A few weeks ago I shared Why Stories Are Important for Nonprofits and promised some more ideas on how to actually write those stories. In their marketing book, Made to Stick (Amazon link), Chip Heath and Dan Heath identify three different types of inspirational stories: the Challenge Plot, the Creativity Plot and the Connection Plot. They each have…
“A story is a fact, wrapped in an emotion that compels us to take an action that transforms our world.” – Richard Maxwell and Robert Dickman in The Elements of Persuasion Starting in March, I will share more on how to write stories, but today we get down to the basics in case storytelling isn’t…
Using photos or graphics in your communications is an important strategy. But there are times and places where you have to rely on words alone to create a scene and engage your reader. Microcontent, as defined by Jakob Nielsen, is short content that needs to be immediately clear and inviting to a reader, and which still make sense…
Most nonprofit communicators consider themselves to be good writers. But what really sets apart the great writers in the nonprofit world is mastery of seven distinct types of copywriting. 1. Microcontent Microcontent refers to the short but powerful pieces of copy you find in headlines, subject lines, captions, and tweets. 2. Storytelling Nonprofit storytelling refers…
Your readers will only gobble up small pieces of information at a time. Writing concisely has always been an important skill for nonprofit communicators, but email and social media have made it a necessity. To get your message across, you have to say it well and say it fast. You can’t expect supporters to dive…
The end of the year is BUUUUSSY. Stressing out about trying to come up with social media posts or ideas for your blog or newsletter is the last thing you need to be doing. Use these writing prompts taken from our Monthly Nonprofit Writing Prompts email newsletter to help you think a little more creatively about your…
Let’s start with a cartoon in honor of Halloween: This is a mock up of my new business, an October #HauntedHouse#amwriting #amreading #vss #TrueStory #PicOfTheDay #ThursdayThoughts #TuesdayMotivation #horror #Grammar #Syntax #TurnBack #scary #house #Halloween #MyFavoriteHalloweenTradition pic.twitter.com/9N8Dn1YoS0 — Arthur Unk (@ArthurUnkTweets) October 16, 2018 <SHUDDERS> Yesterday, I shared a few things that scare me and what…
A few months ago, we talked about How Your Nonprofit’s Personality Influences Content and broke down why we need to see your nonprofit’s personality in your communications. At the end of that post, we listed 50 positive personality traits and asked you to pick three to five that you wanted your supporters to associate with…
No doubt, you’ve struggled with some of these situations before: Program staff who are supposed to be reviewing for accuracy instead want to argue with your punctuation choices. Your executive director pulls the plug on an appeal letter right before the package is supposed to go to print because “it doesn’t sound like me.” Five…
Get Straight to the Point When You’re Writing While a warm-up is essential when you’re exercising, it only slows down your nonprofit writing. We often feel like we have to give our readers more background than they actually need. It’s that whole “Curse of Knowledge” thing we’ve talked about so many times. (The “Curse of…
You’ve probably heard that you need to make your supporters the hero of your story. It’s really at the heart of creating supporter-centered communications – talk about how awesome your supporters are for helping as opposed to how awesome you are. But every hero needs a villain, right? While you may not have a nemesis…
If you have never been to a Waffle House, the title of this blog post made absolutely zero sense to you. If you have been to a Waffle House, then you know they have yummy hashbrowns. And you also know they can be ordered in a variety of delicious ways: Scattered on the grill (in…
