Imagine you work at a nonprofit or a foundation that. It might be a global philanthropy, a national think tank or research institute, or a community-based organization. It has multiple program team or departments focused on different issues or geographic areas of operation. There may be different offices catering to the needs of different communities. It might be an affiliate that’s part of a larger network of nonprofits.
While there is a strong sense of what the mission is, there are still disconnects. Silos and knowledge gaps are creating confusion and negatively affecting results. You just completed a five-year strategic plan review that means significant changes for how you execute your mission and people are unsure how it affects their role. And, as you’ve added new people to the team, staff have very different ways of talking about the organization’s work, down to their choice of words to describe the same thing.
The result is fragmentation that’s making people inside the organization less effective and is confusing lots of people on the outside. Now people are talking about the need to clarify your organization’s identity. It’s time to create the clarity that everyone needs to be aligned in purpose, be clear about strategy and goals, and know how to effectively represent the organization’s values every day.
In short, your nonprofit needs brand clarity.
EBB (External Branding Bias) Syndrome
So, what comes to mind when you talk about branding? For many people, it’s external things like messaging, design, and experiences. Of course, it is, in part, these things. How a brand is projected and experienced is essential to engaging people to support a nonprofit’s mission and to connect people who can benefit from it. External branding is essential to nonprofits cultivate their reputation and build relationships with people. And every experience a nonprofit creates with its brand, online and in person, contributes to how well people understand it and how much they trust it.
Nonprofits often have a bias towards external branding. One reason is that nonprofits direct so much of their energy to partnering with and serving others. In addition, branding was historically viewed in the nonprofit sector a tool for communications and fundraising, as opposed to a strategic asset for mission implementation. Nonprofits also can be understandably reluctant (or not allowed) to spend resources on themselves that could go directly to programs or to drive revenue.
But, while, as the saying goes, “your brand isn’t what you say you are, it’s what they say you are,” brands are built from the inside-out. So while it’s essential to use external branding to engage audiences outside of the organization, using it to focus the mission and cultivate the right kind of internal behavior, actions, and culture matters even more. After all, how can we expect people on the outside to believe in an nonprofit’s ability to make a difference if the people working on the mission aren’t fully aligned with the ideas that the organization stands for—and cohesive in how they live these ideas? And how can a nonprofit expect its people to live up to its lofty ambitions and do hard things in service of them if they are unclear and not fully bought into the brand idea?
Aligning Aspirations, Operations & Communications
A strong brand is important to every organization’s success. It’s particularly important for nonprofits for many reasons. Nonprofit work is heavily values-driven, and people have different interpretations of what any particular value means to them. The work is complex, requires context, and can be difficult explain—especially if it involves solving systemic issues and systems themselves. Impact that often follows a long arc of change can be more difficult to measure (and achieve) than the results that businesses work towards in the for-profit world. Funding opportunities (and requirements) can lead to mission creep that steals focus—the very thing that a strong brand provides.
An effective branding process provides nonprofits with the clarity and buy-in that leads to a strong sense of self, organizational alignment, and thee ability for staff to authentically “live the brand” at every level, from strategic planning to daily interactions. It’s a process that takes time and commitment, and it’s about much more than what your brand looks and sounds like. Yes, building a brand means developing positioning and messaging, strategically designing a visual identity, and then expressing them through communications. But the ultimate goal of strategic brand development is much bigger than just a new logo and website with updated messaging. Done right, brand strategy and branding offer nonprofits powerful tools to increase their cohesion, capacity, and impact.
When done thoughtfully and thoroughly, brand work has incredible power to transform an organization, both on the inside and outside. Even better, it aligns how the brand is understood and acted on inside the organization with how the brand is projected and experienced by others outside the organization. It creates the authenticity and integrity all great organizations need to thrive—especially purpose-led ones, where trust is paramount.
When Constructive’s team is partnering with a nonprofit on brand strategy work, our aim is to deliver the greatest possible value through the process by both strengthening and connecting three pillars of how nonprofits execute put their mission into action. The idea is to provide partners with the insights and tools they need to connect their aspirations, operations, and communications. Here’s what it looks like:
Aspirations: Every nonprofit is driven by a mission. This mission, though, is just a call-to-action for something that’s much, much bigger because it’s deeply felt by different people in different ways. Aspirations are the true fuel that drives an engine of impact. Aspirations are deeply held values that guide how we would like the world to be and how we would like to be seen. They are also the concrete, tangible outcomes of a mission—the vision of what change looks like. A nonprofit brand strategy needs to do more than just create clarity on the mission—it must also give voice to the aspirations of everyone helping to advance it.
Operations: A nonprofit’s structure and processes are the how the organization designs itself to execute its strategic plan. Countless choices determine how effective these things will be in advancing the mission. Brand strategy work that go deeper than surface-level definitions of “brand personality” creates value propositions for the roles a nonprofit performs. It connects “the how” of change strategies to the value that a nonprofit’s expertise and work streams create in its impact ecosystem. And the more clear everyone within a nonprofit is about what the brand stands for and how it puts these ideas into action, the better decision making is about the structures and processes am organization designs to advance its mission.
Communications: Communications both tell a brand’s story and help nonprofits share the value they have to offer—whether that’s by making information and resources available through a website or engaging communities in campaigns. Most nonprofit is extremely familiar with these roles for communications and they invest in them to engage audiences. The more aligned these external communications are with the ideas that a brand stands for, the more clearly an organization can express its purpose. And, looking inward, when the same care, attention, and creativity are applied to internal communications, nonprofits bring the brand to life with the people who show up every day to put the mission into motion.
It’s What’s Inside That Matters
We tell our children not to judge others by how they look. But we’re social and visual beings, and appearances do matter. Brands use design and messaging to turn what’s on the inside (ideas, intentions, and abilities) into something tangible that others can experience (communications and interactions). The sum of those experiences is what people think of us. Assets like brand architecture, positioning platforms, and design systems are great for helping organizations influence the appearance of their brand and create meaningful experiences. But as we tell our kids, it’s what inside that really matters.
When it comes to rebranding a nonprofit organization, in my experience leadership usually embraces this value, but only to a degree. And that’s understandable—it’s hard to get too involved when there are more pressing concerns to worry about. There’s also the reality that legacy perceptions of branding as a tool for communications and development, rather than a strategic asset for mission implementation, persist. The result often is a surface-level approach to brand building that leaves a lot of value on the table.
Of course, even that level of branding produces insights that can help nonprofits create more effective communications. Unfortunately, too often the work fails to go beyond the surface. Strategy stays locked-up in documents that gather dust on a shelf, momentum is lost, and the work never becomes the broader catalyst for greater impact that it was intended to be.
Nonprofits that want to use their brand to increase their impact need to design it into their organizations, not just their communications. That’s how you increase a nonprofit’s perceived and actual value. And the key is a brand development process that focuses and aligns your aspirations, operations, and communications — one that improves the organization’s capacity for strategic thinking, more effectively engages stakeholders both inside and outside the organization, and leads to greater impact.
Understood this way, it’s easy to see how important an internal focus on branding is to a nonprofit’s ability to achieve the impact it seeks. The next question then is, what are the benefits of internal branding?
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver has been a fixture of my Sunday nights for years now—helping me cope with, or at the very least, hold space for laughter throughout the collective trauma of the 2016 election, mass shootings, Trump presidency, police brutality, and the COVID-19 pandemic. It wasn’t until recently that I realized it’s not just the jokes that keep me coming back for more. It’s the series’ expert handling of storytelling that’s kept me a regular viewer for eight seasons. Its use of systems stories, data, humor, and audience engagement provides a praiseworthy framework that all storytellers, particularly those in the nonprofit storytelling space, can put to use in their own communications.
Before I dive into that framework, here’s a quick rundown of what Last Week Tonight is all about in case you’re unfamiliar. The series host, John Oliver, begins each episode with a short monologue about the most recent or relevant news of the week. After a lighthearted break for the “And Now, This” segment, he moves into the meat of the episode: “the Main Story.” This is where my analysis of the show’s storytelling chops begins and it’s where, every week, I’m impressed with the show’s use of the following storytelling strategies:
Systems act as the main characters
If you were to look at the Last Week Tonight Youtube page you’d notice that almost every “Main Story” is about a system—with the exception of a few episodes dedicated to people who have done some exceptionally horrible things. This fact points to the show’s knowing or unknowing commitment to “systems storytelling,” which is the technique of making a system one of the main characters in a story. Police raids, long-term care, the national debt, and bankruptcy are some of the most recent systems John Oliver and his team have interrogated for the benefit of its viewers. And while these systems act as the main character in each episode’s story, they are not the only characters.
