3 Strategies for Creating Compelling Nonprofit Website Copy

When you think about designing a great nonprofit website, what comes to mind? 

Maybe you picture a striking yet sleek design with eye-catching visuals, smooth-as-butter navigation, or robust donation tools. While the look and functionality of your website are important to your marketing and engagement goals, the message it shares is also essential. 

That’s where the copy, or text, on your website comes into play. What you say and how you say it matters, whether you’re working to save an endangered species in the Amazon Rainforest or tackle food insecurity in your local area.

In this guide, we’ll explore some winning strategies for creating compelling nonprofit website copy so you can make your own site one of the best. Let’s begin. 

01. Know your audience.

To write copy that resonates with your website visitors and inspires them to take action for your cause, you must understand their needs, values, and motivations. So, before you begin drafting copy, take a beat to review what you know about your nonprofit’s audience so that you can ensure what you say will help you connect with them online. 

Here are a few tips for better understanding your audience: 

• Define your target demographics. Revisit the data you have about your nonprofit’s community using a tool like your nonprofit constituent relationship management (CRM) system or your marketing platform. Brush up on your audience’s key demographics, such as age, gender, and location. Also, review what you know about their interests, values, and pain points.  
• Create an audience persona. Also known as a user persona, an audience persona is essentially a fictitious person representing your audience. With this one “person” to think about as you write your copy, it’s easier to create content that addresses your audience’s needs and expectations.  
• Adapt for different parts of your website. Your audience may shift from page to page on your website, so be mindful of who you’re writing for at different points on your site. For example, a “What We Do” page will likely address people who are just getting to know your organization and cause, while your “Leave a Legacy” page will address long-time supporters who are intimately familiar with what you do and are interested in giving a planned gift. 

Once you’ve created or updated your website copy to better reflect your audience’s needs, monitor the results of your efforts using a tool like Google Analytics. According to Cornershop Creative, this tool can help you see which pages get the most engagement, providing insight into how well your audience-focused copy is working across your site. 

02. Tell stories that connect. 

One of the things your website visitors will be looking for when they land on your site is authenticity. People want to support organizations that are open and honest about how their work is going and what support they need to take their operations to the next level. People also appreciate when a nonprofit cause feels personally significant and close to home—this can quickly inspire them to donate, volunteer, attend an event, and more. 

The best way to be authentic on your website and humanize your mission is to lean into storytelling. To tell compelling stories, you should:

• Create a narrative arc. According to UpMetrics’ guide to nonprofit storytelling, a narrative arc involves exposition (the set up of a story), an inciting incident (what puts the story into motion), rising action (events that build tension), the climax (the peak of the story where the biggest challenge is faced) and resolution (the outcome of the story). Building narrative arcs like this around compelling characters like beneficiaries, volunteers, or staff members will help draw your website visitors in. 
• Be specific. Help your readers visualize the story you’re telling by using vivid descriptions and details that bring your copy to life. This will make your stories more memorable and ensure your audience feels connected to the characters and your cause. For instance, if you’re telling a story about a hurricane clean-up your volunteers assisted with, describe the sights, sounds, and smells of the clean-up site to invite your readers into the setting of the story. 
• Incorporate real-world examples, testimonials, and quotes. Make your stories feel even more genuine and relatable by adding in real experiences from the people who were a part of them. Collect firsthand accounts from volunteers, donors, beneficiaries, staff members, and community partners and get their permission to use them across your website. 

While you won’t have a reason (or the room!) to share stories everywhere on your website, you can make great use of them in a few specific places. For instance, try writing long-form stories on your blog or sharing volunteers’ testimonials and experiences on your sign-up page. 

03. Make it readable. 

To holistically improve the quality of your website copy, you’ll also need to spruce up your writing skills. While you don’t have to be Charles Dickens to create great website copy, you should have a good grasp on some web writing basics. 

Use these tips to ensure your copy is readable and engaging for web users:

• Choose an easy-to-read font for your website copy so that it’s easy to distinguish between the text and background. 
• Use clear and simple language, avoiding jargon and complex terminology. 
• Keep sentences and paragraphs short—sentences should be no more than 20 words, and paragraphs should only be 2-3 sentences long.  
• Break up large blocks of text with bulleted or numbered lists to make them more scannable. 
• Use bold or italic text to emphasize important points, but do so sparingly. 
• Always proofread your copy before publishing, checking for grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors that could make your organization look unprofessional. 

The great thing about writing website copy is that there are several resources that can make the task easier for you. For instance, consider using an AI tool like ChatGPT to help outline and draft your content. While you should avoid copying text from ChatGPT word-for-word, you can use it as a great brainstorming tool. You can also use a tool like Grammarly to help with proofreading.