3.4 TONE OF VOICE

Telling strong human stories is vital: The emotional power of our stories often lies in the simple facts of need and impact, before and after. Quotes bring the story to life and encourage the audience to relate to the individuals involved, and pictures play a key role in evoking emotion. When stories and images are combined with statistics, and other contextual facts, the result is truly powerful.

Be flexible: Our fundraising proposition is designed to be flexible. So you can adjust copy lines to make them more effective to your audiences. For example, you can talk about ‘Make Ethiopia’s heartbeat stronger’ or ‘Make South Sudan’s heartbeat stronger’. So adapt your copy to fit specific areas of campaign focus and also your own market needs.

Embody a sense of community, that embraces diversity: Community is at the core of everything we do. We train local people to work in their own local communities, and Amref itself is one big global family. However, this is made up of many different communities across multiple regions and countries, whose individuality we celebrate.  

Every person who supports our cause also belongs to this global family, and needs to feel part of it. So we should balance references to ‘our work’ and ‘Amref’s solutions’ with recognition of ‘your support’ and ‘your help’.

Keep language clear and simple: Overly long and complicated language can feel inaccessible and lose people along the way. We should not sound academic or use NGO jargon.

Calls to action, in particular, need to be strong and clear – mentioning tangible solutions rather than abstract goals – and easy to understand.