Looking for social media or newsletter ideas for October? We have them! Psst, you can also use these writing ideas for blog posts, videos and more. These writing ideas for October come from our Monthly Nonprofit Writing Prompts email newsletter. Fill out the form below to get November’s prompts emailed to you the week of October 2nd.

Your Writing Prompts for October 2024

On the Calendar

10/01: National Homemade Cookie Day or World Vegetarian Day. Share your favorite cookie or vegetarian recipes or have your staff or supporters shares theirs.

10/04: World Smile Day. If cooking isn’t your thing, share photos of your volunteers or clients smiling and tell their stories. If you are a health related org, you can promote dental health.

10/05: Do Something Nice Day. Encourage your supporters to do something nice for someone else in your name.

10/05: World Teacher’s Day. Point out some of the educators in your field and what they have done for your cause.

10/09: Curious Events Day. Are people curious about a certain program or person regarding your organization? Or are there any “curious events” related to your organization or cause?

10/12: Moment of Frustration Day. Vent away or provide some ideas on releasing frustration in a healthy way. Encourage your readers to share what frustrates them on your social media posts or in the comment section on your blog.

10/13: Train Your Brain Day. Share some brain teasers, word puzzles or riddles that relate to your organization and get your supporters using their brains in a different way.

10/14: Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples Day. What new frontiers are you exploring? Or how can you honor those who lived here first?

10/14: Canadian Thanksgiving Day. Thank your clients, volunteers and supporters.

10/16: Bosses Day. Do a “Day in the Life” of your boss feature or highlight the “real” boss of the organization.

10/16: Dictionary Day. Help your readers define some of the jargon associated with your cause. (Then stop using it in communications to them!)

10/19: Evaluate Your Life Day. Report back to your donors on what’s happening at your nonprofit.

10/26: Make a Difference Day. This is a day to encourage volunteers and community service.

10/30: Mischief Night. Encourage your supporters to make a little mischief and flood your legislators inboxes, voicemails, and mail boxes with concerns on a vote or issue that affects your cause.

10/31: Halloween. Give us some insight into staff personalities and let us know what they will be for Halloween. Tell us what your favorite candy is. This can be a great time for lighter updates if your org deals with heavy topics.

October is also:

• Breast Cancer Awareness Month
• Adopt a Shelter Dog Month
• Domestic Violence Awareness Month
• Sarcastic Month
• Vegetarian Month
• Global Diversity Awareness Month
• National Disability Employment Awareness Month
• ADHD Awareness Month

Week 1 of October is “Getting Organized Week”

Week 2 is “Fire Prevention Week” and “Pet Peeve Week”

Other Dates:

• 10/01: International Music Day
• 10/01: International Coffee Day
• 10/02: Rosh Hashanah begins
• 10/04: World Animal Day
• 10/10: World Mental Health Day
• 10/11: National Coming Out Day
• 10/11: International Day of the Girl
• 10:16: World Food Day
• 10/17: International Day for the Eradication of Poverty
• 10/17: LGBTQ+: Spirit Day
• 10/29: National Cat Day

Metaphor of the Month

This month’s metaphor is Fall. Think about leaves changing colors, pumpkin spice everything, Halloween, fears, costumes, cooler weather, Fall Festivals, football, school, apple picking, sweater weather, bonfires, Thanksgiving, shorter days, Black Friday, Giving Tuesday, the color orange, and falling leaves.

How can you relate these things to your organization?

Pop Culture, Events, and News

Many organizations’ Fiscal Years begin on the 1st.

There is a Vice Presidential Debate on the 1st.

The MLB Playoffs will begin in October.

The American Music Awards 50th Anniversary Special happens on the 6th in place of the awards show.

The NHL season starts October 10th and the NBA regular season starts October 22nd.

Paris Fashion Week ends the 8th.

Many communities will be hosting fall festivals.

Expect to see lots of “Spooky Season” and pumpkin spice content.

The world’s largest drawing festival, The Big Draw, takes place in October. This year’s theme is #DrawinginMotion.

Movies coming out in theaters this month include Joker: Folie à Deux, White Bird, Devara Part 1, Saturday Night, Piece by Piece, Terrifier 3, Smile 2, Hard Truths, Goodrich, and Venom: The Last Dance.

