Copywriting & Design: 6 Tips for Engaging Nonprofit Messages

People don’t read letters, emails, or web pages that look boring or tedious to read. Think about it—which of these sounds more likely to keep your attention (or even catch it in the first place)?

• A long email that’s written in 12-point type with long paragraphs and no images or headlines
• An email broken up into skimmable paragraphs of different lengths with a handful of images that break up the text and keep your attention

An exaggerated example, maybe, but the answer is clear. Poorly designed and formatted content is a chore to read, and no one needs another chore in their life.

If you want donors and prospects to read your fundraising letters, web pages, emails, grant proposals, and more, you must make sure they look interesting, exciting, and enticing—ideally so interesting that your audience can’t help but read them. 

But we get it. You’re busy, and you’re not a web designer or professional copywriter. Not to worry. Strong design and copywriting are learnable skills, and the fundamentals are easy to master. Let’s walk through some of the most important tips to keep in mind the next time you put pen to paper or fingers to keys.

1. Always understand your goal and audience.

All of your writing and design choices should be informed by two things: your purpose for writing that particular message, and who you’re writing to. Tailor your content based on these guidelines by answering a few quick questions:

• What is this specific audience expecting from this kind of message?
• What do I want them to ultimately do after reading it?
• How should my message align with readers’ expectations to avoid confusing them or wasting their time?
• Simultaneously, how can I make my message stand out enough to catch their attention in the first place?

It’s a delicate balance—making sure the purpose of your outreach is crystal-clear without being so straightforward that it’s boring or gets lost in donors’ inboxes forever. The best way to test it out is simply to put yourself in your recipients’ shoes and experience the message as they will. Consider their level of familiarity with the context and your ask. Check out these examples:

• An annual fundraising letter to a broad audience, a large list of active donors. Distill the appeal down to its core—why should they give?—and anchor your message in this case for support. Be upfront with the ask, mention the impact that gifts will have, and then lay out a concise story full of details that illustrate that impact. Tie it all up with a clear call-to-action and engaging visuals that catch the eye and convey trust.
• An advocacy campaign landing page on your website that will be promoted to a more specific audience of supporters who’ve engaged with advocacy campaigns before. This page can get right to the point with the action you need readers to take. Lead with impactful visuals, directly provide the means for readers to take action, and then delve into the why behind your ask and your goal for mobilizing support.

‍Try an exercise yourself—how might you tailor your approach to specifically connect with lapsed donors who are familiar with your organization and its work but whose support you want to reacquire? 

Master this essential tactic, thinking through your audience’s expectations and familiarity, and then focus on perfecting the design and formatting of your messages. After all, you could send a message that features stellar design but content that’s misaligned or confusing for readers—this message is still likely to get ignored or, worse, make readers feel like you don’t respect their time and attention.

2. Grab attention and express clarity with your headline.

Using a compelling headline in your messages can grab people’s attention and get them to continue reading the rest of the text. 

A headline (or subject line for an email or H1 title on a web page) is like an “advertisement” for the rest of your message. If it’s interesting enough, people will “buy” and read the next paragraph. Of course, if your headline isn’t interesting or compelling, it will actually dissuade people from reading, so make it good! Consider these tips:

• Keep your headlines short and sweet but specific. Long headlines or subject lines are likely to get less attention, but you don’t want them so vague that readers have no idea what your message is actually about. Email subject lines should be roughly 30-50 characters or 4-7 words long.
• Use active language. Active constructions tend to be more direct, vivid, and attention-grabbing, versus passive language which (while sometimes necessary) often results in longer and less engaging messages.
• Avoid too much first-person language. It’s important to frame your nonprofit as the facilitator of action for your mission, but your headline should be more about either your donors or constituents—you want readers to get an immediate sense of connection. For example, a headline like “We need your help to reach our fundraising goal” is less engaging than “Hungry Smallville neighbors need your help this week.”
• Never mislead in your headlines. Think back to the first section of this post—alignment with reader expectations is essential for maintaining their attention and trust. If your message is primarily a fundraising appeal (digital or otherwise), don’t use your headline to conceal it.

3. Start your copy off strong.

After the headline or initial tease to catch readers’ interest, your message’s content needs to maintain that interest with engaging details and compelling language. Here are a few best practices to keep in mind when drafting the first several lines or paragraphs of a letter, email, or web page:

• Directly address your reader, which you can do in several ways:some text
  • Directly name them (“Dear Brenda,”).
  • Use the second person (“Our shelter dogs need your help.”)
  • Ask a question that encourages readers to imagine themselves more closely involved in the situation (“What would you do if you weren’t sure where your family’s next meal would come from?”)
• Use the first/second/third person thoughtfully. Again, pay attention to your use of person in the first several paragraphs of the copy. There’s no one correct way to handle it since each approach creates different effects. Your best rule of thumb is to put yourself in your readers’ shoes, thinking through their expectations and familiarity to find the right balance of “me”/”we” statements, “you” statements, and third-person references to constituents and the community.
• Include compelling details. Vague language won’t cut it for maintaining attention in the crucial first paragraphs of text. Use real details about the situation or data to quickly make the content come alive for readers.
• Use a handy copywriting formula. Copywriters rely on formulas like the AIDA method (attention, interest, desire, action) to draft engaging opening paragraphs—take a page from their book to ensure your messages hit the right notes quickly.
• Use formatting to make your first lines stand out visually. Short bolded lines encourage your audience to keep reading. Imagine being met with a long wall of text as soon as you open an email—you’re much more likely to stay engaged if you’re eased into the message with short, punchy paragraphs that keep your interest.