Personal stories play a supportive, but essential role in Last Week Tonight. During any given episode, multiple personal stories are highlighted to demonstrate the ways in which a system impacts peoples’ lives and as a method of advancing the overall narrative. In the clip below (at the 3:12 timestamp), a couple shares that they “can’t afford to go bankrupt.” This personal anecdote enables John Oliver to move into a deeper conversation about the costs of filing for bankruptcy and the systemic causes for those costs.
Social impact storytellers, take note. Centering a story around a system as well as the people it impacts is one of the most effective strategies for building support for systemic solutions. A personal story without a system implicated doesn’t just miss an opportunity to inform about systems change–it can also advance the harmful narrative that individuals are responsible for solving entrenched, systemic inequities.
Data plays a supportive and contextual role
Last Week Tonight also employs data and statistics to tell a compelling story. “Main Stories” never lead with statistics; rather, they’re incorporated into the narrative much like personal stories are—to support and demonstrate the urgency of the point being made. While that might seem like a small detail, this use of data points to a bigger principle of narrative framing that this article on SSIR explains: ”Countering misinformation with fact-based rebuttals rarely works. In fact, a good deal of research into the psychology of persuasion finds that yelling louder from an entrenched position doesn’t just fall flat, it can actually be counterproductive.”
When social impact storytellers lead with data—usually with the best of intentions—audiences who might be unfamiliar with, or skeptical about, the issue at hand can become defensive, looking for explanations of the data that fit their existing belief systems. But when it’s incorporated contextually within a narrative, audiences can better grasp the concepts the numbers relate to. In short, they aren’t given the chance to explain away the data presented.
Humor disrupts hopelessness
The systemic issues John Oliver covers, and those that social impact organizations are working to solve, are urgent issues that in many cases are highly emotional. As a result, it can be tempting to frame these issues as crises inflicting immeasurable harm on people and the planet. And while this might be true, an overreliance on crisis-framing in storytelling actually depresses support for issues. It forces audiences to assume that their efforts to support issues would be hopeless in the face of such an enduring crisis. A story intended to be inspiring becomes, well, exhausting.
Last Week Tonight avoids the trap of crisis-framing by incorporating humor into its storytelling. Well-timed jokes break up the heavy emotional appeal of the show’s stories, helping hold viewers’ attention without overwhelming them. When paired with suggesting solutions—which I’ll detail next— this strategy turns a hopeless problem into one that’s possible to solve.
For most social impact organizations, humor isn’t an effective communications strategy. But there are other ways they can break up heavy content, particularly on social impact websites. Peppering in success stories, data that shows what’s possible, or video content can also disrupt the overwhelming nature of the issue being communicated about.
Actions end the story with a sense of what’s possible
Finally, one of the most unique and effective elements of Last Week Tonight’s storytelling is its commitment to solutions. Every “Main Story” segment ends with tangible actions viewers can take to support the topic issue. These actions range from individual actions like buying John Oliver-branded stamps to support the USPS, to systemic actions like supporting proposed policies. Sometimes, Last Week Tonight even facilitates a more organic movement for change on social media, by suggesting viewers tweet about the issue with a unique, and usually witty, hashtag. Whatever the method, ending a story with potential actions and a vision of what success looks like helps turn passive audiences into active advocates for change. Even if viewers don’t take the suggested action, awareness that solutions exist is a win in itself—further dismantling the view that change is hopeless.
By ending a narrative with concrete actions or systemic solutions, social impact storytellers ensure that their audiences feel inspired to take action. And since social impact organizations often create or advocate for the solutions proposed, this practice also provides an organic opportunity to promote the organization’s work and ask for support.
Final thoughts
Social impact storytelling is now ubiquitous. But that doesn’t mean everyone’s getting it right all the time. Heck, it’s still a work in progress for our team! From ethical storytelling to weekly TV series, I’m certainly finding inspiration all around me. I hope the ideas Last Week Tonight incorporates, from systems storytelling and data to crisis-framing and solutions, help advance your organization’s perceptions of what makes a story “good.”
Big changes are coming to the world of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, in 2021. What does this mean for your nonprofit, think tank, research institute, or foundations if you want to improve your nonprofit website’s SEO?
Taking some time out to adapt to the evolving SEO landscape will augment your organization’s reach and visibility, and as such, its impact. Being well-optimized for search will elevate your brand presence by ensuring that your content reaches the right audiences. This, in turn, will guarantee increased traffic—of new and returning audiences—interested in your work.
Increasing search visibility for your organization involves keeping tabs on several features such as keyword optimization, links, tagging and more. With so much information out there on how best to optimize for search, what are the most important things you can be doing right now to enhance your performance?
SEO Best Practice #1: Optimize Your On-Site Experience
You may wonder why our first tip involves such technical punchlist items as page load time, mobile-friendliness, rendering time, image file optimization, and security protocol loading. Good technical builds are always important for your nonprofit’s website, and what’s under the hood of your website matters as much as what people see.
Google recently announced that Core Web Vitals will be a major ranking factor going forward, meaning that how well your website is built is more important to SEO than ever. Simply put, good Core Web Vitals means that the faster and more efficiently your site performs on a technical level, the more likely your pages are to appear at the top of search results for keywords relevant to your organization. And ranking high is synonymous with higher visibility and augmented impact for your organization.
So, what can you do to improve these metrics for your site? Well, before you try to create a solution, take a step back and diagnose your current situation. A great place to start is with this free tool Google provides called PageSpeed Insights.
PageSpeed Insights scores your nonprofit’s website according to page load times and other important technical metrics. It even breaks down page load times into individual components so that you can identify which technical elements (is it your code? is it the servers?!) are contributing to any slower-than-optimal speed. The example below shows you some of the information PageSpeed Insights will give you.
SEO Best Practice #2: Publish More Long-Form Content
It used to be that SEO gurus preached the gospel of the 500-word article (sometimes the 250-word article!) with a very strict keyword density. But times have changed and long-form content has seen major gains in terms of search visibility recently. This makes sense as the more in-depth a piece is, the more authoritative, and hopefully useful, that content will be to audiences. Google search has always prioritized authority and relevance in its rankings, so this trend was perhaps inevitable. Fortunately, for most nonprofits with content-heavy websites and research institutes creating high-value, high-quality long-form content isn’t a big hurdle to overcome.
To take advantage of the SEO trend towards long-form content performing better, start by designing space for your nonprofit’s issue-area experts to offer their perspective—and make sure your nonprofit website’s CMS is designed to make it easy for them. Not everything you publish has to be a multi-thousand page report, either. Just make sure each piece is over 500 words. And while jargon can make website content less accessible, for nonprofits like research institutes and think tanks, that jargon can often be one of the highest-performing content for SEO.
Also, remember that your website probably already has a lot of great content that can perform well for SEO. So, if you’ve already got substantial long-form content on your nonprofit website that you believe is of value to your audience and it’s not seeing the organic search traffic you’d expect, consider re-optimizing the page with an eye towards search terms readily used by your audience related to the content. All the best practices for SEO content development still apply—you can (carefully) update page URLs, titles, description tags and even headers and see improvements in web traffic, even for older content.
SEO Best Practice #3: Make Sure It’s Mobile Friendly
It can be tempting in the desktop computer-heavy world of nonprofit organizations to assume that your mobile website comes in a distant second, in terms of importance, when optimizing your experience. But Google continues to make it clear that mobile websites will be treated as the “face” of your website more and more going forward.
It’s also important to remember that about 50% of all web traffic is on mobile devices today. While that number is often lower for think tanks and research institutes due to office environment use, the trend towards mobile is picking up everywhere and has been majorly accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic (which sent many formerly office-bound users home or to “beach offices”).