Streaming movie premiers include Salem’s Lot, Hold Your Breath, House of Spoils, It’s What’s Inside, The Platform 2, Lonely Planet, Woman of the Hour, The Man Who Loved UFOs, Fanatical: The Catfishing of Tegan And Sara, Don’t Move, Time Cut and Mr. Crocket.

TV shows returning or premiering include Joan, Sullivan’s Crossing, Found, Heartstopper, Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, Scare Tactics, The Franchise, The Real Housewives of the Potomac, Superman & Lois, 1000-lb Sisters, Accused, The Irrational, Abbot Elementary, House of Villains, Outer Banks, Teacup, Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft, Disclaimer, Tracker, NCIS, NCIS: Origins, FBI, FBI: International, and FBI: Most Wanted, Shrinking, Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity, Elsbeth, The Lincoln Lawyer, Blue Bloods, Fire Country, Hysteria!, Lopez vs Lopez, Rivals, Shark Tank, SWAT, The Equalizer, The Neighborhood, Poppa’s House, What We Do in the Shadows, Beauty in Black, Lioness, The Marlow Murder Club, Wizards Beyond Waverly Place, and The Diplomat.

Source of the Month

Embrace your fears this Halloween season. Be bold and tackle an issue you have been too afraid to write about because it might ruffle some feathers. Or share what scares you.

If you would like these writing ideas sent to your inbox a month in advance, sign up for our Monthly Nonprofit Writing Prompts. I send this email newsletter the first week of every month with prompts for the following month. For example, I will email the prompts for November around October 2nd.

Sign up now to get writing ideas emailed to you in advance monthly.

Can’t see the form? Try this.

You know you need to increase your nonprofit communications capacity when . . .

• You always feel rushed and rarely strategic.
• The workload always grows with little to nothing coming off the list.
• You can see how you’ll burn out eventually if you aren’t approaching that point already.

And yet, it’s often really hard to articulate to people who don’t do communications work for a living why you need help! (“Can’t you see my hair is on fire?!?” should be enough, but isn’t, unfortunately.)

Here are three ways to talk in more concrete language about your nonprofit communications capacity:

• the number of communication channels your team is managing
• the frequency of communications in those channels, e.g., how often they are updated
• the skill level in producing content and the sophistication level of the content

We know these three levers are essential to communications capacity questions based on our annual Nonprofit Communications Trends Report research and on our personal experiences in coaching nonprofit communications teams through both communications team growth and right-sizing their marketing strategies.

How Many Communications Channels Are You Managing?

As teams grow, they frequently add more channels, especially a social media channel or two beyond Facebook. Are you trying to share content in too many places right now given your staffing? What would you add if you did have more help? What do you think you should drop if you don’t get more help (X/Twitter will be the most popular answer, by the way, trust me and our data!)

How Frequently Are You Sharing Content in Those Channels?

Team growth also leads to more consistent and frequent posting of content. So if you are overworked, you might need to back down your posting schedule until you can meet the best practices in how often to post content.  If you are growing your team, consider if that means moving from monthly to weekly, or weekly to several times a week, or even to daily.

What is the Skill or Sophistication Level of the Content?

This factor — the sophistication of the content — may be even more important than the other two, given our current media environment.

Do you have the nonprofit communications capacity to produce highly visual content with great photography and video? Video is time-consuming and requires more skill and practice than other forms of content.

Think about all three of these together. Where are you strongest and what needs to give?

You are probably familiar with the project management triangle of Time, Budget, and Quality. You can only have two of the three under normal circumstances. So if you want it fast and cheap, quality goes down. If you have the budget for high-quality work, it takes time.

The same applies here . . . How will you balance the number of channels you are managing, the frequency with which you are posting, and the sophistication of that content? As you wrestle with your nonprofit communications capacity issues, know which two are most important to you.

Want to talk with others who have gone through these capacity-building conversations? Join our free community!

We know from our Annual Nonprofit Communications Trends Reports, the vast majority of you feel it is difficult or very difficult to say “no” to your supervisors when they make a work request. We found that most people who have trouble saying “no” give one of these seven reasons:

1. People-Pleasing Nature
2. Organizational Cultural Norms and Expectations
3. If I Don’t Do It, Nobody Will
4. Lack of Understanding About the Strategic Value of Communications Work
5. It’s My Job
6. Because I Am Committed to the Mission
7. Not Knowing What Is Strategic and What Isn’t

But saying “no” is like a magic trick: it can grant you more time in your schedule, reduce burnout and clear your mind.

