Content Strategy for Social Impact: Building Trust and Community by Engaging Donors Through Authentic Content

Content is king and more important than ever as we navigate the changes in social algorithms, Web 3.0, and the uptick in advertising spend and volume. This is especially true for social impact organizations that operate with limited resources. It’s important to be intentional about your marketing, even if it means doing less.

To avoid overspending in the digital ad space, start looking to your owned media.

Your website (and emails) should be more than a place to donate or make a purchase. It should be how you build awareness, community, and support. The next generations of donors are far more intentional about philanthropy and, therefore, want to know more about your cause and why they should be involved. Millennials and Gen Z donors are also far more likely to give unrestricted donations to organizations they trust. While their donations may be smaller now, marketing to them in a way that feels authentic is a worthwhile long-term investment.

Before we jump into content strategy dos and don'ts, let’s chat a bit about the current state of non-profit content marketing. Social impact organizations tend to fall into two traps:

1. Being transactional

2. Writing for the wrong audience

If your emails read like this: “URGENT! We need your support NOW!” then you’re leading with a transactional approach because chances are, this urgent fear-based messaging isn’t a one-off for a truly dire need. Emails like this, with regular cadence, are a common transactional marketing approach, which is the antithesis of brand and community building. While effective in the short term, it can be a hindrance in the long run.

Pro tip – Urgent messages and needs for support do come up, so when sharing the problem, also share the progress. Otherwise, donors are left feeling like their financial support is a drop into a bottomless collection plate.

How Did We Get Here?

Data. Now, before you come for my head, hear me out. Data is a valuable tool when you use it to measure the right things, but with the ability to measure everything, marketers started to make all decisions solely based on data. Large awareness campaigns became micro revenue campaigns. While for-profit companies have started to pivot toward product refinement and community building, social impact organizations are still knee-deep in performance marketing, leaving little time for branding and community building. Between access to data and the constant need for contributed revenue, conversion metrics became the holy grail, so transactional marketing stuck. Tracking ROI has been great for the marketer but not so much for the customer. This leads me to my next point: pitfall number two, writing for the wrong audience.

Distrust among budding philanthropists is growing because of messaging. Audiences feel less connected to the content because it doesn’t feel like it’s written for them. Oftentimes, it feels like it was written for the organization by the organization. Instead of being informative and optimistic while still candid about the problem, everything is about how the donor should help the organization and how it needs to happen now… or else. When organizations do share optimistic content, lengthy and flowery messages ordinarily used for grant awards are just repurposed for donors. While I agree that repurposing content is a smart use of resources, you must make necessary adjustments for the channel and the reader.

Let’s Jump Into Content Strategy

First and foremost, balance is an important tactic to exercise. Social impact organizations obviously need transactional messaging but try to be more in service of your community than you are in need of their money. A three-to-one messaging approach is a good place to start. For every three messages you share, there should be one ask for support. To formulate the other three messages, learn your audience inside out and use data to help.

As I mentioned, data is a wonderful tool, but we don’t need to measure everything. Using data for customer insights and behavior patterns will help you make informed decisions to support your anecdotal evidence.

Once you’ve researched who your audience is, who you’d like your audience to be, and identified your goals, consider the following for a winning content marketing strategy:

1. Have you communicated your needs? Your supporters should be very clear on your issue area and how you are solving the problems that plague it. They should also be well-versed on how their contributions have been utilized and the progress report on what’s been accomplished so far. It’s equally important to avoid bending the truth to exaggerate impact or hide shortcomings altogether.

2. How are you delivering value? Your organization is the expert on your cause, so you should lead the conversation by providing insight and information about the state of the industry you’re serving. This could be trends, education, or providing your unique point of view on how the industry could improve.

3. Are you providing opportunities for advocacy? Beyond donations, sharing compelling stories, talking points, and ways they can take action on their own are ways to engage your community that are not centered around transactions.

Keep in mind that content strategy takes time and flexibility. Content marketing is designed to build community because it’s innately mutually beneficial to the reader and the organization. Like most relationships, you need to provide a benefit to your supporters. Make your website, videos, publications, and so on a go-to destination for your cause. This way, you can maintain the need to gain monetary support without compromising your value to your community.

Pro tip: When writing, use inclusive language like “we,” “us,” and “our.” Phrases like “the community” make the organization sound like a separate entity rather than an embedded resource.

Donors want to help organizations. They want to make a difference, and we, as professional advocates, can build phenomenal communities if we start to be more transparent about our impact. The root of what we do is so special because it’s entrenched with passion and commitment. It’s time we share that internal magic with our external audiences.

Join me for part two next week as we discuss how to use these tips to set up your website to be more community-driven and customer or donor-centric.