These strategies will help you create an effective hook that taps right into readers’ motivations and immediately shows them that what you have to say is relevant and compelling. 

4. Use engaging and meaningful visuals.

No matter what you’re writing, visuals will help engage your readers. 

‍But there’s a big caveat—this will only work if your visuals convey real information or serve a real purpose. A lot of websites get this wrong to their own detriment. Including too many purely decorative visual elements can distract readers and slow the site’s load times, reducing engagement even further.

Examples of engaging, meaningful visuals include:

• Graphs and tables of data
• Photos (ideally of real people or locations relevant to the message)
• Larger infographics that combine numbers, words, and visuals
• Renderings of projects
• Logos (which can convey authority and trustworthiness even if they serve more decorative purposes)

As you gather visuals for your next letter, email, or web design project, think about how you can use them strategically. Visual elements can break up the text to help readers stay engaged. Meaningful images can also help encourage readers to more closely read the text around them to catch all the context. 

And for web pages in particular, pay attention to the entire visual impression that you’re making, including the site’s header and menu sections. You want a coherent, engaging look that doesn’t distract with too many unnecessary options and flourishes. Cornershop Creative’s roundup of some of the best nonprofit websites includes several great examples to learn from.

5. Use your headings to strategically tell the narrative.

People skim through written messages—there’s no way around it. Rather than assuming your audience will read every single word, cover your bases by using headings strategically.

The headings that break up your message into distinct sections can catch readers, slow them down, and get them to read. Or at the very least, your headings can convey the essence of what you want to communicate so that your core message or appeal will still resonate with readers who don’t read the whole message.

For example, you might use your headings to literally outline the compelling narrative that you want readers to internalize. Here’s a hypothetical example list of headings that a charity might use in a donation letter: 

• Jimmy’s mom passed away. His dad is out of work.
• Thousands of single parents in our city are struggling.
• Your generosity saved Jimmy and his father last year.
• But this year, we’ve already had to turn away over 250 families.
• Help us never say “No” again.

Headings are also important on web pages for another reason—they directly show not just readers but also search engines what the page is about. When your web pages follow a tidy order of H1, H2, and H3 headings, you’ll maximize the visibility of your content. If you use Google Ad Grants to secure free digital advertising for your key landing pages, always use intuitive heading structures to maximize their effectiveness.

And on any type of message, formatting tricks can support engagement, too. P.S. lines and paragraphs naturally catch the eye, as do a “callout box” or other special sections within the body of the message. Don’t overdo them, but do take advantage of them to drive home key points!

6. Break out the color palette.

Color is critical in many marketing and communication contexts, but it requires good judgment on both the practical and stylistic levels to have the right impact.

Practically speaking, you may or may not be able to afford to use color in your fundraising letters and other mailers depending on your budget. If you can afford it, using color generally makes a letter seem more interesting and appealing to your readers. But remember that overspending on color while poorly targeting your audience can quickly tank the appeal’s ROI.

Stylistically, color helps to convey meaning and set the tone. It should create a coherent, pleasing appearance without distractions. Garish or jarring use of color can actually turn off recipients and lose their attention. 

A safe bet is to always ensure your letterhead or masthead on printed materials includes your color logo. If the rest of the mailer includes color, echo your brand’s core color palette. In the main body of the text and images included there, be mindful of color contrast so that your text remains easy to read. This is an essential component of accessible design for web pages, as well.

If you don’t have a clearly defined color palette for your organization’s brand, try making one. Play around with a color palette tool, like this one from Adobe, to experiment with different arrangements and variations. Then, test them on a web page to see how they interact with one another. A go-to color guide will be extremely helpful for saving time and ensuring coherence in all future messaging.

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Maintaining your readers’ attention is a prerequisite for achieving any kind of communication goal. Whether you’re sending a fundraising letter, a glossy end-of-year mailer, a quick email about your next campaign, or creating a new web page to promote your nonprofit’s programs, these fundamental tips will help you snag and keep that attention.

As you sit down to draft your next message, combine it with visuals, and format it into a finished product, keep these best practices in mind, and don’t be afraid to experiment. As long as you understand your goal and your audience, you can mix and match to find the most effective combinations of strategies for your unique needs.

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