Unfortunately, all magic comes with price and the price you might pay when you turn someone down is feeling guilty.

But maybe you don’t have to decide between being over-committed or feeling bad about letting someone down.

Let’s look at some reasons why you should say “No” and ways you can do it without feeling like the bad guy.

When you should absolutely say “No”

• It will take your time and attention away from something that is more important
• It does not align with your values
• It will make you feel (more?) burned out
• It will be bad for your mental health
• You know you will regret saying “yes”

Kivi also lists four big reasons why communications staff specifically need the ability to say “No” to work requests in her post Why Communications Staff Need the Ability to Say No:

1. Conclusions: When leaders and other staff often reach their own conclusions about what communications work is needed without understanding best practices.
2. Capacity: Non-communications staff grossly underestimate how long good comms work takes to produce.
3. Conflict: Comms staff are often expected to “just make it work” instead of executives making strategic choices between their own programs.
4. Confusion: Without coordination and appropriate timing of messaging, the people you are communicating with will be confused by too many messages and even conflicting messages received simultaneously from your organization.

Tips on How to Say “No”

“No.” is a complete sentence. You can just literally say “No.” or “No, I can’t do that.”

No really, there is absolutely nothing wrong with just saying “No” to someone without giving any reasons or cushioning it in any way.

But before we get to what words you use, Elizabeth Scott makes these 3 suggestions on how to say it in Say No to People Making Demands on Your Time:

1 Be firm, but polite.

You want to be sympathetic but do not want it to seem like you will change your mind if they push you.

2. Be clear.

If you know you aren’t going to ever say “yes” don’t tell them you will get back to them. You will disappoint them more by leading them to believe there is a chance.

3. No excuses necessary.

You don’t really owe anyone an explanation. A generic “It doesn’t fit with my schedule” should suffice.

Jonathan Alpert adds to those suggestions in  7 Tips for Saying No Effectively

• Say it
• Understand people’s tactics
• Set boundaries
• Put the question back on the person asking
• Be selfish

Ways Nonprofit Communicators Can Say “No”

In her post 7 Ways to Say No Without Actually Saying It, Kivi shares a few approaches to saying “No” that may work for you:

• “Let’s talk about our goal with this. What are we trying to accomplish?”
• “Doing this means I couldn’t do __________ this week. Is that a good trade-off?”
• “How about if I ________ instead?”
• “Can you get me more information?”
• “Let me think about that and get back to you.”
• “I’m going to put that on my Good Ideas List.”
• Say nothing at all.

And Daniel Potter suggests these 5 strategies in How to Say No: A Guide to Saying No Politely:

• Cushion it with kindness or a compliment.
• Give your reasons.
• Be brief, but not brusque.
• Leave the door cracked if the answer is more “not now” than “no”
• Offer an alternative.

If you want to learn more about the psychology behind saying “no” and how it makes us feel, check out How to Say ‘No’ Politely. This article dives into rejection, FOMO and the three ego states among other things. It also shares more tips like plan ahead and keep it simple.

The Gift of Your No

Finally, remember these words from Kate Northrup in How to Say No Politely (While Honoring Yourself)

The gift of your no is that everyone in your life knows that when you do say yes, it’s real. They know where they stand with you. It puts everyone at ease.

And you honoring your “yes’s” and your “no’s” means that you get to trust yourself more and more, each and every day. Since you’re the only one you’ll be spending your entire life with, that’s a pretty big deal.

May we all have the cojones to say no when we mean no and yes when we mean yes.

In the last few weeks, several nonprofit communications directors told me their programmatic teams are growing, but their communications teams are not. Let’s look at five ways to make the case for growing your communications team.

Plan for Growing Your Communications Team Now, Even Without an Agreement to Hire

Nonprofits often need to plan for hiring new staff over a couple of years as they work the new position into the budget. However, we also see many instances where nonprofits are growing rapidly in response to various external factors, including the pandemic, a renewed emphasis on social justice, and new funding availability. With that rapid growth often comes additional investment in communications teams.

When you get word that growing your team is possible, BE PREPARED! We strongly recommend that you create a plan for what another person (or two) would do now. Project what kind of work products your organization can expect from that growth. Be ready with at least a basic job description for those new positions so you are prepared to jump quickly on any opportunities.

