As a nonprofit communications professional, you might feel overwhelmed by all of the options you have for staying in touch with donors. Email, social media, written blog posts, and videos, are all popular options—and those are just the digital outreach strategies! Traditional direct mail and in-person outreach are as important as ever for nonprofits. 

With all these options, how can you determine what communication style donors really want to see from your nonprofit?

We’ve compiled data-driven tips for designing nonprofit communications your donors will actually engage with. While every nonprofit audience is unique, all donor groups tend to respond well to communications that include these five elements: 

1. Storytelling 

Stories have a unique way of catching and retaining attention like no other communications strategy. Marketing researchers have found that stories are 22 times more memorable than facts alone. 

Your nonprofit’s donors don’t just want to hear about your organization’s success metrics—they want you to contextualize the data you share into compelling narratives that speak to their emotions. 

New to nonprofit storytelling? We recommend the following tips to simplify the process:

• Gather user-generated content from your audience. This includes testimonials with direct quotes, photos, and videos from beneficiaries, donors, and volunteers. Platforms like Gather Voices make it easy to collect and integrate user-generated videos into marketing content to share via email, social media, and your website. 
• Build a content library to host storytelling materials. Organize your storytelling assets, including videos, photos, infographics, webinars, and podcast clips, into a convenient digital library. This could be a shared folder in your Google Drive or a content management system (CMS) like WordPress or Drupal. Keeping all of this content in one place makes it easy for all marketing team members to access different content assets they may need to build a compelling story. 
• Test your stories. Run A/B tests by incorporating different stories into your emails, social media posts, and blog articles. Track metrics such as email open and click-through rates, social media engagement, and time on the page to assess which stories engage your audience most effectively. 

Incorporate storytelling into your offline communications as well as your online ones. For example, your nonprofit’s events, including everything from your silent auctions to your fundraising 5K races, should kick off with a brief storytelling-based introduction. This helps remind your audience what your events are really about and inspires them to support your organization at a higher level. 

2. Personalized messages

You’ve probably heard this plenty of times recently, but it bears repeating: personalization is the name of the game when it comes to reaching today’s donors. 71% of consumers expect personalized interactions from brands, and donors are no different. Plus, emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened.

Pull supporter data from your donor database and volunteer management platforms to personalize your nonprofit communications. For example, you can make your communications more personable and memorable by incorporating the following elements from your records: 

• Donors’ names
• Information about supporters’ past involvement with your organization, whether via giving, volunteering, advocating, or other forms of participation
• Campaigns or programs donors like to support

In addition to personalizing messages to each individual, you can also create donor personas to develop tailored campaigns for different groups. Creating personas allows you to make the most of your outreach efforts by targeting larger groups of people who have similar interests and characteristics. For example, if you’re trying to reach younger generations, you could prioritize communicating via popular social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok. 

3. Mobile-friendly content

According to the M+R Benchmarks 2024 report, 52% of nonprofit website traffic comes from mobile devices. Mobile-friendly communications are essential for a wide range of outreach campaigns, including text-to-give, social media, and email marketing. 

Make your communications mobile-friendly by taking these steps: 

• Use large text and buttons. Large, readable text and easy-to-touch buttons make the mobile website browsing experience more convenient. 
• Design a mobile-friendly giving form. Bloomerang’s text-to-donate guide recommends creating a simple donation page that offers suggested donation amounts and only asks for necessary information, like donors’ names, contact information, and payment details. 
• Film videos in portrait orientation. Research shows that 94% of smartphone users hold their phones vertically when viewing videos, and vertical videos have a 90% higher completion rate than horizontal ones. Plus, vertical videos look much more natural on social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram. 

When creating engagement campaigns that users will view on mobile devices, keep your communications brief and casual. Most mobile users don’t want to spend a long time scrolling through your content on their phones, and there are plenty of other distractions that have the potential to pull them away from your message. Make your outreach short and sweet to grab your target audience’s attention. 

4. Compelling visuals

It’s no secret that compelling visuals amplify your nonprofit’s message, but illuminating marketing research reveals just how impactful strong imagery can be. For example, infographics are 30 times more likely to be read than written posts, and 91% of consumers want to see more videos from brands. 

With that being said, prioritize incorporating the following types of visual content into your nonprofit communications: 

• Videos: Take your video strategy to the next level with user-generated content, interactive videos, and creative short-form videos on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. 
• Photos: Incorporate authentic, original imagery into your communications (not stock photos). Prioritize images that show people’s faces—one study found that on Instagram, photos with faces are 38% more likely to receive likes and 32% more likely to receive comments.
• Infographics: As mentioned, infographics are an eye-catching, effective way to share important information with your audience. Brand your infographics with your nonprofit’s logo, colors, and typography to reinforce brand recognition. 

Varying the types of visuals and videos you use throughout your communications will help bring your mission to life for donors. When supporters see the real people behind your mission, they’ll feel a much stronger emotional connection to your cause. 

5. User-friendliness and accessibility

The common thread running through all of the communications elements we’ve discussed so far is that they all must be user-friendly and accessible to help achieve your nonprofit’s engagement goals. Unsurprisingly, 42% of people say they’d leave a website because of poor functionality, demonstrating the importance of creating a positive user experience (UX). 

Plus, an estimated 1.3 billion people worldwide (16% of the total population) live with significant disabilities, making accessibility an essential priority for your nonprofit’s online presence. 

These tips will help set you up for success to make your content both user-friendly and accessible: 

• Follow established guidelines, such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), when designing your online content. The WCAG include recommendations such as adding alternative text to images, incorporating captions in videos, and using sufficient color contrast between digital text and the background (the recommended ratio is at least 4.5:1 or 3:1 for large text). 
• Use software tools that help create a better user experience for supporters. Today’s top nonprofit software solutions include plenty of tools that make supporting your nonprofit easier than ever. For example, you might leverage matching gift software to help supporters research their matching gift eligibility or peer-to-peer fundraising solutions that make it simple to design personalized fundraising pages. 
• Ensure any AI-generated content has human oversight and incorporates your nonprofit’s voice. Leveraging AI-generated content within your nonprofit’s marketing materials comes with some user experience risks. The most significant potential pitfalls are inaccuracies and thin or generic content. If your organization decides to use AI tools to help with the content creation process, be sure to fact-check all outputs using reliable third-party sources. Also, add your nonprofit’s unique voice to the content so it sounds familiar to your audience. 

Giving donors a positive online user experience can encourage them to spread the word about your organization—in fact, UX research shows that 23% of people who’ve had a positive UX tell ten or more people.

Combine these communication elements and strategies with strong branding and a consistent message to retain your audience’s attention for the long term. Track engagement metrics across marketing platforms to see which channels and strategies drive the greatest impact. Don’t be afraid to adjust your approach over time to find a unique strategy that works best for your audience.