3.4 TONE OF VOICE
Copy style, direction and tone of voice:
How our values and brand personality translate into words
These guidelines are here to work alongside the copy style and tone that you already know works well with your audiences.
For example, some country offices will prefer using shorter headlines and sentences than others. Some will find that a ‘harder’ focus on need is effective, while others may go into more detail about solutions and their impact.
This variation is important, but at the same time there are some universal truths that will help strengthen and unify our global fundraising campaigns in every language.
Our core traits
To bring Make Africa’s Heartbeat Stronger to life, we need to convey:
HEART: Our words should convey the passion and depth of our commitment, and the dedication of everyone who is trained by or working with us. Our heart is warm - so our compassion and humanity should come across too.
STRENGTH: We should convey the strength not only of our solutions and training, but also of the individuals and communities who are facing barriers to good health - especially the women who bear the brunt of that task. It goes without saying that we should never frame people as helpless victims who are simply "being helped'. Our work often involves whole communities in finding solutions to problems such as FGM/C.
DYNAMISM: Our can-do, bespoke approach to local problems is one of the things that makes us different so we should showcase this. Like strength, this positivity and energy is found in individuals and communities as well as trained health workers.
AFRICAN CHARACTER: Amref is proudly African-led and our solutions to health problems are based on our genuine knowledge of communities and their cultures. In such a diverse continent, no problem or solution is generic. So when we tell stories, we should convey our knowledge of local context, as it really sets us apart and informs our success.
At the same time as showing diversity, we should also try to convey the passion, spirit, energy, care and creativity that unites us as a continent.