If you wait until you are sure there is funding to begin your planning work, don’t be surprised when someone else in your organization swoops in and snags that funding for another purpose.

If your leadership doesn’t understand that the communications team should grow with programmatic growth, focus on the following arguments!

Emphasize the Return on Investment and What Becomes Possible with a Larger Team

What can your organization expect to happen if you expand your team? It’s usually some combination of

• creating more content (especially around new programming!),
• increasing your communications frequency,
• adding new communications channels or more intensive strategies with existing ones,
• or reaching out to new audiences.

For more specifics about how these changes often roll out as teams grow, see Growing Your Communications Team: How Much More Work Can You Do? In that post, I share how the workload and communications team expertise change with each additional full-time hire.

If programmatic growth will require additional communications work, tie those changes together! Though many variables go into the equation for right-sizing your communications team, we recommend a ratio of 1:5 as a default, especially in smaller organizations. That means one communications team member for every five programmatic team members who might need communications support.

Emphasize Workplace Wellness, Employee Satisfaction, and Preventing Burnout

If your nonprofit’s leadership cares about the wellbeing of its employees and is genuinely interested in building a happy, healthy workforce, then you may want to emphasize how growing the team will reduce the stress on you and prevent you from burning out and leaving. (Unfortunately, that is a big IF in the nonprofit sector.)

Few executive directors understand the stress level involved in nonprofit communications and marketing work. They woefully underestimate the time it takes to do good work and the increasingly technical nature of the job, which requires using numerous kinds of software every day.  Educate them about the realities of your work. Tell them what you need to succeed in your work and be satisfied as an employee.

Emphasize Growing Your Communications Team to Create Space and Time for Strategy

Overworked communicators are doing, doing, doing all the time. There is so much to do. But in all that activity, you crowd out the time you need to think, solve big problems, and be strategic. You need breathing room to do all of that. Growing the team allows you to make strategic decisions so that the “doing” has meaning and produces results.

Emphasize How Building Internal Capacity Creates CALM (Collaboration, Agility, Logic, and Methods)

If your organization is farming out a lot of pieces of the communications workload to freelancers, it may make sense to build some of that capacity in-house instead. There are certain situations where hiring outside expertise makes sense, but if you are outsourcing core communications functions, odds are that work is taking too long or isn’t quite on point. By bringing that work together in-house, you can create focus, consistency, and expertise that is hard to reach with freelancers. That, in turn, results in better decisions and work products because it creates more opportunities for internal collaboration, agility, logical decision-making, and smoother workflows and methods.

What’s worked for you in building your nonprofit’s communications team? We’d love to hear your experiences in the comments. 

Content curation should be an important part of your content creation strategy as it can save you time, improve engagement, establish you as a helpful source of information, and can even improve your SEO. Nonprofits can curate content lots of different ways, but let’s talk about some basics first for those of you who have never curated content before.

Nonprofit Content Curation Basics

Content curation is simply gathering relevant content – that may or may not be yours – and sharing it with your followers.

In order to do it effectively, you need to:

• Know your audience and what is relevant to them
• Schedule time to look for content to share
• Share a variety of content from different sources
• Credit your sources*

*Linking to original content doesn’t automatically save you from copyright violations though. See my post Curating Content Versus Stealing It to learn more. 

When trying to find the right kind of content think about the type of content you are known for now. Then ask yourself:

What would the same people who come to you for that advice also want to know?

That’s the content you want to share.

For example, you as a nonprofit communicator are very likely to be interested in changes on a social media channel. But Kivi and I don’t want to write a new post every time social media platforms update something (we wouldn’t have time for anything else!). But there are people who devote all of their time to tracking social media changes so we will curate that content from those places and share it with you.

If you’re an animal rights organization, you are an expert in ending animal suffering. But it would be logical to assume that a lot of your followers would be interested in vegan/vegetarian recipes. Curating these types of recipes for your followers makes sense.

How to Look for Curated Content

Your main goal is to look for quality content that is relevant to your followers. Ask yourself:

• Is this content published by a reputable source?
• Will my audience be informed or entertained?
• How does this content relate to our own content?
• Does this content offer a unique perspective on a topic within our cause?
• Will I be able to add my own point of view/commentary to this content?

