Clear writing gives poor thinking nowhere to hide.
Don’t delegate all your messaging.
Or outsource all your fundraising applications.
Because writing is externalized thinking. And writing is mostly reflection, not typing.
Why this matters. ⤵
You don’t first gain clarity, then write. Instead, clarity comes from writing.
So sure, you can hire a copywriter for extra sizzle, get your comms team to add the final creative polish, or partner with a fundraising firm to repurpose donor appeals.
You can’t, however, pay a writer to think for you.
Case in point:
Our best brand work at Mighty Ally comes with clients who already publish a lot of content. Then we extract vs. dictate truths. Focus vs. fabricate. And weave together a messaging platform vs. build a narrative from scratch.
That’s why your nonprofit brand should produce some sort of written thought leadership.
✔️ Books
✔️ Op-eds
✔️ Research
✔️ Blog posts
✔️ Whitepapers
✔️ Social media
✔️ Case studies
✔️ Press releases
✔️ Annual reports
✔️ Email newsletters
… any marketing channels that involve putting thoughts into words.
At least get it started and write your own first drafts.
Because “when you write, you find out how sloppy your thinking really is,” says Sara Booth.
“Most of us don’t know how many assumptions we’re making, how many terms we’re using that we only approximately know the meanings of, how often we jump directly from this sounds reasonable to me to this is proven.”
“But when we write, we have to persuade others. And this means we have to define how we got from Point A to Point N. And at that point we often find out that we don’t know.”
The bottom line:
Writing transforms fleeting thoughts into lasting wisdom.
So write your mind.
Don’t rent it out.
Pen your vision.
Don’t pawn it.
💪🏽💛
The Daily Bonus
A collection of more writing quotes:
"Easy reading is damn hard writing." — Nathaniel Hawthorne
“Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter.” — African Proverb
“A word after a word after a word is power.” —
"Writing is really a way of thinking — not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic or just sweet." — Toni Morisson
"Create dangerously, for people who read dangerously. ... [Write] knowing in part that no matter how trivial your words may seem, someday, somewhere, someone may risk his or her life to read them." — Edwidge Danticat
“Write. Write. Write. Writing is a commitment one makes to oneself – to do more than be dragged through life by language but to try and get some small purchase on it, to understand it, to really engage the world.” — Yvette Christianse
“Be curious about the world. Make notes, observe, colors and smells and feelings, textures, and sounds, the way car exhaust smokes more in winter, the fallen leaves like puddles, eavesdrop on people speaking, and listen to how they speak and how they express themselves. And then write as much as you can.” — Lauren Beukes
“Reading, therefore, is a co-production between writer and reader. The simplicity of this tool is astounding. So little, yet out of it whole worlds, eras, characters, continents, people never encountered before, people you wouldn’t care to sit next to in a train, people that don’t exist, places you’ve never visited, enigmatic fates, all come to life in the mind, painted into existence by the reader’s creative powers. In this way the creativity of the writer calls up the creativity of the reader. Reading is never passive”. — Ben Okri