How to avoid common nonprofit copywriting mistakes

(and write great, original content)

Tip Sheet

Start with your audience. Clearly define and get into the minds of your audience for each communication, creating ‘marketing personas’.

Define your communications objective. For every individual piece of content that you write, ask yourself: what is it you want to achieve with this communication? Pick one main objective to guide your writing. Establish your main message. Different from your objective, distill what you want to say in your communication into one sentence. Communicate benefits. Chart out the features and benefits of taking action for your nonprofit and incorporate the benefits directly into your copy. Answer questions. Start offering information that your audiences are seeking, by answer their questions. Tap into existing insights available from your peers. Remember ‘you’ in the copy. Count the number of times ‘you’ appears in your copy, versus ‘we’, ’our’ or ’us’. Particularly when you’re hoping to inspire action, make sure you hit a 3:1 ratio. Don’t use acronyms. Stop using an acronym instead of your organization’s name. Your acronym might be in use by tens, hundreds, even thousands of other organizations. Check at http://www.acronymfinder.com Avoid jargon, technical or overly formal language. Avoid terms that are for those ‘in the know’. Look for terms that raise the complexity of your writing and replace them with simple, plain language. Leave time for reviews and time to walk away: Build in time to be able to walk away from your content and revisit with fresh eyes. Use an editorial calendar: Establish a schedule for what will be updated, revisited and created when, to help prevent copywriting under pressure.

For more resources and help with your nonprofit copywriting, check out moflow.ca/blog.