Writing for A Nonprofit? First, Return to Reading.

This entire post can be summed in two words: Read more. Most of us (self included), read today to find this type of nugget of useful information in every blog post, news article and sometimes, even in books.

Let’s face it. We’re not reading. We’re scanning. Hunting for ‘what’s new, hot, useful, not-a-waste-of-my-precious-time.’  So much so that we’ve stopped paying attention to the words themselves. To me, this is a disaster for communications – especially if you work for a nonprofit.

You’ve heard it all before. Reading improves your attention span, expands the breadth and depth of your knowledge, kick starts your creativity, makes you a better person, blah blah blah…

Who cares?

You do. Or you should if you work in nonprofit communications.

If you Tweet, post on Facebook, blog, write copy for your org’s website, send newsletters, or even issue press releases, here’s why you should read:

• Your job at the end of the day is to persuade people to believe in a cause and to do something about it. Where do you find the language to convince them if not by reading?
  A thesaurus is great (and according to MS Word’s lexicon, ‘countless, prodigious, abundant, huge’). But it’s only by reading that you can write better. Reading and writing – like fish and chips and a few other perfect unions – just go together. Doing both is how you figure out what words when strung together resonate with, nay, inspire your supporters.
• Ok, so you’ve perfected the art of writing. But have you got something to say? All day, everyday? It’s unlikely. That’s where reading other people’s work comes in. Through reading you get ideas, you have reflections, you form opinions. And voila! You have something to say. Some call it creating content. We call it Being An Expert.
  If you work at a nonprofit, you have expertise in whatever issue you are addressing. But by reading, responding, and putting forward new ideas or arguments, you stay relevant and that’s why people look to your organization.

• In today’s world of constant information, guess what still moves mountains?  Stories. To tell a great story, you’ve gotta read lots of ’em. It’s that simple.

If you’ve already bought in to this whole reading business, hurrah! But are you making time for it? And if you are, what are you reading today?

(By the way, my goal for 2012 is at least 30 minutes a day of actual reading, not scanning. And right now, I am reading a friend’s to-be-published novel.)