So, how should nonprofits handle this new mobile-first world? First of all, be sure to prioritize best practices to make your nonprofit website mobile-friendly. It’s absolutely essential, for one, to make sure that every piece of content available on the desktop version of the website is accessible from the mobile website. This means no “crib notes” versions of your website for mobile any longer. All of your website’s content needs to be available on the mobile version of your website—and, of course, your site also needs to load quickly and be easy to navigate on a mobile device.
SEO Best Practice #4: Include Featured Snippets
Audiences online often have questions, that’s no secret. And for nonprofits that bring deep expertise in complex social issues, that’s a huge opportunity to take advantage of an important aspect of how search engines work. If you’ve ben searching online often, you’ve probably noticed some new designs in Google’s search results pages—specifically, featured snippets that speak directly to questions that users have when searching online. Google search sort of exists to answer people’s questions, so answering questions is a new best practice for nonprofit website if you want to rank higher in search results for your issue area. Take for example this search:
The website above dominates the search result to this question-formed query by posting Q and A content on their websites. A great way to hop on featured snippet SEO trend bandwagon is to ask: What are the top questions that your audiences have when learning about your nonprofit’s work or the issues you focus on? Once you’ve identified these questions, backpedal and use them as the bedrock of your nonprofit’s content strategy. Make sure that the content you’re creating for your website helps your audiences answer these questions. This will help ensure that the content you’re creating is truly focused on your audience’s needs, and search engines will reward this alignment between your content and your audiences by ranking you highly and boosting your visibility.
SEO Best Practice #5: Get Meta With It!
Meta data has long been a core component of SEO. You’re probably familiar with Meta Title tags (which determine the words in your browser tab and the words in the blue link in Google search results), Meta Description tags (which determines the short sentence under the blue link in the search result for your page) and the Meta Keywords tag (which is now totally useless but many years ago was important).
Metadata has evolved far behind these basic tags. Today’s most optimized websites feature Schema.org markup language—metadata that permeates every page of a website and shares all kinds of important information about your nonprofit’s website and content. What kinds of things can markup communicate to the search engines? It can classify the content on the page, or tell the search engine about the content’s author (and their authority). It can link your content to your Wikipedia and social media pages or even tie your content to a physical address in the world (for example, the location where a seminar is being given).
Why should you care about all this invisible-to-humans data? Because the search engines use it to both rank websites and organize information about your website in the search results. Take for example this search result:
Ever notice that some organizations see a second box about them on the right hand side? That’s the Knowledge Graph. It often pulls information from Wikipedia pages about organizations, including logos. When search results look like this, audience trust increases, as do clicks from search results.
So where is this data and how do you optimize it? Your audience will never see it; it lives in the code of the website and is only communicated to the robots out there that classify your website. Optimizing it begins with implementing markup language on your website. There are a number of ways to implement it, but it is a back-end technical implementation which is built to automatically populate information from the content you produce. So it’s not a quick one-and-done project but the long term benefits can be enormous.
Wrapping Up SEO Best Practices for Nonprofits
Implementing just one of these tips will give a huge boost to your nonprofit website’s search visibility, which in turn means more people will be engaged with the work you do. Give it a try; you can thank us later.
Want to strengthen SEO for your nonprofit or think tank website content to increase your organization’s visibility, reach, and impact? Get in touch. We’d be happy to take a look and see how we can help.
At the end of a year, nonprofits publish annual reports. They release statistics about the lives they impacted and tell stories that remind them of the importance of their mission. As for agencies—well our success each year is demonstrated by the success of our partners. Normally, we reflect on their work and on the projects we collaborated on with them. We go into each new year with a collection of design, technology, and content related insights that make us better at our jobs. And normally, that’s enough.
But this year brought lessons that went deeper than the projects we worked on. Despite the chaos and grief of 2020, a lot of personal and professional growth happened. Our team became fully-remote. We welcomed new colleagues from across the country—and Canada! And some of us made the switch from city to mountain-dwellers.
Even though we’re eager to put 2020 behind us, we don’t want to lose sight of the lessons this year offered. We asked everyone on our team to reflect on the biggest personal and professional lessons they learned this year. And since we don’t make ourselves an annual report, we felt compelled to document these lessons somehow.
So consider this insight a mini-annual report. Though it looks different than an average annual report – we know, we’ve designed dozens! — we hope this insight provides similar guidance for our team in the years to come.
Connection and Empathy Reign Supreme
Personally, the shared global pandemic experience has reinforced to me how connected we all are. 2020 has made the globe feel smaller. It also has elevated the social inequities that make this traumatic experience more difficult for many of us, so helps maintain a healthy perspective when I, who have so much, feel worn down.
Professionally, my biggest lesson this year was the importance of being mindful of how people’s personal lives are a big part of what they bring to a working relationship—and to work with greater empathy for the impact that situations beyond our control impact our performance. — Matt Schwartz
Focus on the Future and the Forest
Personally, I’ve learned the immense benefits of Shinrin Yoku (Forest Bathing). And how reconnecting with the energy of a forest may just be the key to survival – our survival and the planet’s survival. At work, I’ve learned (or have been reminded) that you should never rely on past success to guarantee future success. That is, even if you’ve been rocking the socks off of life for the past number of years, you’ve got to keep pushing, learning, and executing to continue the success! It sounds kind of obvious, but I’m grateful to have been reminded of that this year. – Corey Pomkoski
Appreciate Quality Time and Question Convention
While I can’t sugarcoat the experience of canceling your own honeymoon to quarantine with your partner for the better part of 9 months, we’ve genuinely enjoyed the opportunity to spend so much time together. This year has been all about adapting. Something Constructive has done well this year is thrown convention and norms out the window. As a creature of habit, I’m looking forward to trying to stay flexible, question the conventions of my post, and continue to experiment. — Tom Anesta
Technology Tethers Us — Even When We’re Miles Apart
The importance of connection and relationships, regardless of distance or medium. As the pandemic has forced us all to avoid social interactions in some capacity, I’ve personally experienced the ups and downs of loneliness, isolation, and boredom. Through it all, I’ve gained a newfound appreciation for those closest to me, both friends and family. Even though I made a difficult decision to move to a new city by myself amidst a global crisis, I’ve managed to maintain a good handle on my mental and emotional health, largely due to the wonders of modern technology (shoutout to Zoom) and the determination (on both sides) required to stay in touch with my most cherished loved ones. — Abel Thomas
Stay Flexible and Focus on Team Culture
Remain flexible and spend time in nature to stay sane. 2020 has been a year filled with grief and hardship for so many people, and those two principles have helped me remain positive. Professionally, focusing on team culture is more important than ever now that everyone is working remotely. Finding the right way to stay connected to co-workers, for the projects we’re working on, and socially, is something I’ve been thinking a lot about. – Lily Moaba
Boundaries are Important, and So are Dogs
Remote work is great, but boundaries are necessary. I love the flexibility that working from home provides, but it can also be a slippery slope. Without firm boundaries between work and life, they blur together. It took me a few weeks to realize how unhealthy that can be for my work and personal life!
This year, I also brought home a “pandemic puppy.” And though I’m far from the first person to make this observation, my dog Harley has taught me a lot about presence and perspective. Now 9 months old, she still amazes me every morning with her happy-go-lucky attitude — despite having no idea what’s in store for the day. Maybe a long walk in the park, maybe a trip to the vet, or maybe some unexpected emergency. Regardless, she’s happy to be here and go along for the ride. In a year of such uncertainty, she’s taught me that sometimes—actually, most times—it’s better to focus on the details of the present, not the possibilities of tomorrow. PS: Get a dog. — Allison Murphy
Develop a Positive Outlook and a Solid Process
It’s easy to spot negativity and get really down when looking through a narrow lens. You need to zoom out: like, way out! With that perspective, it’s even easier to see that people are good, the world is good, and life is all good. During these unanticipated times, work has been fraught with logistical challenges and constant inconsistencies. I’ve found it so important to have a great mission, process, and team in place to help guide you through it. I’m so honored to have experienced this chapter with my friends at Constructive. — Frank Lakatos
Growth Can Happen in Any Environment
I learned that you can grow even in the midst of a pandemic. Your growth will be greater because of the challenges you’ve faced. Professionally, I learned that even when we’re busy working on projects we can still take initiative on issues that we struggle with as a company and work even just a little bit towards it. — Leah Suter
Details are Everything
Details are everything. What can be seen as subtle differences, for example, in the words we use or the way we define concepts can actually be chasmic in their impact once you explore their differences—especially how they’re felt and understood. I’ve always valued and enjoyed learning, and 2020 has both humbled me and reminded me that there is no shortage of things to explore and learn and ways to change your thinking. From racism to my own privilege, to learning the Indigenous names of mountains that overlook the forests where I love to hike and their stories. There is no shortage of details or viewpoints.
