For a nonprofit, content strategy refers to all of the planning, creation, and dissemination of content used to tell your organization's story.
Your nonprofit’s content is a powerful strategy that can be used to convey your organization’s mission and vision. It’s vital to the telling of your story. It includes everything – photos, videos, articles, newsletters, and more.
Putting some time and thought into how you approach it is pretty important because content plays a significant role in how your organization attracts donors and supporters.
An effective content strategy should be focused on achieving these three goals; inspire people to donate; build trust among your donors, and build your nonprofit evangelists.
Inspire people to donate
Your stories are the foundation of everything. You and your organization are changing the world and accomplishing amazing things. This is your chance to let the world know the impact you are making. People's hearts are moved by stories because they can see themselves in the shoes of the individual and they can connect emotionally with what the individual is passing through. Studies have found that emotional impact is greater when you connect your potential donor to an individual story, and this is why you should leverage individual storytelling.
Share heartfelt stories of the good work you're doing, of the individual, family, or community whose lives have been changed for the better. Talk about the issue you’re out to address, the negative effects it has, and the hope that your efforts have brought to the situation.
Build trust among your donors.
Donor loyalty is largely dependent on establishing trust with your nonprofit's supporters. To get your donors to keep supporting your cause, you need to communicate how their donations are being used and what impact they have had. Communicating how their donations are being used helps build trust and will increase their willingness to continue giving.
One way that you can build trust with your donors is through content marketing. Communicate with your donors using your nonprofit's blog, social media pages, and website to let them know about the good things that are happening as a result of their generosity and the difference that they are making by supporting your nonprofit's cause. The more they see of your organization's good work, the more trusting they will be of your organization.
Build your “nonprofit evangelists”
As you tell stories about the good work that your nonprofit is doing, some people will be inspired to donate to your cause, and some might go beyond that and will propagate your good impact.
These motivated and inspired people will become your nonprofit evangelists. A brand evangelist is a donor or supporter of a nonprofit who passionately extols the organization's virtues in an effort to engage their friends, family, and social media followers.
Evangelists are attracted to compelling content that highlights the value of an organization and how it is making a difference. Make sure your content provides resources for them to share with others who might be interested. You can ask your current evangelists and biggest supporters to contribute content to your blog. This will humanize your cause and share stories about why people are getting involved with your organization.
Conclusion
Your content strategy is one of the most important factors in determining whether your organization will attract donors and supporters, and most importantly, retain them.
The average donor retention rate is hovering around 40-45% across the nonprofit sector. That means less than half of donors donate more than once. An effective content strategy can help improve it, this is because it plays a significant role in informing your supporters who you are, what you do, what makes your organization unique, and why they should support it. If your content is dry or poorly planned out, the chances are that your supporters won't find what they're looking for—and if they can't find it, chances are they'll go somewhere else.
If you need support with your donor strategy book a free consultation, also for more content and resources subscribe to our newsletter www.collective-impact.app and podcast.