build hope in communities all over the globe. To help you begin, l introduce seven nonprofit writing best practices to better communicate your mission online. Your goal as a nonprofit should be to build community and trust with your audience. These seven tenets will help you do that.
In order to effectively write about nonprofits, you need to research and analyze any topics you will write about. There are various genres for nonprofit writing. One of the easiest genres for nonprofits to fall into is education and counseling. There are several good reasons why this is a great choice for nonprofit writing.
Education and counseling typically focus on helping people with their lives or other personal development needs. If you choose to write in this category, you must demonstrate your ability to apply a range of professional styles within a given assignment. Because nonprofits are generally interested in applying professional styles throughout their project, you need to understand the different ways you can use rhetorical flexibility to write about various topics. Rhetorical flexibility refers to the ability to use “voice-over” or descriptive voice, narration, or writing to tell your story through words. This ability is particularly useful in nonprofit writing because you can use it to show the audience how your organization is working to solve problems, while still maintaining your personal perspective.
Another popular nonprofit writing genre is technical communication. Technical communication usually addresses technology-related issues such as accessibility to information systems in the field. Nonprofits often use technical communication to communicate the mission and philosophy of their organization to potential donors. It also helps them show that they have developed quality software and solutions to a problem. This is a good genre to specialize in if you enjoy programming or you are already familiar with technical communication.
Nonprofit writing on a budget can also fall into the category of professional-oriented if you are an accountant. Nonprofits frequently request grant money that they know they will not be able to pay for on a straight-forward grant-by-round basis. As a result, nonprofits must learn how to effectively structure their projects so that they can accept and pay for the grants they seek without going into debt. A great way to learn this style of nonprofit writing is to complete a technical analysis assignment on a given topic or focus assignment, and then analyze the budgetary implications of the findings.
Another popular non-profit subcategory is strategic writing. In this category, authors are asked to examine the strengths and weaknesses of a given program or initiative. The purpose of this exercise is to help grant writers develop a strategic plan for their work. Strategic writing requires careful attention to detail and writing about as many details as possible. The outcome can be a very strong grant proposal that does not make sense.
The third, and perhaps most effective communication strategy for nonprofits is to write to your donors. You have two options when writing to your donors: One, you can send them an email; or two, you can call them. If you choose to send an email, here’s a quick nonprofit writing tip: Make sure that the email you send them comes directly from your organization, and includes a statement or two about what your organization is doing. If you call your donors, ask them to call you.
One final tip for nonprofits: You should always remember that you are speaking to two types of donors: One, the people who give you donations; and Two, the people who volunteer your organization’s services in return for a donation. Many nonprofit organizations forget this one fundamental fact, but it can have disastrous effects on your writing. For instance, if you have solicited donations for your nonprofit and you have written to your donors to request funds for various projects, you might be missing some of their financial needs. Or worse yet, your donors may view you as tone deaf when it comes to addressing their needs. Follow these three strategies for writing to your donors and you will surely reap the benefits.