We each have a different way of processing how the pandemic, isolation, and abrupt changes have affected our ability to show up in a professional capacity. I’m grateful to be working for brands and organizations that are directly supporting front-line workers and the millions of Americans currently unemployed. I’ve learned to give people generous amounts of grace and expect their best simply where they are today—not where they were six months prior. And that includes giving yourself some grace, too. Creating psychological safety on teams has always been an important aspect of good leadership, and 2020 has brought psychological safety back to the forefront for me—especially when asking for help, letting others know that you’re just not able to focus at the moment, asking for feedback, asking to hop on a zoom call to co-work with another human being, or expressing different viewpoints. — Paul Sternberg
Change Your Space, Change Your Mind
This year I learned that I actually like working remotely. I’m a bit of an introvert, so it has been nice to be able to work in a more controlled environment with the benefits of still having my coworkers a slack message away. Being able to adapt my working habits has made me more productive and creative. When life goes back to normal, I think we all have to take a serious look at advocating for what works best for us and not just going with the flow.
Similarly, I’ve personally found joy in reinventing my apartment. I’ve always been a practical person when it comes to interior design. My partner is more aesthetic-minded, so it’s been a collaboration. Consider painting a wall a new color or finally get rid of a piece of furniture that’s always in the way. Craigslist has been a great resource for quickly finding new homes for furniture. You will feel the weight lifted knowing your space accurately reflects who you are as a person. — Doug Knapton
Maintain Relationships with Friends and Colleagues
One personal thing I learned in this whirlwind year is the importance of staying connected to people, even while isolating. You need to take care of your own mental health, as well as reach out to people to make sure that they are okay. Professionally, I’ve refined my client presentation skills and learned how to get clients really excited about the work we are doing! — Kevin Ng
Action is the Antidote to Fear
I read recently about how action is the antidote to fear, and I think that summarizes a lot of the lessons I’ve learned this year both personally and professionally. If I’m afraid of something or feeling anxious about something, I have to remember to acknowledge it and then do something with it—do the task I’ve been putting off because it scares me; direct my anxious feeling into an activity that’s stimulating or soothing (an activity that’s just distracting works too). For me, that has been cooking or baking, reading, or finding something small to work on around my apartment. It takes work, especially if like me, your brain’s default state is anxious. But the uncertainty and chaos of 2020 really emphasized behaviors and reactions that weren’t helping me live the life I wanted, and I’m grateful for the space and support systems I have that allowed me to learn this kind of lesson. — Kate Styer
It’s hard for me to believe, but October marks Constructive’s 20th anniversary. It’s a significant milestone and one we’re really proud of. And, in reflecting on who we are, what we’ve accomplished, and why it matters, we’ve come a long way!
I believe that a company’s tagline is the most succinct expression of its reason for being. For probably 15 of our 20 years, Constructive’s has been “Designing a New Way Forward.” It is as much about designing solutions for clients as it is designing ones that contribute to creating a world more like the one we’d like to live in.
I think this speaks well to who we are. Constructive is a culture built by people who know that the work we do is important and that we are fortunate to be able to do it—both with each other and with our clients. To me, that’s special.
So, looking back on 20 years since I started up shop in my living room with one computer, a bunch of ambition, and a lot to learn, we’ve been using this moment both for reflection and to help design our own new way forward. After all, isn’t that what anniversaries are for?
We’ve seen a lot of changes over the years. We’ve learned, grown, and gotten better. While a lot of this has to do with continuously challenging ourselves to be better and learning from our mistakes, it’s Constructive’s clients that are perhaps our single greatest source of personal and professional growth. The people we partner with raise our level of awareness and understanding every day, sending us on pathways of discovery as we work together to help make the world a better place. And because of our clients’ expertise and dedication to social impact—and because of our shared values—we’re more informed citizens and, I believe, better people.
That’s not fluff. Every person who joins Constructive does so because they want to do this work. Had we spent 20 years developing strategy and design for consumer products, financial services, or hospitality brands, not only would what we do be very different, the way we think about the world would also be immeasurably more narrow. And, speaking for myself, the actions I take, including how Constructive is run, would probably be different as well.
Our work is the opportunity to live our values every day. Not everyone gets to say this and it’s something we never take for granted. So, in reflecting on 20 years in business, one thing is clear—we owe a debt of gratitude to our clients for providing us with opportunities to learn about issues we care deeply about and live our values by helping them be more effective in the vital work that they do.
The opportunity to understand the world through a richer diversity of perspectives and expertise is one of the greatest rewards I could have ever imagined when starting a design firm. A culture of continuous learning is a core value at Constructive, and we are incredibly fortunate to learn from inspiring experts who are hard at work addressing some of the world’s greatest challenges. We also get to build on what we learn from them through exciting research and ideation.
Of course, being in true partnership is a two-way street and, when it comes to raising awareness and understanding, I believe we also bring a lot to the table. As much as we love learning from our clients, we equally enjoy sharing our ideas and teaching them what we know. Our people are passionate and they bring a pretty deep reservoir of expertise that makes a difference for the organizations who choose to partner with us.
We named our company Constructive for a reason. It’s about these ideas of working with shared values, a mutual commitment to active listening and learning, and a collaborative approach to problem-solving—whether this means a simple solution that improves the work we produce, or something far more significant in society that our clients are at the forefront of advancing. Our ability to live our values is directly connected to the passion and commitment of our clients—organizations filled with people from whom we’ve learned so much over the years and who have allowed us to live more meaningful lives as a result. And I’d like to think that, along the way, Constructive’s people have taught a few clients a thing or two about the power of their brands and how to use it to engage and acticate audiences.
So on our 20th anniversary, from everyone at Constructive, I’d like to extend deep and heartfelt “thank you” to our clients, both past and present, to our colleagues who’ve helped us along the way, and to everyone who’s found interest or inspiration in our agency. There’s a lot of work to be done in this world, and we’re even more excited about what’s ahead than anything we’ve accomplished so far.
October marks Constructive’s 20th anniversary, and if there’s one thing that’s been a constant in Constructive’s culture throughout the years, it’s a commitment to learning. Learning comes in many forms. Lived experience. Listening. Mentors. Practice. And in Constructive’s case, books. A whole lot of books! So, as we reflect on 20 years as a design agency for nonprofits, we asked ourselves: “What have been the best nonprofit communications strategy books we’ve read over the years? Which books have really stayed with us? Which books have we returned to as we seek to do our best design for social impact? What best practices in nonprofit brand strategy, design, and storytelling have we learned from the wisdom of others?
As we’ve spent 20 years living our values, the work of others inspired us to be the best we can be at our work. The perspective and expertise our team has cultivated is only possible because of the innovative ideas of experts in our fields who thankfully put in the hard work of sharing their thoughts in these many books. So, in honor of those who have helped shape how we think about and approach our work, we’ve selected 20 of our favorites (no easy task!) that have been the best books on strategy, design, communications, and digital for nonprofits. They’re some of the greatest sources inspiration to our team and are most influential to how we show up to be present for our clients and work with them to advance their missions. We hope you find them just as inspirational as we do!
Constructive’s Top 20 of the Best Nonprofit Communications Strategy Books
“Marty Neumeier’s legendary books inspired me to build Constructive’s brand strategy practice 15 years ago and contain thinking and best practices that continue to inform how we think about the intersection of brand strategy and design. “The Brand Gap” and “Zag” are designed for simplicity—quick reads that are clear and to the point, and that provide foundational thinking and practical exercises for brand building.”
“In spring of 2012, Nathalie Laidler-Kylander and Christopher Stone wrote “The Role of Brand in the Nonprofit Sector” for Stanford Social Innovation Review—in my humble opinion, one of the most influential moments in nonprofit brand strategy. The subsequent book that Kylander wrote with Julia Shephard Stenzel changed how nonprofit leaders and branding experts alike understood the value of social impact brands, and how to cultivate them within a framework that reflects their values.”
