How To Do Freelance Writing For Non-Profit Organizations

As I’m sure you know, non-profits have a noble mission: to make the world better. Even if your organization doesn’t have much money for marketing, writing can play an important role.

Whether it’s fundraising letters or blog posts that promote your mission, good writers can help make your cause stand out from the crowd and attract attention to what you do. You might be wondering how you’ll find a writer who’s right for you.

There are plenty of good writers out there but not all of them are right for every project or campaign. So, how do you know if they’ll fit in?

Here are some tips from my own experience as a freelance writer who works with non-profit organizations like yours:

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Takeaways
1. Understand the Non-Profit Landscape: Familiarize yourself with the goals, missions, and values of non-profit organizations to align your writing with their objectives.
2. Showcase Your Passion for Social Causes: Emphasize your genuine interest in making a positive impact through your writing, as non-profits often seek writers who share their passion.
3. Master the Art of Storytelling: Learn to craft compelling narratives that highlight the stories of beneficiaries, volunteers, and donors, helping non-profits connect with their audience.
4. Tailor Your Tone and Style: Adapt your writing style to match the non-profit’s brand and communication guidelines, ensuring your content resonates with their supporters and donors.
5. Build a Network within the Non-Profit Community: Establish connections with non-profit professionals and organizations, as networking can lead to more opportunities for freelance writing projects.
6. Showcase Your Relevant Experience: Highlight any previous work you’ve done for non-profits or social causes, demonstrating your expertise and commitment to writing for the non-profit sector.
7. Stay Informed about Social Issues: Stay up-to-date with current social issues and trends to address relevant topics in your writing, making your content more impactful and timely for non-profits.
8. Collaborate with Non-Profit Clients: Maintain open communication and collaborate closely with non-profit clients to understand their needs and deliver content that meets their objectives effectively.
9. Measure the Impact of Your Writing: Track the performance of your content for non-profits, monitoring engagement metrics and outcomes to demonstrate the value of your writing contributions.
10. Be Flexible and Adaptable: Non-profits may have shifting priorities and urgent needs. Being adaptable and responsive to changes will make you a valuable and sought-after freelance writer.

Table of Contents

Attach Your Name To An Article

Attaching your name to an article is much more effective than asking for donations. People are more likely to donate money and time when they know you’re involved because they trust that you will put their donation toward a good cause.

If you’re new to the non-profit world, offer to provide the organization with feedback on their website, social media channels, and other marketing materials.

Offer them tips on how they can get more volunteers or donors; or create an e-mail campaign that helps them collect more information about their current followers or supporters. You can also offer free articles for their blog or newsletter if they want one of those too!

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Talk About How They Can Build Credibility And Brand Awareness

When you’re writing for a non-profit organization, it’s not just about you. Yes, you want to get paid that’s the only reason why anybody would do anything but there’s also something bigger at stake here: your client wants the entire project to be perceived as credible and trustworthy.

If you can write promotional copy that sells people on this idea, then they’ll be more likely to link back to your work in their content (which will give them more links) or provide testimonials that help convince others to donate money or time.

It all starts with you making sure that everything sounds legitimate as possible.

Talk About How They Can Express Complex Ideas Simply

You can produce complex ideas simply by:

Using simple language. As mentioned above, use clear, concise language that is easy to understand.
Avoid jargon at all costs! As a freelancer, you will be writing for a variety of audiences and they’re not always going to share the same background or interests as you (or your organization).

Make sure that every word you write is easily understandable by everyone who reads it even if it means writing out simple terms like “business” or “nonprofit.”

Talk About How You Can Write Persuasive Copy

It’s important to remember that even if you have a degree in English and a decade of experience writing for publication, your nonprofit organization clients might also have writers on staff. You may be competing with them for the same job. So how do you differentiate yourself?.

You do this by demonstrating your understanding of persuasive copywriting, which is essentially any kind of writing that aims to convince someone else to take some action (i.e., buy something). This includes:

Making people want to buy your product or service
Getting people interested enough in volunteering at your nonprofit organization
Encouraging donations from donors, and finally
Convincing voters that they should vote for your candidate or ballot measure.

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Build Rapport And Trust By Helping Them To Understand What Their Readers Want

Sometimes it can be difficult to understand your audience, especially if you’re new to the non-profit world. But understanding your readers and how they want to be communicated with is critical to creating content that will resonate with them.

To give the non-profits an idea of how they can understand their readers, I recommend getting in touch with them before we start working together. Ask questions like:

How do you determine what research needs to be done?
What are some challenges you face in communicating with your audience?
How do you determine which topics are most important for your audience?

Remember That They Are Trying To Sell To Potential Donors And Volunteers

When you’re communicating with them, remember that they are trying to sell to potential donors and volunteers. They have a problem or challenge they need to solve, and they need your help to achieve their goals.

If you were the non-profit leader, what would be the hardest part of getting people on board? What’s preventing them from achieving their goal? Think about how you could use your skills as a writer or editor to help them make progress toward solving those problems.

When writing for this type of organization, it’s important to keep in mind that many organizations will rely on volunteers and donations instead of paying staff salaries or fees for services like these; so if you offer excellent work at an affordable price point (and within an acceptable timeframe), chances are good that someone will want to hire you again.

Let Them Know How You Can Help Them Share Their Stories With The World

If you know your way around the content world, you can help nonprofits spread their message. Here are some ways to get started:

Write a press release for them. A well-crafted press release can be an excellent way for a nonprofit organization to share its story with local and national media outlets, including television stations, newspapers, and online news sites.

Write a pitch letter for them. Nonprofits often have great stories to tell but only if they find the right person at the right time who will listen to their tale.

