I laughed when I saw Johann Karlsson’s satirical LinkedIn post, ‘What if NGOs wrote your ads.’ Here are some fun examples from his post:
- Nike: “We provide footwear enabling targeted populations to undertake physical activity.”
- Apple: “We encourage affected communities to adopt alternative approaches to cognition and problem-solving.”
- IKEA: “We provide standardized household solutions to target groups in low-resource settings.”
Thousands of others, from executive leaders to communications directors to program staff, had the same reaction that I did.
This post was all in good fun of course, but why is it so common for NGOs and nonprofits to have statements like this? In other words, if we all know that a jargon-laden statement about who we are, what we do, and why it matters isn’t effective, why does it continue to happen?
As a leader of a digital agency (Teal Media) that almost exclusively serves the nonprofit space, I have some ideas on why jargon happens. Perhaps naming the sources of jargon will encourage organizations to have internal conversations on how to address it. After all, to build awareness and drive support for your mission across the widest reach of potential supporters, the story of your organization must be easy-to-understand and memorable.
But first…
Why Jargon Happens
Based on my experience, I see jargon happen in the following circumstances:
1. Fear. There’s plenty of fear going around these days, and it can be scary to state who you are and what you do in a simple and straight-forward way. Fear leads to default internal jargon because: a) it is often the path of least resistance; and b) it feels ‘safe’ because other organizations are doing it too. This fear is multifaceted, and the criticism against plain language is often stated as a figurative shortcoming—organizations are afraid of not being accurate enough, afraid of not emphasizing something important enough, or afraid of not sounding professional enough. As a result, their organizational story becomes cautious, abstract, and wordy.
One commenter on the original post said it perfectly:
“..every time I’ve presented a plain language explanation to a nonprofit, the team panics and puts all the technical words back in”
Remember: Jargon is armor—it protects the speaker more than it informs the listener.
2. Assuming one-message-fits-all. Nonprofits depend on fundraising to survive, and applying for a large institutional donor or a grant typically requires very specific, technical language. It’s not uncommon that this funder-focused language from successful grant proposals finds its way to the front of an organization’s website. After all, those words, descriptions, and explanations already brought in money, so why not?
Well, because funders are only one audience, and their technical requirements probably don’t speak to, say, potential individual donors. The ways nonprofits communicate who they are, what they do, and why it matters, doesn’t have to—and in most cases shouldn’t—be the same for all audiences.
Your words will be much more effective and resonate if you craft your message to address the needs, pain points, and expectations of your target audience. The kicker is that you have to identify this priority audience BEFORE you start crafting your message (and sorry, “the general public” isn’t specific enough to count!). When you try to write for everyone—board members, policymakers, funders, advocates—all at once, in the same way, on every channel, your message will end up being generic, pragmatic, and uninspiring.
Remember: Jargon is the result of not setting priorities—when you try to be everything to everyone, you end up not being effective for anyone.
3. Lack of a clear owner. Many organizations have the best intentions—they’ve taken the proper steps to get a brand strategy in place and have a nice brand guide to go with it. (If you don’t have a brand strategy or guide in place, we can help!).
But when it comes to crafting the story of who they are, what they do, and why it matters, some nonprofits struggle to determine who within their organization should ‘own’ this story. The turf battles are real. In discovery sessions with clients, I’ve heard things like:
- “You will get a different answer on [who we are and what we do] depending on who you talk to.”
- “The researchers [at the organization] don’t like when we say that.”
- “Each program kind of runs its own show.”
With no clear owner of the brand story—or an identified owner that wasn’t given the authority to make final decisions—organizations default to:
- a) Existing but less relevant content that was previously hammered out and accepted across the organization; or
- b) Edits by committee, which either complicates (more jargon) or muddies (more jargon) the message quickly (with more jargon).
This is why Teal Media recommends that one person—typically the Director of Communications (or equivalent)—serve as the owner of the brand story and how it is communicated to each audience. And just as important, the organization must give this owner the authority to make decisions to move the process forward in a consistent and efficient way.
Remember: Jargon happens when no one is in charge.
What You Can Do About it
The only way to tackle jargonitis head-on is to have heart-to-heart conversations within your organization. As with many things, recognizing the problem exists is the first step. Then, it’s accepting—as you can probably deduce by now—that that jargonitis is usually symptomatic of deeper organizational issues.
These conversations can be quite difficult, as they can bring up bigger, existential questions like ‘who are we as an organization?’ ‘who actually is our target audience?’ and ‘who has final say on what we say, how we say it, when we say it, and why?’ It’s also tough to make time for these conversations and sometimes even tougher to decide who should be invited into these conversations.
Personally, I love when I see these brand story-related conversations happen in tandem with the organizational strategic planning process—and be taken just as seriously. After all, you can have the best organizational strategy in the world, but if you are not effectively communicating it to the people you need to reach, your strategy will remain trapped in an internal planning document.
Or, possibly worse, that one sentence about who you are, what you do, and why you matter from that internal document? It shows up on the homepage of your website, as-is.
If your organization needs help in facilitating this type of conversation, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Bonus content!
For additional reference, here are some examples of how to translate nonprofit jargon into plain, clear, human-focused language (thanks ChatGPT!):
EXAMPLE 1:
- JARGON: “We empower communities through capacity-building initiatives.”
- PLAIN LANGUAGE: “We help local leaders get the skills and tools they need to make change.”
- WHY IT WORKS: “Empower” and “capacity” are vague; this makes empowerment visible and specific.
EXAMPLE 2:
- JARGON: “We work at the intersection of policy and practice.”
- PLAIN LANGUAGE: “We connect what happens in government with what happens in real people’s lives.”
- WHY IT WORKS: Translates a metaphor (“intersection”) into plain terms that show purpose.
EXAMPLE 3:
- JARGON: “We leverage cross-sector partnerships to drive systemic change.”
- PLAIN LANGUAGE: “We bring businesses, schools, and local groups together to solve problems that no one can fix alone.”
- WHY IT WORKS: Turns jargon into a clear, relatable image of collaboration.
EXAMPLE 4:
- JARGON: “We promote evidence-based interventions.”
- PLAIN LANGUAGE: “We use programs that have been proven to work.”
- WHY IT WORKS: Same meaning, but accessible to any reader — no insider language required.
EXAMPLE 5:
- JARGON: “We drive impact through scalable, sustainable solutions.”
- PLAIN LANGUAGE: “We find ways to make good ideas grow and last.”
- WHY IT WORKS: Keeps the ambition, drops the corporate buzzwords.