“Tim Brown’s company, IDEO has been an inspiration for me since I started Constructive. Their innovative work has paved the way for the design thinking revolution, and Brown’s visionary book from 2009 is the definitive text on the subject. It’s a wonderful and inspirational call-to-action for designers and social change agents alike—providing the methods and motivation to bring us together, using human-centric design and creative leadership to make the world a better place.”
“Trust is everything. Client relationships are the basis of our existence in a service business. David Maister’s “Trust Equation” is: Trust = (Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy) ÷ Self-orientation. It’s simple, and I love how it emphasizes a focus on others, building rapport, and always doing what you say you’re going to do every single time.”
“As my colleagues at Constructive know well, I like to challenge norms and conventions. I’ve always found that it helps me both confirm my convictions and expand my perspectives. Even though it came out in 2010, I find myself constantly revisiting “Rework” for its short-form opinions and unconventional ways to reimagine success at work.”
“For me, Kim Starkey’s and Bill Meehan’s book is one of the most essential books over the last decade on effective nonprofit leadership and philanthropy. Drawing on research, lived experience, and classroom teachings, “Engine of Impact” provides a clear roadmap to building high-achieving, high-impact social impact organizations—powerful ideas that our team applies to brand building and experience design.”
“The Japanese folk art movement—mingei—and experience design philosophy are (in my mind) inextricably linked. The author emphasizes the work of anonymous people, producing simple and high-quality objects with honesty and integrity for daily use.”
“This book by the founders of design agency, Method, opened my eyes to how design translates and creates brand value—and how to unlock greater audience engagement. Many of Constructive’s experience-centric design principles and brand strategies are based on the framework and tools in this incredible text. And there are countless lessons from the world of business and customers that nonprofits can apply to designing effective social impact brand experiences.”
“Long before there were responsive design grids measured in pixels and design systems were all the rage, master Swiss designer Josef Müeller Brockman, who created IBM’s global design system in the 1960’s wrote “Grid Systems in Graphic Design.” It’s one of most influential books on communications design, was a catalyst for the modern graphic design movement, and has been indispensable in Constructive’s approach to information design.”
“This book is a classic when it comes to understanding how to market and sell technology products. Understanding the buyer archetypes for technology products can help us better plan their strategy, development, deployment, and marketing in order to gain traction and “cross the chasm” from early adopters to the early majority.”
“There are so many subconscious decisions we as designers make that need to reevaluate. This book unpacks the political context for visual concepts like how color can signify different meanings across multiple cultures. By knowing these cultural sensitivities, designers will be more aware of the impact of their work in today’s connected world.”
“When this legendary book on usability design was published in 2000, I had just launched Constructive after years as an interactive designer. Since then, Steve Krug’s text has become one of the most respected and recommended books in the field. “Don’t Make Me Think” opened my eyes as a young designer to the importance of designing for usability—and paved the way for future years of study into information architecture.”
“In 2018, I lead copywriting for The Legal Aid Society’s new website. Little-known fact: this sizable site was one of my first website content projects. To get up to speed, I needed a rundown on content strategy—and fast. Sarah Richards’ short and sweet “Content Design” taught me all I needed to know about UX writing, grounded in the ways people actually read online. Its principles and witty one-liners continue to guide my work and Constructive’s content strategy practice.”
“If there’s a Bible of typography, this has to be it. Reading renowned poet and typographer, Robert Bringhurst’s book is what ignited my deep love and appreciation for typography. Updated for its 20th anniversary in 2013, “The Elements of Typographic Style” is an indispensable resource for anyone who wants to really understand how type works and how to work with type—and is required reading for every designer on Constructive’s team.”
“A case study on the pioneering Aravind Eye Hospital, “Infinite Vision” does more than tell the story of its founder. It makes the business case for compassion, demonstrating the ways kindness can be a powerful force of innovation. The Aravind story has inspired me to place compassion at the heart of problem-solving in and out of the office.”
“I’m a big believer in karma and energy as the ultimate source of currency in this world. This book helped me realize the ways people valued me, how I valued others, and how we all knowingly or unknowingly control the impact of that value. I’ve loaned this book out countless times to colleagues, and I find myself returning to it as a resource to help recharge my soul and re-engage at work with enthusiasm.”
“Constructive’s tagline is “Designing a New Way Forward,” and when it comes to strategic design, few books explore the topic better than David Holston’s. It’s packed with tools and techniques that cultivate a more collaborative design process and better partnerships for problem-solving. At the heart “The Strategic Designer” is one of Constructive’s core principles for solving social challenges—designing in context, which is why I’ve made it required reading for every designer on our team.”
The more we understand our world, the better we’ll be at designing products, services, and experiences that are kinder, more impactful, and fueled by empathy. Dr. Kimmerer’s essays on ecology remind us of the hidden super-connectedness of the natural world and our place within it. They also beautifully weave Indigenous wisdom and nature together in stories that are captivating and inspiring.
“Spanning marketing and editorial strategy to information architecture and design, content strategy is a unique discipline. In “The Elements of Content Strategy,” Erin Kissane defines content strategy in all its complexity, outlines principles of “good” content, and provides techniques anyone can incorporate into their approach.”
“When it comes to designing with complex data, Edward Tufte’s first book in his trilogy is probably the most important and revolutionary text on the topic. Written in 1990, “Envisioning Information” established storytelling with data as a thing before it was a thing. It’s a gorgeous book that breaks down countless types of data visualizations and information-heavy design, providing designers with critical analysis on how to effectively present complex data visually and tell narratives that engage and educate audiences.”
If you’d like to read our latest annual report round-up, we’ve shared some of the best reports from 2023 here.
It’s about that time of year. The time when nonprofits start thinking about and planning for their annual reports. But 2020 is a year unlike any we’ve experienced and annual reports somehow feel both more and less important than ever—2020 is a year that demands to be documented but aches to be forgotten. Plus, there’s the whole “how can our annual report even begin to cover everything that’s happened this year!?” question. So, if you’re a nonprofit looking for examples of great annual reports by nonprofits and mission-driven organizations, where can you find them? Constructive’s team has been doing our own research for annual reports we’re working with nonprofits on and thought “why not share what we’re seeing with others looking for inspiration?!” So if you’re looking for some inspiration for your nonprofit’s annual report, we’ve rounded up some of our favorite reports from the past few years to help inspire your 2020 annual report and make it as—let’s just say unforgettable—as the year.
Examples of Great Annual Reports for Nonprofits
Feeding America 2019 Annual Report
Memorable for leading with people and balancing data with stories. The very first page of Feeding America’s 2019 Annual Report pulls us in with storytelling—sharing an engaging story about a family and Feeding America’s impact. We love this approach to storytelling in an annual report. It puts the nonprofit’s values front-and-center, letting audiences know what’s most important to them. Leading with nonprofit storytelling also does a great job of contextualizing the data and statistics that follow in the rest of the annual report. Feeding America also does an excellent job engaging readers with links in the PDF report send readers directly to digital content on Feeding America’s website. (Notice the ‘Watch the Video of the Story’ button below). For nonprofits who aren’t quite ready to invest in a digital annual report, this is a great way to leverage your existing digital content.
In a year where the news cycle has been flooded with mostly depressing data, balancing your annual statistics with stories will be more important than ever in 2020 annual reports. It’ll also help organizations demonstrate their impact on an individual level, without getting too in the weeds about what’s happening at the national level. And for organizations that only publish PDF reports, adding hyperlinks to online content is a great way to make the report feel less static. (If you’re looking for ideas for digital annual reports, we published an article a ways back on best practices in online reports.)
The Equal Justice Initiative 2018 Annual Report
Memorable for its use of bold photography and simple messaging. The saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” is a cliché for a reason. When used effectively, images powerfully and quickly convey emotions in a way that isn’t always possible with writing. The Equal Justice Initiative’s 2018 Annual Report knows this well, and the nonprofit’s strategy relies significantly on bold imagery to create an emotional connection with audiences and a sense of urgency. In some cases, photos even take up more than half a page in their report. Complementing photography are are powerful statements that focus audiences on what they’re looking at and, most important, why it matters. Taken together, the nonprofit’s use of images and messaging in its annual report ensures that even readers who skim through the report will get a sense of the year EJI had.