Where to Find Content to Curate

• Your social media newsfeeds
• Subscribe to newsletters
• Ask AI
• Google (BUT be aware that the top content has probably already been shared a lot)

Here are some tools you can use to help find content and keep it organized

• Feedly
• Hootsuite
• Google News Alerts
• Curate by UpContent
• TrendSpottr

How Nonprofits Can Share Curated Content

• Social Media

Share links to content from other people and share why you think your readers need to see this. Repost others’ content.

• Link Roundups

Put together a list of posts, articles, videos, etc on a particular topic related to your cause. These can be news roundups or features like “Things You Need to Know This Week/Month” or “What We’re Reading”

• Add Your Own Spin

These posts require a little more thought, but should still be part of curating content especially if you are interested in establishing yourself as an expert source. You could breakdown data from reports or surveys. Share why you agree or disagree with another piece. Or you could combine several different posts on a similar topic into a single comprehensive post to make it easier for your readers to find everything they need to know about that topic. But remember, it’s important you explain why the content is important to your readers.

For an example of this, see my post Can You NOT Be a Morning Person AND Be Successful?

• Curate Your Own Content

Yep, you can even curate your own content like we did with this post combining all of our resources on annual reports.

From our previous Nonprofit Communications Trends Reports, we know less than 20% of nonprofits say they frequently curate or share content from other organizations. We think that’s a missed opportunity as curating content will help you save so much time while still sharing useful information with your followers.

To talk more about content curation and other nonprofit communications best practices, join our private community. It’s free and give you access to discussion boards, resource libraries, special events and more!

Welcome to the world of nonprofit marketing, where your mission is to make the world a better place by spreading your organization’s message far and wide. And guess what? We do it all on a shoestring budget, with tight deadlines, and too often, with only a handful of resources. Quite often, being a nonprofit marketer means juggling a million things at once.

But there is a silver lining. If you’re fortunate enough to have a marketing team (lucky you!), here’s your golden ticket: delegation.

• By delegating tasks, you can free up your valuable time and direct your focus toward the big picture while also reducing your stress and workload and giving you more breathing room to excel (more on balancing your mental health here).

But that’s not all!

• Delegation also fosters more participation, collaboration, and teamwork, allowing marketing teams to harness the diverse talents across the team. You’ll benefit from fresh perspectives and innovative ideas from both seasoned and new members, creating a dynamic and engaged environment.

Sometimes though, figuring out how to navigate delegation in relation to new hires specifically, can be a bit tricky. You want to strike the right balance between assigning them tasks that free you up but also challenge and help them grow. Successful marketing teams have the right level of guidance and support. 

Where to Begin?

It’s about finding that sweet spot where they can support and contribute effectively to the team, while gaining valuable experience along the way. 

Let’s explore some strategies to help you navigate this delegation journey with new hires like a pro.

4 Key Areas of Delegation for Marketing Teams

First up, let’s dive into the world of onboarding, where you lay the groundwork for success. Then, we’ll discover the significance of systems and processes, making sure things run smoothly and efficiently. Next, we’ll talk about trust, which is essential for effective delegation. Lastly, we’ll explore the idea of control, finding the right balance between guidance and independence.

1. Onboarding is the Foundation for Success

Effective onboarding is critical for the success of new hires. When you bring on a new team member, you want to make sure they have a clear understanding of what’s expected of them. To help ensure a smooth onboarding process, consider the use of the following tools and techniques:

1. Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs): SOPs are helpful because they documents or other visuals that provide a clear set of instructions for how recurring tasks should be completed. New hires can refer to them when needed.
2. Shadowing: involves pairing a new hire with a trusted representative of the organization. The assigned buddy or mentor assists and guides the new hire during their initial weeks, helping them become familiar with the organization’s culture, processes, and expectations.
   
   This support system eases the transition into the new role and facilitates a smoother integration within the team. Choose someone who represents the organization well to act as a buddy during the onboarding process. This person can provide support and guidance to the new hire during their first few weeks.

2. Setting Up Tools and Processes

Set your new hires up for success by giving them the tools they need to get the job done. This might mean a project management system, cloud-based storage, or an editorial calendar. Be sure to provide training and resources to help them learn these systems, as well as best practices. 

3. Building Trust with Effective Communication and Delegation

Trust is an important factor in any relationship but especially when it comes to your direct reports. Delegating becomes easier when you foster an environment of trust. Here are some ways to do that:

• Spend some time getting to know your new hires and their work style. Be open and approachable.
• Delegate smaller tasks to help build confidence and assurance. As trust grows, delegate more complex tasks. For example, if your new hire is responsible for event planning, delegate tasks such as coordinating vendor logistics or creating the event agenda at first, moving on to something bigger as those are completed successfully.
• Encourage open communication and regularly provide constructive feedback. 