A well-written pitch letter should include everything from an overview of the organization’s mission statement to its current status as it relates to funding and growth/expansion plans moving forward into next year or beyond… all wrapped up in one tidy package that makes readers want more details

If possible, offer yourself up as someone who can help make those dreams come true by pitching stories on behalf of this group so they don’t become overwhelmed with requests by other writers who may not necessarily speak directly with leadership first before pitching ideas (which is also nice).

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Show Them How You Can Attract New Customers With Your Words

Use social media. Your target audience hangs out on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other sites. Post interesting content that will help them learn something new or solve a problem and then let them know about it!

Use email marketing. You can reach a more targeted audience with email newsletters than you would with social media posts alone; plus, the emails are usually more actionable (i.e., they contain links to click).

Use content marketing to reach a wider audience than just the people who follow your brand on social media or subscribe to your newsletter but still be able to communicate directly with those people when necessary through the channels above.

For example: post something funny/interesting/helpful onto Reddit (or another site) and include an email signup form so people who want more information can get it; create an infographic based on some data from an industry report that’s been shared many times before but never visually represented quite like this before (and share it), etcetera…

Demonstrate How You Can Keep A Reader’s Attention In The Digital Era

One of the biggest challenges of writing for non-profits is that it’s often hard to get your message across in a world where people are bombarded with content, ads, and distractions everywhere they turn.

A good way to demonstrate that you understand this challenge and have some ideas about how to overcome it is by providing an example of how you would write for an audience whose attention span is shorter than usual because their life is busier than usual (or both).

This can be done by:

Use shorter sentences throughout your sample text (no more than 15 words per sentence)
Not using any passive voice
Choosing simpler words over more complicated ones

Explain How You Can Use Research, Data, And Statistics To Support Your Ideas

It’s a common misconception that academic writers have to be boring. While academic writing does require a level of structure and rigor, there are plenty of ways for you to inject your personality into the finished product.

One way is by using compelling sources of information as evidence for your points. So before you start writing, make sure that you collect any relevant materials (like case studies or statistics) that will help support your argument or idea.

You may also want to consider including quotes from experts with experience in the field and don’t forget about customer testimonials either!

Demonstrate Your Ability To Tell Intriguing Stories By Using Case Studies And Anecdotes In Your Samples

Case studies and anecdotes are important for demonstrating your ability to tell interesting stories. Case studies provide real-life examples of how you helped a client solve a problem, while anecdotes are brief accounts of an interesting experience or conversation.

In your samples, don’t just use case studies and anecdotes to explain why they’re important. For example: “a case study helps readers see how my company solved someone else’s problem.” You can also give concrete examples of case studies or anecdotes that you’ve used in the past: “I once worked with [client] on [project].

She needed help with [task], so I did [action].” Finally, explain how using these techniques will help convince prospective clients that you’ll be able to do the same for them: “An anecdote helps me show potential clients what kind of writer I am.”

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Show That You Have Experience In Copywriting For The Web

Show that you have experience in copywriting for the web by including examples of emails, newsletters, or other mailings that you have written.

This could be as simple as having a list of links on your site to previous versions of these documents and having a short paragraph describing what they are and why they are important to the organization.

If you have written press releases, showcase them here too! You can include links directly to those items or just a short description of the release and how it relates to the organization’s mission statement or goals.

You might also want to share some examples of social media posts that appeal directly toward potential donors/customers these should be professionally done and not just something off-the-cuff (that shows off your writing skills).

Let Them Know That You Understand Seo Principles Of Great Content Marketing And Outreach Campaigns

SEO is about making sure your content is easy to find online. It’s about making sure your content is relevant to your audience.

This involves researching keywords for each piece of writing, ensuring the terms are naturally integrated into sentences without sounding forced or unnatural (or like they’re just stuffing keywords in there).

It also helps if you have a few backlinks pointing to any important pages on the site. Search engines will then consider these pages important and give them higher search rankings within their respective categories or topics than other pages that don’t have many links coming into them from outside sources (such as blogs or other websites).

Explain The Importance Of Using Plain Language, Avoiding Jargon, And Using Headlines That Make People Want To Read More

Plain language is a simple concept but many organizations fail to use it, which is why you can often get away with writing for them.

When you’re writing for clients who don’t understand the importance of using plain language and avoiding jargon, they don’t pay attention to your writing style. They just want what they want and expect that you’ll write it, so there’s no incentive for them to invest in training or improving their skillset.

However, non-profits are different because they care about the people they serve and they strive to do good work that makes a difference in their community (and beyond).

Non-profits also tend to be more transparent than other companies because they want people to trust them with their donations and volunteer hours. That means if you’re a freelance writer working with a non-profit organization then there’s an opportunity for both parties involved.

You’ll have more freedom when writing because there won’t be as much pressure from higher-ups about how your content should look or sound; whereas the non-profit will benefit from having better content produced by someone who cares about what he/she does (as opposed to just getting paid).

Showcase Your Experience With Email Marketing Campaigns

If you have experience with email marketing campaigns and other types of mass messaging, this can be an excellent way to help non-profit organizations. You can offer to build a database of contacts so that they can send out regular newsletters or other mailings to raise awareness or funding for their projects or causes.

You could also talk about how you could help them create a newsletter that gets sent out regularly and includes news about upcoming events, fundraising opportunities, etc., as well as some in-depth information on the organization’s activities.

If you already have experience setting up successful email campaigns from scratch (or if you want to learn), then including examples of previous ones would be great here too!

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Final Thoughts

Freelance writing for non-profits is a great way to contribute to your community and make money at the same time. It’s also a great way to start freelance writing if you’re new to it because there are so many opportunities available.

But be warned – this type of writing has its unique challenges that you’ll need to overcome. Find the right balance, and using these tricks should get you well on your way towards making much more than just pocket change with your work as a non-profit freelancer writer!