Including dramatic imagery in your 2020 annual report is a great strategy to set this year’s annual report apart from other years. We’re all living through the same chaotic year—more than ever, nonprofits have the flexibility to let images speak for themselves since readers will need less orientation to the local, national, or global context of your work. If your nonprofit doesn’t have access to great images, there are a lot of options beyond the typical Getty Images and iStock approach. Unsplash has a wide assortment of authentic, unexpected images. And if you want more representative and diverse stock photography, two excellent options are Images of Empowerment and Deeper Learning.
Oatly 2018 Sustainability Report
Memorable for its outstanding use of humor and honesty. Just because you’re a nonprofit looking for ideas to inspire your 2020 annual report doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look to the business world for ideas. Oatly is a great example. They waste no time cutting to the chase—their cover page calls attention to the fact that 2018 was “Slightly worse than last year!” Oatly’s annual report is shockingly refreshing with honesty we don’t often hear in business annual reports. It uses humor right from the start to establish authenticity, transparency, and intimacy between the reader and Oatly’s brand. And its visual design is a consistent extension of their strong visual identity.
For nonprofits that aren’t afraid to drop a few puns or show demonstrate deadpan honesty, humor can be a great way to breathe a add a breath of fresh air to your annual report, embody transparency, and break down barriers between you and your audiences. In a world where nonprofit annual reports can understandably be very serious, this approach may work for some. And honestly, if we don’t find a way to laugh a bit about 2020, we’d all be crying about it, right?
MailChimp 2019 Annual Report
Memorable for being wild—and wildly shareable. Another great annual report from the world of business—and it’s a company that many nonprofits with a website are probably very familiar with! At first glance, MailChimp’s annual report looks like a stack of old records and concert posters—and upon further exploration, that’s exactly what makes it so great. Despite the big pile of digital posters, the content of this report is incredibly simple. There are only two actions users can take when scrolling through this report. They can click a slide, and they can share that slide on social media. This simple approach helps to drive engagement because a user knows exactly what MailChimp wants them to do when they’re reading the report—share it on social.
An experimental format like this likely isn’t feasible or “on-brand” for many nonprofits, we know. But it goes against the grain and hopefully is another inspiration for trying something different in to make your nonprofit’s annual report as unusual as 2020 has been. Because, MailChimp’s strategy of delivering simplified content and streamlined social share calls to action is a compelling one that any nonprofit can replicate to drive engagement.
New American Economy, St. Paul Report
Memorable for great data visualization. Not technically an annual report, but the New American Econom’s report on St. Paul is an outstanding example of how nonprofits can effectively use data visualization in their annual reports. NAE’s report on its work in St. Paul is absolutely loaded with charts, statistics, and graphs. That may not be unique. What we love about this report is that NAE don’t make readers dig for this information. Throughout the report, data is visualized in ways that make it easy to read and easy to understand in context.
Nonprofits will likely have a lot of dramatic statistics to share in their annual reports by the end of this year—and these statistics tell stories. These facts and figures should be highlighted, not buried in lengthy annual report copy. Using data visualization helps demonstrate impact more effectively and ensures readers don’t lose the context as they look at the numbers. If you’d like some quick ideas on how to design for impact with data, check out this article we created on best practices for data visualization design.)
Twitter #ThisHappened in 2019
Memorable for not being an annual report. Maybe your nonprofit doesn’t do annual reports, and only publishes its yearly financials. We got you! Twitter’s #ThisHappened in 2019 provides a compelling and less-resource intensive alternative. Published every year, their #ThisHappened blog post and corresponding Twitter campaign highlight the most popular hashtags, memes, news stories, and more of the year alongside shareable top 10 infographics.
A blog-post approach is a great way for nonprofits to stay relevant and update their audiences after such a whirlwind year. For organizations that don’t publish annual reports, it’s a great replacement. And for those that do, a blog post like this can function as a supplement. Streamlining content to highlight only the most interesting tidbits for your readers and incorporating diverse media types (photos, videos, social media posts, etc.) are both great ways to drive engagement with or without an annual report.
Final Thoughts
As your nonprofit is thinking about ways to design an annual report that’s up to the moment in 2020, we hope these ideas have provided inspiration. Remember, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel! From storytelling and imagery to humor and data visualization, there’s a lot of inspiration out there to help your nonprofit demonstrate its impact annual report in unique and compelling ways. And, of course, if you’re looking for help to develop a strategy and design for your nonprofit’s annual report in 2020, we hope you’ll get in touch!
Imagine you hear about a nonprofit that sounds like it’s doing amazing work on an issue that you care deeply about. What’s one of the first things you do to learn more? Head right to their website, of course. And within a few seconds of a visit to the nonprofit’s website (actually, about 7 seconds), you form an opinion of that nonprofit’s brand based on this first website visit. Do they look credible and trustworthy? Do their mission and values resonate with you? Do they seem like experts who are having a significant impact? Can they help you with your goals and interests when it comes to this issue? These and other questions are at the heart of a nonprofit’s brand strategy—the translation of who you are, what you do, and why it matters. Understanding how crucial this first visit to a nonprofit website is in helping us form our opinion, you can see how important nonprofit brand strategy is to a website that effectively engages people to advance a mission based on shared interests.
Looking back in time, decisions that our hypothetical nonprofit made months or even years ago about how to design their website to introduce you to their brand come to life in this moment. Their strategic planning processes, how they’ve articulated their vision and values, their communications strategy, their content, design, and technology choices—even the budget they allocated—all work together to influence what you’ll do next. Will you explore further? Read their research? Visit again? Make a donation? Or, will you leave without viewing another page, likely never to return?
The difference between an effective nonprofit website that builds a meaningful relationship with you and one that turns you off for good probably isn’t as binary as our hypothetical scenario suggests. But it’s not an overstatement to say that a nonprofit’s websites plays a pivotal role in how effectively social impact organizations drive audience engagement with their brands—and, as a result, how well they ultimately turn this engagement into action.
Understanding Social Impact Value in Nonprofit Brands
Why do people engage with social impact brands and what role does a nonprofit’s website play in driving this engagement? Well, there are lots of reasons, of course. Mainly, we engage with nonprofits because they give us an opportunity to put our values into action. Think back to our hypothetical situation: There’s an issue you care deeply about. You hear about an organization doing important work on it. You take actions to get closer to this organization, usually starting with a website visit.
Lots of web design agencies will focus on the ideas of user experience—and with good reason. Great UX design is essential to an effective website. But nobody goes to a website to have a “user experience.” They go to a website because of the opportunities that it provides to engage with a brand—which means that a nonprofit’s brand must be both meaningful and valuable to them.
It’s my belief that the three biggest drivers of brand value for nonprofits come down to three key factors: Credibility, Proximity, and Impact. Back to our hypothetical visit to a nonprofit website. Let’s assume it’s well-designed visually (and it better be, because research proves how important this is to engagement). After that, what are you likely to be evaluating when you visit a nonprofit’s website? First, is probably how credible they seem when it comes to making a tangible impact on the issue that you care about. Second, may be how close are they to where the “action” is (their proximity)—whether that’s geographically where the work happens or whether they have access to important people that are essential to making change happen (like policymakers). And third, what demonstrated impact are they having.
Credibility. Proximity. Impact. These three things all play an essential role in how a nonprofits helps realize a world more like the one we’d like to live in. The nature of this relationship—and why it matters to us—is based on the kind of engagement we’re looking for. And the entirety of a nonprofit’s value is based on how well they communicate these things and how well they connect us to them.
Which brings us back to our website.
Different Kinds of Nonprofit Brand Value for Different Audiences
In my career, I’ve done both a lot of UX design and nonprofit brand strategy work. One of the things that’s always stood out to me—which is why I felt it was important for Constructive to focus here—is how the strategic framing of brand strategy and UX design are so similar. Both are focused on the intersection of “organizational goals” and “audience goals.” Strong nonprofit brands are built on a deep understanding of who their audiences are, what matters most to them, what the organization has to offer them—and what audiences can offer in return. Good UX design is exactly about this same dynamic.