Remember the more you trust in your new hire the more you will be building their confidence and motivation to succeed. 

4. Relinquishing Control and Finding the Right Balance

It’s a mindset shift to be able to let go and trust others to do the job. But, by doing so, you are setting your team up for success and helping to build a strong foundation for the future.

Relinquishing control involves finding the right balance between guidance and autonomy.

• Consider the strengths and skills of your new hire when delegating tasks, and provide clear instructions and expectations for each task.
• Prioritize tasks together to ensure that your new hire knows what is most important.
• Check in regularly to provide guidance and support, and use coaching questions to help them grow. Ex. “What alternative approaches or perspectives could you consider?”  or “What are the potential obstacles or challenges you foresee?” or “How can we break down this goal into smaller, manageable steps?”
• Be sure to also offer opportunities for growth and development. For example, if your new hire is responsible for email marketing, offer them resources such as Mailchimp’s email marketing best practices or other webinars on email marketing strategies so they can continue to hone their skills and effectively manage their workload.

Marketing Teams Achieving Success Together

Delegation can very well act as your superpower if done correctly. When you delegate tasks to new hires, make it a win-win situation where you get more time to focus on the big picture, and they get a starter’s chance to grow and shine in their brand-new roles. This is how marketing teams succeed!

It’s all about putting a focus on onboarding, systems, trust, and relinquishing control. By mastering these areas and assigning tasks that match their strengths, we’ll help our marketing teams thrive and our new hires succeed.

Bonus Tip? Keep in mind that delegation is not just for your marketing teams but for all others in your organization as well. Check out these tips on how to create a culture where everyone is a marketer at your organization.

What’s already working for you? Share your tips or join us to chat about this topic with your fellow nonprofit communicators by joining our FREE private community!

Did you know over 16% of emails from nonprofits either go to spam or don’t get delivered at all? Meaning many of you still aren’t maintaining healthy email lists even though we’ve been talking about this for several years now. Your email list needs to be ready for year-end fundraising which, believe it or not, is right around the corner!

A clean email list is essential for making it through the more rigorous filters inbox providers put up to handle the influx of holiday messaging.

Here are 6 things you should do NOW to have your email list ready for a successful year-end email campaign:

1. Try to re-engage lapsed subscribers.

• 6 Messaging Options for Email Re-Engagement Campaigns
• We Are Running an Email Re-Engagement Campaign and People Have Feelings
• We Want You Back! How to Re-Engage Inactive Email Supporters

2. Delete or suppress those who haven’t engaged in AT LEAST 90 days.

• Is a Bigger Email List Always Better? Nope.
• Why Deleting People from Your Email List is a Good Thing
• When to Stop Snail Mailing and Emailing People, Part I
• Should You Contact People Who Unsubscribed from Your Email List?

3. Run some list building campaigns to get new subscribers.

• Nonprofits Should Try Some New Email List Building Techniques
• 3 Email List Building Pop-Ups for Your Website

4. Think of different ways to segment your list.

• Powerful Segmentation Ideas for Year-End Online Fundraising Campaigns
• You Need to Fix Your All or Nothing Email List

5. Create (or freshen up) your welcome series.

• Email Welcome Series Best Practices
• Do You Have an Email Welcome Series for New Subscribers? Probably Not

6. Test your automation processes

Create test email accounts from various inbox providers (Gmail, Yahoo, Apple, etc) to check the subscription/unsubscribe process works like it’s supposed to and to make sure your emails are getting through and look right.

I know it’s September, but taking the time to get your email list ready now will make life so much easier in a few months!

Need more help? We have resources and discussions happening in our private community right now! Not a member of our community? Join now! It’s free.

Nonprofits need people to do things. That’s the only way we can achieve our mission of changing the world. And if you need someone to do something, you need a good call to action (or CTA). Calls to action are our instructions for what we want people to do.

And yet, nonprofits sometimes make what should be simple, clear instructions too complicated and vague.

Let’s use the 5 W’s and H to improve your calls to action.

Who

The who is always the person you ask to do the thing. Speak directly to them as an individual. So, if you need to use a pronoun, that pronoun is always YOU.

