After 30 years of working with nonprofits, hosts Gena and Chris discuss three common mistakes that writers often make when writing for non-profit organizations. These include the excessive focus on asking for help without celebrating the wins, constantly changing branding messages, and overuse of organization-specific jargon. Insights are also shared on how to execute effective communication strategies for non-profit organizations. This video is beneficial for anyone aiming to optimize their written communication for non-profit fundraising and awareness campaigns.

00:00 Introduction to Non-Profit Writing Mistakes

02:28 Mistake 1: Overemphasis on the Ask

06:14 Mistake 2: Inconsistent Branding Message

09:45 Mistake 3: Overuse of Jargon

12:08 Recap and Preview of Next Episode

13:29 Conclusion and Sign Off

LINKS:

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• Write with us! Join Chris, Gena, and Rene each Wednesday at noon Central and let's get our writing DONE! https://www.writingmoments.com

What are three big mistakes writers make when writing for non profits?

Hey, we can help with that.

Hey, Gena.

Hey, Chris.

What are three mistakes that people can make when writing for non profits?

Wow, that's a mouthful.

I know, we're gonna talk about that today.

So Gena and I have written for non profits for years.

Decades.

Yeah, literally decades.

It makes me feel very old when you say that.

I don't know if I want to use the word decades when it comes to things I do.

But yes, we've been writing for non profits for decades we've written for

speakers and pastors and ministers and non profits that have to do

with ministry, non profits that have to do with like helping people.

Humanitarian, international, all across the board and as we have done so we have

been writers ourselves for these different organizations and we have worked with

writers For all of these organizations and we have found that there are some general

mistakes that writers make when they're writing for nonprofits, and we thought

we'd just share three of those today.

And I would say that these are mistakes that not only the writers

make but the editors make as well.

You can sometimes find that even if you write with the things in

mind that we're talking about.

Sometimes you'll come across editors that will want to edit these things out because

they are going toward these mistakes they're doing these things that they

haven't necessarily studied some of the things we're going to talk about today.

And I do want to point out though that these are things that we've learned

over the years that we have been taught from mentors who are mentoring

us in the nonprofit space and things that we have learned that just work

and that we want to keep in mind.

And once you make the shift here for the non profit, you will quickly

realize it when you are writing it.

You will quickly be able to see what we're talking about.

What's interesting about some of these items too is that they really

apply to more than just non profits.

Some of these are just general marketing or writing techniques and

strategies

strategies to consider and so even if you don't write for nonprofits I think you'll

find this actually quite insightful.

Yeah and I think you'll also see that when you are someone who is being written

to you'll be able to say yeah that's true I don't want that I want this.

Let's get started.

The first mistake that we find that people make, that writers make, is

constantly focusing on the ask and never giving the donor, the reader,

the chance to celebrate the win.

So I think you've got to break that down for us.

I've got to break that down a little bit.

What does that mean?

So when we're talking about the ask, if you're a non profit who is raising

money for some type of an awareness in your area and you're needing money,

we're going to talk locally, say there's something in your local area

that you want to bring awareness to.

And you have this nonprofit idea and you're wanting to raise some money

so that you can expand your reach.

If you are constantly focused on give us money, your people, your

readers will begin to tune out.

Where if you can say give us money, and oh look guys, we've got this much money,

look at what we're going to be able to do.

People get excited.

People want to be a part of something successful and they

want to feel a part of that.

I think that's the key.

People want to be a part of something successful.

And it, you're saying money.

It doesn't even necessarily have to be money, right?

It could be that if you're a local non profit and you're

just asking people to come help.

We need volunteers.

Please come help.

If that's the message people hear all the time, but there's never the celebration

of what their help is doing, then people become very fatigued with that.

They begin to feel like, ah, they're just asking for help again.

They just want more help.

Or, I helped last time and I keep helping and I keep trying to

make a difference, but it doesn't seem like it's doing anything.

You know what?

I'm going to stay home.

Yeah, so how might you celebrate a win in a letter or another form of media?

I think you have to work in not only again, ask what you need to ask.

And we'll talk about that a little bit later, but ask what you need to ask.

But then maybe if you're looking for volunteers to help with something,

maybe you spotlight a volunteer.

Maybe you take time to spotlight a volunteer or maybe you say, just

a simple, thank you guys so much.

We're so thankful that this many people came out to help us or we've raised this

much money and we're going to be able to do XYZ because of the money that you gave.

Let people celebrate that win.

Rather than just constantly pounding them with this is what we need.

So you're not necessarily saying it's one or the other you could include both in

the same letter or on the same web page or on the same form of communication,

even if it's social media, you can have a couple posts, one that celebrates

the win and one that's asking for help.

Absolutely, and you should.

You've got to make your ask because that's what you need to do, whatever

it is that you're wanting to do.

But you want to also work in the win.

And I think there's a way you, I will say you do want to work in the win without

making it feel like a manipulative thing.

We raised this much money, now give us 1, 000 more.

You don't want it to feel manipulative, but you want to be more and that's where

I would probably lean towards in, in one where I was highlighting the win.

I would highlight the win and then do a soft sell for the ask in that one,

not just a, we've done this, now let's do this, give me some more money.

But I would do a, let's celebrate this.

Look at what your donations are doing.