This is why a strong nonprofit brand strategy is so important to a great website. Brand strategy is the lens through which we understand a nonprofit’s audiences, and through more than the limiting lens of just our website that things like UX personas create. Bran strategy focuses on a higher level of meaning and brand value that a nonprofit’s website can then tap into when designing for online engagement. A clear nonprofit brand strategy sets UX designers up perfectly to create the audience engagement that a nonprofit wants, starting with that first visit.
Essential to meaningful engagement is delivering he kind of value a person is interested in when interacting with a nonprofit’s brand online. For example, more “casual” supporters such as volunteers or individual donors are often attracted by a nonprofit’s intangible and aspirational value—subjective things like how the brand makes us feel about the kind of world we’d like to live in and how we’d like others to see us. For these audiences, great design quickly communicates credibility. High-quality, on-brand photography and engaging digital storytelling can bring them into closer proximity to the issues they identify with. Statistics can demonstrate impact without forcing a more casual visitor to get deep into the weeds reading hings like research reports. After all, for this audiencee, it’s the intangible stuff and the emotions that are driving the engagement.
Audiences who visit websites of knowledge mobilization nonprofits like think tanks and research institute are perhaps taking a more critical eye when forming their opinion. These may be research experts, practitioners, and policymakers. While they, of course, will also connect with all of the intangible and aspirational qualities of nonprofit brands, they tend to be more rigorous and objective about what they value. That’s because the work of research institutes and nonprofit think tanks very well may influence their own work. The credibility factor is far more important than perhaps the proximity one (though, if proximity is having access to influential decision makers in government or business, this matters a lot). And the impact that knowledge mobilization nonprofits have is demonstrated through the quality of their thought leadership and by giving experts access to knowledge resources, tools, and networks is essential to success. So, understanding what really matters to audiences about this work is important to effectively delivering it online.
Whatever a person’s needs and interests when engaging with a nonprofit online, it’s the job of a nonprofit’s website to create an experience that bridges the divide between interest and action. And if that website is to be an authentic expression of a nonprofit’s brand, a website must both represent the organization well and respond to the needs of audiences—all with an eye towards delivering greater brand value.
Designing Digital Brand Experiences
When an organization creates (or redesigns) its website, there’s an understandable focus on things like making sure it’s “visually appealing,” “well-organized,” “mobile-friendly,” and other fundamentals of good design. These are all important things, but they only scratch the surface of reasons why people visit our websites. Design’s role in translating different types of brand value goes further than these basic principles of effective design.
If social change brands are to build the kinds of relationships they want with audiences—and if they are to have the kind of impact they envision—we must approach the design process with the goal to provide different people with the kinds of value they seek in a nonprofit and its mission. The website is simply a conduit for this exchange.
Using brand strategy as the lens through which we view the websites we create, website process is the best way to ensure we accomplish this goal. Because if successful design (and by this I mean design’s true definition) is all about context, then brand strategy is by far the best way to give everyone who contributes to the process the insight they need to create a website that helps social impact organizations achieve their goals online and in the real world.
Digital communications and social media have had a tremendous impact on our ability to maintain focus and attention (or lack thereof!). For nonprofit think tanks and policy/advocacy nonprofit who produce lots of research reports and policy papers, this digital distraction is a real threat to getting people to engage with ideas. We are awash in content that’s fragmented and comes at us fast. Creating awareness and deepening engagement with complex issues can feel like an uphill battle. Turns out, the best new ideas to help nonprofits engage audiences with complex ideas and long-form content are time-tested communications strategies that we’ve used to activate our imaginations since, well, the dawn of recorded history. Strategies for nonprofit storytelling are essential tools in the social impact communications toolbox—and with good reason. Because storytelling is essential to how we understand our world.
The old thinking goes that people online don’t read. Turns out, that simple truth isn’t the truth at all. Studies show that when it comes to audience engagement, long-form content performs better than shorter content. So, while we may live in a world dominated by tweets and short bursts of commentary, design strategies for long-form content engagement are more important than ever—especially for nonprofits. Because when your mission revolves around a complicated issue, is connected to a problem in a far-away place or the distant future, or is just removed from the concerns of people’s everyday lives, maintaining audience engagement is inherently more difficult. This challenge is even more significant for think tanks and research-driven nonprofits who often publish jargon-filled content.
So, how can nonprofits apply the fundamental principles of storytelling to deepen audience engagement, even with the most complex content? Just follow some basic principles that storytellers have used for years.
Leveraging Narrative Structure in Nonprofit Storytelling Strategies
Whatever the topic, every good story has a structure. And, whether your nonprofit’s communications are driven by a traditional narrative or is academic research (which tells stories in its own way), all long-form content can benefit from applying the three-act structure of exposition, confrontation, and resolution that’s similiar to professional storytellers. In general, it works like this:
Invite your audience in.
Whenever you are asking an audience to engage with a longer narrative, it’s important to invite them into the narrative by quickly stating what you have in common. Establishing a shared understanding and creating common ground with your audience — and appealing to their “better angels” — makes it that much easier to pivot to the more complex ideas you need them to engage with and to share new perspectives they are likely to value.
Establish your “characters.”
Establishing common ground with audience members also earns you their interest and attention — equity you can use to deepen their engagement with your issue or cause. One of the best practices in nonprofit storytelling, is to use this equity to establish their “characters” and the underlying relationships that bring them to life. Keep in mind, characters don’t need to be actual people — they can be a commonly held belief or systems that affect your mission. So, whether you’re sharing a traditional narrative or specialized academic content, it’s important to establish this framework sooner rather than later, and to supply important details that will deepen your audience’s commitment to, and understanding of, the issue at hand.
Introduce a catalyst.
By this point, your audience should both be familiar with your issue and inclined to commit themselves to learning more about it. It’s time to elevate their interest by revealing the catalyst! For social change organizations, a catalyst could be a new way of addressing systemic inequity or research that offers insights into how to think about social change in a new way. Whatever the case, your goal is to provide a compelling reason for your readers to step up their investment in your work. And the more complex the issue, the more important it is to clearly lay out the related activities and/or outcomes that are part of the catalyst. Done well, you’ll create a connection with your audience that boosts their willingness to engage with and support your mission.
Create a resolution.
For many social change organizations, impact is something that happens in the future. The delay in being able to demonstrate results is a challenge to engaging audiences in deep-rooted problems such as poverty, structural racism, or climate change. What’s important to remember is that with most stories—and particularly in nonprofit storytelling—it’s critical to offer them a resolution. Depending on the nature of your nonprofit’s work, that resolution can take a number of forms: a satisfying conclusion to an impact story, a roundup of resources they can use to further their own change-related efforts, and/or a list of things they can do to strengthen their engagement with your organization.
Again, whether your content falls into the emotional narrative category or is fact-based research, the key to deepening audience engagement is maintaining an equal focus on both its structure and substance. And the same best practices that work online can be applied to any medium or format.
Tips for Nonprofit Content Creators
Now that you have a better understanding of the principles of effective narrative, here are some recommendations for crafting compelling long-form content that will deepen audience engagement and spur potential supporters to action:
Be consistently thoughtful.
The bar for high-quality long-form content is, well, high. And with so much content so readily available, ensuring that your content is respected, remembered, and returned to means making sure it always speaks to and reinforces your organization’s credibility, delivers meaningful value, and provides a great reading experience.
Editorial creativity is paramount.
To spark and sustain engagement, long-form content needs to be focused and well-structured. To keep your audience’s attention, try alternating between simplicity and complexity. Punctuate deeper dives into an issue with simple summaries and key insights. Doing so will not only underscore and amplify what’s at stake, it will make it easier to move on to the next idea you need to communicate.
Empathy is important, but…
Successful communications is about more than just making sure your ideas are clear, concise, and well-stated. It’s about meeting your audience wherever they are (i.e., creating common ground). That said, conveying empathy isn’t about purple prose or being gratuitously emotional. Instead, it requires establishing a genuine, meaningful connection with the people you are hoping to engage on terms that resonate with them, and building trust.
Make sure your audience doesn’t get lost.
Consistency and clear expectations are critical to building trust — especially in long-form content that requires a greater commitment from your audience (and even more so online). Both in the language you use and the actual vehicles you create for your content, cues designed to orient audience members within the reading experience can reduce cognitive load, improve content accessibility, and create a sense of anticipation that keeps audience members reading.