What

Be specific! Words like support, help, and a dozen other common nonprofit words are not good enough because they include too many possible actions.

Don’t be sheepish. If you seem embarrassed or guilty when asking, that’s a clear sign to your volunteers or donors that they might feel embarrassed or guilty themselves by following through. Remember, asking is about giving people an opportunity, not taking something away from them. We often mirror emotions in these situations, so if you want someone excited to volunteer or donate or register, you should show a little enthusiasm yourself.

When

One of the most essential elements of conversion copywriting (all the words around your call to action) is a sense of urgency. If we can do something later, most of us will because we are too busy now. So, a good call to action will also include urgency. Even adding the word now can help.  Donate Now is stronger than Donate.

Why

We always need the why. We especially need the Why when asked to do something new, different, or hard. Always be clear about your why in your conversion copywriting around your ask. Please (Insert Call to Action) so that (Result Will Follow). 

In some cases, you can even turn the call to action into the results you are seeking:

• Feed a family
• Rescue 10 kittens
• Find a cure

Where

In a presentation I saw by Dan Heath, co-author of Switch: How to Change When Change is Hard, he said, “A jerk with a map is better than a saint without one.” 

In other words, with clear directions, even people who are otherwise labeled as selfish will give more than good-hearted people who aren’t told how to help.  When you obsess about the path, you greatly increase the odds that people will follow your call to action. That’s why it does matter how many clicks it takes to get to your donation page or register for your event.

Be sure to prioritize your call to action so people can see it and that path very clearly!

How

Dan Heath also said that most people think the change process goes like this: Analyze > Think > Change.

But it doesn’t. It’s much more like See > Feel > Change.  This is precisely why you should tell stories and set the context for what you are asking people to do. Help your supporters see the problem, feel empowered to help fix it, and then learn how to follow through quickly.

Here’s more advice you might like:

40 Nonprofit Call to Action Examples that Drive Engagement

Perfect Your Nonprofit Call to Action in 3 Steps

Need social media and newsletter ideas for September? Then you are in the right place! You can also use these writing ideas for blog posts, videos and more. These writing ideas for September come from our Monthly Nonprofit Writing Prompts email newsletter. Fill out the form below to get October’s prompts emailed to you the week of September 4th.

On the Calendar

You’ll find events with specific dates on the shared Google Calendar.

9/02: Labor Day. Is your organization helping find jobs for those out of work? Interview a volunteer on how they juggle a career and volunteering.

9/06: Read a Book Day. Review a book that highlights your cause. Suggest books to your volunteers that will help them get fired up. (International Literacy Day is on the 8th)

9/08: Grandparents Day. If you work with seniors, do a photo spread of them with their grandchildren. Or have people who have lost their grandparents write letters to them.

9/09: National Boss/Employee Exchange Day. Swap roles with your boss (or vice versa) and document the day for Reels, TikTok, etc.

9/10: Swap Ideas Day. Find another nonprofit to collaborate with to share ideas on a common problem. Find a staff member who works in another area and ask them their thoughts on a problem your area has (like what should we include in our content).

9/12: National Day of Encouragement. Get those quotes ready and give your followers a boost of confidence. Or share how your clients have overcome the odds to show others they can do it too.

9/13: Positive Thinking Day. Share how you WILL eradicate the issues your cause faces. Or talk about toxic positive thinking as it relates to mental health issues.

9/22: Autumn Equinox. Relate the changing of the leaves or fall trends to your cause. Or just make fun of the pumpkin spice everything that’s coming.

9/25: National Comic Book Day. What comic book hero would stand for your cause? What villain would be against you? Can you compare these characters to real-life people in you organization? You can also create your own comic book hero!

9/28: Ask a Stupid Question Day. Is your organization one that’s hard to explain? Know some people who are embarrassed to admit they don’t know the answers? Do a top-ten list of stupid questions you have received. Or turn this idea upside down and take an “apathetic” question like “How can we possibly make a difference, so why bother?” and tell how you will.