Isn't that fantastic, imagine what we could do with this much more.

Yeah, that's good.

That's good.

All right.

So another mistake that writers make when they're writing for nonprofits

is that they'll often switch the branding message midstream.

Here's what I mean.

If you ever heard a really good motto or slogan or a tagline that

you're like, wow, that's great.

And then a lot of times non profits, they hear that slogan so much internally

in their organization, they think that it's tired and it's used and

they get rid of it in less than a year and they go on to something else.

And they do that because they're thinking everyone's tired of

that, everyone's heard that.

But the truth is, if you've heard your slogan a thousand times, your listeners

have probably, or your readers have probably only heard it four or five times.

Like they haven't really associated with you yet.

And so as writers, we need to try and keep bringing those slogans, those

taglines, those phrases back and keep those associated with the brand message.

It's really about branding, right?

And I think it's funny that sometimes non profits have a hard time with

this because if you look at businesses that are for profit, they don't have

any trouble with this at all, right?

If you say, have it your way, you know instantly that we're talking about what?

Burger King.

Burger King, right?

It's been that way for years and sometimes they'll fade out with it for a little

bit and then they'll come back with it or, I'm lovin it is clearly McDonald's.

They've been using that for years now.

They could have easily rolled it out and a few months later come

out with a new one because they've got very deep pockets, right?

And they've got all these big marketing crews that can do that, but instead they

keep hammering it home again and again to where you associate that Phrase,

Slogan, Tagline with the brand so much so that sometimes you'll see for profit

businesses that'll have the name of the business, the logo of the business, and

then underneath the logo, the tagline will be up on the building with the business

because it's so associated with who they are that it's right there with it.

So be very careful about retiring taglines that may seem tired and make

sure they aren't just tired to you.

They may be good for everyone to still see.

And good for years.

I love that you brought out the profit businesses, because they do, they keep

taglines, slogans, logos for years.

They don't just keep churning them out.

Because, and here's the thing, is that when, like Chris said, somebody

could hear something a thousand times, and what we're talking about

that, is it probably appears on every snail mail letter that you send out.

It appears on every email that you send out.

It appears on all your social media that you send out.

But imagine even with social media, how many of us see every post

that an organization sends out?

Statistically, you see maybe 11 percent if you're active.

11%.

So imagine that.

So like Chris said, if an organization has put a slogan or a motto out a thousand

times, then 11 percent of that is how many times that person may have even seen it.

But how many times did they actually know that they saw it?

That's much less, so just like Chris said, be very careful before

you retire, that kind of thing.

You want the brand recognition, and as writers, you can help

bring that to the organization.

Okay, so the third one that we've come up with today is that people, and we see

this in non profits all the time, they get so connected to a phrase or language

that they use to describe their message that they forget that people outside may

never know what you're talking about.

So there's a jargon.

Now, we're not talking about slogans and logos and taglines and things like that.

We're talking about if you have a special name for your donors, or you

say you're an active, you're a how about like you're a platinum level blah

blah blah, the person on the other side of that email or social media post or

whatever may not know what that means.

They don't know what that means.

And so you have to, especially people who are new to your message.

I'll see this sometimes where people are writing a welcome sequence

for people who are just coming on board to their organization.

And they'll want to hit them with all this jargon, all this very specific language

that you think if you're someone who's new to this organization, they're not

going to know what you're talking about.

You've got to be able to break that down, which is what our job is as writers.

Yeah.

It's funny.

I can give a personal example of this because when we were coming up with

the branding for Writing Momentum.

One of the things that we thought would be cool is to call the people

who were members of Writing Momentum, and in doing this with us, we said,

hey, let's call them accelerators.

That's a really cool thing, right?

Because like you accelerate, you're gaining momentum.

We thought that's cool.

We'll call them accelerators.

And so we did that for a while until we realized no one

knew what that meant, right?

And a lot of people couldn't spell it.

Accelerator is a weird word.

Is it E R, O R at the end?

I don't know.

And so we realized that by using that special language, even though

we thought it was cool, it had completely lost its meaning.

. And so we ended up getting rid of it.

We said we're not gonna do that.

We're just gonna say, Hey, Gena!

We're gonna keep it simple.

Just use their name.

And people tend to associate that with us now.

Because we're just, yeah.

Keeping it simple.

Keeping it real.

So going back to the three mistakes that nonprofits, we see these specifically with

nonprofits or not specifically, I would say, especially with nonprofits, that we

see this with, especially with nonprofits.

One, it's focusing so much on the ask that you never share the win.

Two is switching the branding message, changing that tagline, changing that

slogan, changing that phrase or even logo, just constantly, just getting

so tired of it internally that you forget that the people outside

don't even know what it is yet.

And then three, using jargon, using personal, organizational jargon

to describe something without ever breaking it down for your reader.

That's good stuff.

I know.

So it hopefully even if you're not writing for a non profit you will still find these

very helpful in your writing And I got a secret to tell you we got more these!

These are so good we were like, hey, let's do two episodes on this.

So if you found this helpful we hope that you will rate and review

subscribe share it with someone else who you think might benefit from

knowing some of these common mistakes.

Then tune in next week because next Wednesday we're going to have another list

of three or maybe four more mistakes that writers make when writing for non profits.

Until then don't forget, together.

We have writing momentum.

Bye bye.