Provide a place to rest.
Design strategies for long-form content are really important. Giving your audience members conceptual places to take a break is a great way to reduce the fatigue often associated with reading long-form content. Analogy, metaphor, and digression are tried-and-true techniques that, when executed well, can reinforce context, add needed perspective, and reinforce reader understanding. From a design perspective, creating visually (and conceptually) separate material such as sidebars is also an excellent way to introduce a change of pace into complex material.
Don’t be afraid to pick a fight!
As our name suggests, Constructive believes in the power of positive dialogue. But that doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate the importance of taking clear positions and standing up for what we believe is right—especially when it comes to issues of social and environmental equity. “Picking a fight” doesn’t have to be about calling out individual actors. Often it’s with old ways of thinking and doing. So, if the issue your organization is working to address requires you to take a stand, you can strengthen your case by contrasting your position with the position of those who see the issue differently and explaining in clear terms what’s at stake.
Leave your audiences wanting more.
Every piece of content you share with your target audiences should leave them better informed and feeling energized. But the next steps are crucial. You need to give them a rationale for wanting to help you advance your cause, including a range of actions and an explanation of why their actions will create more impact when combined with the actions of like-minded people (as always, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts!).
Wrapping up Storytelling Strategies for Nonprofits
We create content in hopes that people will engage with our ideas. Storytelling has long been one of humanity’s most powerful ways to translate our ideas into action. While sharing ideas through digital communications may be different than telling stories around a campfire, the fundamental principles are the same. To engage an audience, content must be meaningful and must resonate—which means that online, we must design and deliver experiences with content that connects audiences to our ideas.
The internet is connecting more people in more places than ever before—and yet many nonprofits focus their design efforts on WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) audiences. However, that doesn’t do justice to the dazzling variety of languages, perspectives, and expectations that true audiences bring. If nonprofits want to create effective design and communications for these modern, multicultural audiences, it means changing the usual ways they plan, research, and execute those projects.
But what are cross-cultural design projects when it comes to nonprofits and foundations? They are digital design or strategy projects that have a focus on communicating to an audience not your own, one that has a different culture, language, or geographic location. The project may be a small targeted messaging campaign, such as awareness around legal services for non-english speakers. It may be a larger website containing resources for volunteers working overseas, or in a culturally diverse city. It may even be redesigning a foundation’s intranet to be more usable for a large distributed team that spans cultures and languages. The possibilities are endless.
Once a communications team determines, through strategic research or audience feedback, that a digital project requires cultural knowledge or sensitivity, they will need to take active steps to ensure the project is successful. Deep cultural dives are not always necessary, however. Here are a few straightforward ways to take a cross-cultural design approach.
Technique 1: Embrace Cultural Immersion
When starting a cross-cultural design project, it’s important to surround yourself with the culture you are designing for. With many countries and cities dealing with social-distancing and severely restricted movement right now, that may sound difficult.. However, it’s entirely possible to conduct cultural immersion digitally.
Start by looking at digital media like movies, radio, and TV shows. Signing up for newsletters and other hyper-focused publications is also a great way to immerse yourself in a culture, and one that builds over time. For instance, for a project focused on building technical capacity and digital communities in West Africa, signing up for the Tech Cabal newsletter will offer a very focused view of the startup and venture capital world there, and as it is a daily newsletter, will offer a very nuanced picture the longer you read it.
There are also vibrant design communities in every part of the world, each one addressing unique, culturally relevant design problems. Cultural immersion can mean tapping into and working with these communities, to gain deeper insight into the design challenges we face.
But how to do this? Well, see what creative practitioners from your target culture are working on. Do filtered searches on sites such as Behance, or Twitter, to see what other communities are doing, and what they are talking about. This has the added benefit of giving you a list of potential expert contacts, should you ever need them for a project!
This digital immersion should not be treated as a substitute for actual research, but when current events, budgets, or timelines mean you can’t travel or conduct ethnographic field work, it’s a low-cost, immediate way to learn about a culture. Keep in mind that you are first and foremost an observer, not an expert. Be humble and introspective, and embrace the immersion.
Technique 2: Question Your Assumptions
Our biases and assumptions, when left unaddressed, are a huge risk to design projects. Ignoring how they creep into our work unconsciously is how we get work filled with incorrect ideas, and digital experiences that gloss over what our audiences actually need. The second cross-cultural technique means examining those assumptions.
In my new book Cross-Cultural Design, I laid out a straightforward methodology for how to push back against your biases. It starts with being clear and as honest as possible about your assumptions—to yourself, to your team, and to your clients or stakeholders:
Start by documenting your assumptions about your project and the audience it is for. Do this by yourself first, and then again in a larger team, if you are part of one. Put it in a strategy document. But what gets documented as an assumption, and what stays as a statement of fact? Here’s an example: when working on a design project for users in an emerging market, someone on your team might say “We know this audience is going to access our site from cheaper feature phones…” That sentence is an assumption, and you should determine later, through research, if it is true or not.
Next, share your assumptions with all your stakeholders, however uncomfortable it might make you. So it is not too awkward or confrontational, explain that you want to review some assumptions with leaders and subject matter experts as part of the strategy phase. As you share, be clear about what outcome you want: Do you want an open discussion? A focus for your brand research?
Lastly, turn those assumptions into a list of questions to guide your team on the upcoming project. Our example assumption was, “We know this audience is going to access our site from cheaper feature phones.” We can refashion that into a question- “What devices do our audience use most often?” Put all the questions up in a Google doc or other accessible place, so your research and strategy phases can be directed by inquiry, instead of error-prone assumptions.
Don’t forget— it’s a good thing to speak with team members and experts who disagree with parts of your ideas and questions. Skeptical voices provide a crucial check on our impulse to go along with a popular viewpoint. That dissent, especially coming from people who know all about the culture we are designing for, can tell us a lot about how a project will be received in a different culture.
Technique 3: Prioritize Flexibility
As you begin to work on communications and design artifacts such as templates, content, icons, and color systems, you want to make sure they are designed in an open, collaborative way. But what does that really look like? Well, a flexible, shareable artifact will be something that can be iterated on, tested, and discussed by your team and your nonprofit’s audience. Here are some suggestions for getting there:
Start by documenting the thinking behind your design choices, whether it’s happening quietly at your desk or in the field! Communicate your intent with members of your team, by describing what you are creating and why. There’s an added benefit—in the future, you can use this to explain your work, in presentations and marketing. It can help as you build relationships with new funders, partners and audience members who appreciate and seek out your expertise delivering cross-cultural communications.
Next, begin with some small, low-stakes prototypes. You need time to work through cultural blind-spots. Any components we design, from the simplest paper experiments to complex interactive systems, are based on aesthetic rules and cultural ideas we’ve picked up through our lives. That means they are culturally constructed. Lets say you are doing rough sketches during a wireframing workshop. Native English speakers will tend to indicate blocks of text by drawing lines from left to right, in the same direction the language flows. However, prioritizing flexibility means identifying and challenging these (often subconscious) habits. If our design work will also be used for an Arabic-speaking audience, we should also sketch those blocks of text right-to-left, as that is the way Arabic flows.
Finally, make sure to document design variants or options. It’s not uncommon for branding systems to have slightly different color palettes for different markets or cultures. If this is what you are working on, make sure you explain how your team should correctly use your brand colors in those cultures, and why.
For nonprofits, often widely different audiences mean that flexibility and adaptability is critical in designed communications, products, and strategies. By keeping the cultural needs of our audiences in mind with a malleable design process, we can ensure a more culturally responsive digital experience, one audiences will support and understand.
Conclusion
Getting started with cross-cultural design might feel a bit nerve-wracking, and teams might wonder if they are doing it ‘right’, or being accidentally insensitive. These actions won’t give you all the answers, or tell you exactly how to design for your multicultural audiences. But I do hope they make you feel more confident in your decision-making.
Use these ideas as a place to begin designing culturally adaptable products and experiences. I hope they help you think through how culture and design intersect. The wonderful thing about design is the power we have to decide how information is presented, how it is shared with the world, and what we empower our audiences to do with it. Nonprofits and foundations have a huge responsibility to be thoughtful and ethical about those design decisions, especially when they span culture, language, and national borders.
