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7 Creative Content Ideas For Your Nonprofit Blog Or Newsletter
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While showcasing donors and volunteers and writing about your fundraising impact are all important things to put on your blog or in your email newsletter, they’re not enough to sustain your content.
The best formatted email in the world won’t matter if you don’t have valuable content to share. Your audience craves variety and content that feels relevant to them.
So what kind of creative content should you be sharing in your nonprofit email newsletter and blog to keep your audience in touch and interested?
Here are a few creative content ideas to get you started:
1. Share Updates About Your Organization
If people care enough to read your blog or be on your email newsletter list, then chances are they care about what’s going on at your organization. Don’t overwhelm them with organizational updates, but share the big stuff. Things like new programs, new needs, new employees, goals met, etc. are great updates to share. Throw in photos whenever relevant and share office culture and day-to-day pictures on social media. Writing up volunteer, employee, or member showcases can also be a great way to show the faces and stories behind your nonprofit.
2. Show Your Mission In a Creative Way By Painting A Picture
What would happen if your nonprofit ceased to exist tomorrow? Ask this question to your constituency and see what kind of answers you get. Draw together all the data you have and find a way to show your readers what would happen if your nonprofit disappeared. You can share stories of people who would be impacted if your nonprofit disappeared, show data that graphically paints this picture, and share the perspective from employees. An infographic could be a great way to showcase the data from your nonprofit’s outcomes.
3. Feature Your Upcoming Events or Relevant Community Events
Sharing events is a great way to stay up-to-date with your audience. Be an active member of your community just like your readers likely are. Spice up the event announcements by including important events in a calendar image that can be updated monthly, or by including a poll and asking your readers if they’ll be attending certain events. Make a note to follow up with the people who say they’ll attend and plan to say hi to them at the event.
4. Showcase Successful Recent Impact Stories
One of the best ways to retain current donors is by sharing your nonprofit’s impact. Your current donors want to see how their donations have helped and potential donors want to see what their impact could be. You can share these stories visually or through good storytelling — just get creative with it! Images and graphs could be a great way to share your impact visually. Interview people who’ve been impacted by your nonprofit and use their responses to weave together stories and pull out powerful quotes.
5. Find Your Unique Perspective
Help your nonprofit stand out by finding what makes it unique and expanding on that. Maybe it’s an executive director that has a personal story that connects he or she back to the mission in a relatable way. Or maybe it’s an interesting origin story. Whatever it is, use that unique perspective in your storytelling. Have the executive director talk about their personal story, a volunteer talk about their fulfillment, or someone who’s been impacted by your nonprofit share their “before and after.” Video interviews can be a great way to share this type of content. This isn’t the same thing as sharing impact. It’s leveraging what makes your nonprofit stand out from others like it.
6. Show Thought-Leadership Within Your Cause Type
You don’t have to speak at events to be considered a thought leader. Learn as much as you can about the niche cause type you work in, whether that’s animal welfare, education, a particular disease, etc. You likely already know a lot about your cause (or have someone on staff or a volunteer who does). Tips, best practices, or even thoughts on news related to your cause can be a great way to tie back to your nonprofit without having an “ask” feel to it. If people trust you to know what you’re talking about, they’re more likely to trust you to do good work with their money.
7. Bring Guest Bloggers Aboard
Add some variety and unique insight to your content by bringing in guest bloggers for additional value. This could be as simple as having volunteers or members contributing ideas, or you could take it a step further and invite experts in your cause type or in your community. If possible, get multiple writers from within your organization to contribute content from time to time.
Additional tips to get you going:
- One of the obvious things that you should be doing when you’re in a rut with creating compelling and creative content is to ask your readers what they want to see. Don’t be afraid to send out short surveys asking people to check the topics that they’re most interested in.
- No matter what you’re posting, make sure to always include good quality, relevant photos whenever possible. It’ll add depth and color to your content.
- Create infographics and other comparison visuals to tell stories in a different way. For example, comparing your organization’s impact from start to present could be a great fit for an infographic. You can utilize some of Canva’s free infographic templates to get started.
- Keeping content fresh can be a challenge, creating an annual, quarterly, or monthly content calendar can help you keep organized.
While it can he hard to find motivation to create content, your nonprofit already has a lot of great stories right at its fingertips waiting to be discovered and told.
At the end of the day the most important thing you can do when it comes to your blog and newsletter is to make sure your content provides genuine value to your readers.
What are some creative content ideas that you implement for your nonprofit blog or newsletter?
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