September is also:

• Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15th – October 15th)
• National African Immigrant Heritage Month
• National Preparedness Month
• Baby Safety Month
• Self Improvement Month
• Classical Music Month
• Childhood Cancer Awareness Month
• Hunger Action Month
• Ovarian Cancer Month
• National Prostate Health Month
• Pain Awareness Month
• National Recovery Month
• Suicide Prevention Awareness Month

Other Dates in September:

• International Day of Charity is the 5th
• International Literacy Day is the 8th
• Stand Up to Cancer Day is the 13th
• World Suicide Prevention Day is the 10th
• 911 Remembrance Day is the 11th
• International Day of Democracy is the 15th
• Mexican Independence Day is the 16th
• Talk Like a Pirate Day is the 19th
• International Day of Peace is the 21st
• Business Women’s Day in the 22nd
• World Rivers Day is the 22nd
• Native American Day is the 27th

Metaphor of the Month

This month’s metaphor is School. Think about classrooms, virtual learning, textbooks, a syllabus, principals, teachers, students, tests, desks, chalkboard, smartboards, recess, dress codes, subjects, computers, detention, field trips, homework, back-to-school shopping, and report cards.

How can you relate these things to your organization?

Pop Culture, Events, and News

This NFL season kick offs on the 5th.

The US Open for tennis will wrap up the 8th.

There is a Presidential Debate scheduled for the 10th.

The MTV Video Music Awards are the 11th.

The Emmy Awards are the 15th.

The 37th Hispanic Heritage Awards are on the 27th.

Oktoberfest in Germany happens as well as local fests in the US.

Movies coming out in September include Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Transformers One, Speak No Evil, The Killer’s Game, Megalopolis, The Wild Robot, Lee, and Never Let Go .

On streaming platforms, we have Apollo 12: Survival, Uglies, Wolfs, and Rez Ball.

TV Premieres include English Teacher, Last One Standing, Slow Horses, Tell Me Lies, The Perfect Couple, Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist, Power Book II: Ghost, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, Selling Sunset, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Bob’s Burgers, Billionaire Island, Emily in Paris, The Old Man, How to Die Alone, Three Women, The Great North, Universal Basic Guys, My Brilliant Friend, Sister Wives, Tulsa King, Halloween Baking Championship, Dancing with the Stars, High Potential, Agatha All Along, The Golden Bachelorette, Survivor, Frasier, The Penguin, 60 Minutes, Matlock, Rescue HI-Surf, 9-1-1: Lonestar, Brilliant Minds, The Voice, Murder in a Small Town, Penelope, Chicago Fire, Med, and P.D., Grotesquerie, The Masked Singer, 9-1-1, Doctor Odyssey, Grey’s Anatomy, Hell’s Kitchen, Nobody Wants This, The Simpsons, and The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol.

Source of the Month

Blog Round Up. Pick a topic related to your cause and create a blog post with links to recent articles, studies or blog posts.

If you would like these ideas sent to your inbox a month in advance, sign up for our Monthly Nonprofit Writing Prompts. I send this email newsletter the first week of every month with prompts for the following month. For example, I will email the prompts for October around September 6th.

Sign up now to get prompts emailed to you in advance monthly.

Can’t see the form? Try this.

As we enter the fall season, many nonprofits are starting their annual planning processes. With that comes the need to set communications goals for the coming year. And with that comes the need to work with the programmatic teams in your organization and how you will collaborate. (Note that the annual goals we are discussing here are actually what we would call objectives in a larger communications strategy.)

Use the Three Stages of Engagement to Set Communications Goals

One helpful approach to discussing and setting communications goals with others is to structure the conversation using our definition of engagement.

Engagement has three stages: Awareness, Interaction, and Participation.

Think of participation as completing the call to action. So, what do your program folks need people to do? Do they need people to RSVP, sign up, volunteer, donate, attend or what?

But before they participate, people have to be aware and then they typically need some kind of interaction to warm up or prepare. 

Let’s look at awareness goals first. Are you growing your email list or getting more followers on social media? Is getting more traffic to your website through organic search or paid advertising important? These are all ways to build awareness that require investing time and money.

Next is interaction. Are people opening emails and clicking on the links? Are they liking or commenting on specific social media posts? Are people returning to your website or spending a reasonable amount of time on certain pages? These are all forms of interaction that have a higher level of engagement than just awareness.

At the interaction stage, you also present your calls to action for consideration and make the case for them.

Hopefully, those who have been made aware and are interacting with your content will follow through and become participants. 

As you create your plans for the coming year and try to set communications goals, consider using this framework in discussions with other teams. It should help them understand how your communications and marketing work can get them closer to their programmatic goals.