How to Fire up Your Writing With More Metaphors
Metaphors open the door to more money for your nonprofit.
Metaphors are the key to donors’ hearts.
If you’re not using metaphors in your nonprofit communications you might as well be driving with the emergency brake on.
Should I keep beating the drum for the importance of using metaphors in your writing?
(Those are all metaphors.)
Keep reading to discover:
What’s a metaphor, anyway?
Why should I use metaphors in my nonprofit communications?
What are some examples of metaphors in nonprofit marketing?
What’s a metaphor, anyway?
According to grammarly, “A metaphor is a figure of speech that describes an object or action in a way that isn’t literally true, but helps explain an idea or make a comparison.”
Some well-known metaphors are:
You ain’t nothing but a hound dog.
All the world’s a stage.
Cry me a river.
He’s back in the saddle.
I’m in over my head.
Metaphors are figurative. After all, my opening is not suggesting you literally “fire up” your writing or “open donors’ hearts” (yikes!). But those images get a point across with more “oomph” than without.
Why should I use metaphors in my nonprofit communications?
I generally recommend keeping online and/or marketing writing as simple as possible. Metaphors, though, are one descriptive tool most of us need to use more, not less, of.
That’s because metaphors have a way to worming their way into the recesses of our brains. (That’s another metaphor.)
Metaphors can make complex issues simpler to understand. They can take causes that on the surface aren’t exciting and make them inspiring.
Take this ad for a hospital in India:
The copywriters found the perfect metaphor to make an ad for a brain stroke unit memorable and intriguing.
By comparing the brain to a nut in both language and imagery, those of us who aren’t brain surgeons get an easy way to understand how competent this team is. You think brain surgery’s hard? To us, it’s as simple as cracking open a walnut.
You’re always hearing you need to be using storytelling in your communications. Metaphor is a way to employ the tools of story on behalf of your cause when you have only a sentence or two to do it.
Let’s see how some nonprofit orgs are using metaphor.
What are some examples of metaphors in nonprofit marketing?
Charity: Water is an organization dedicated to bringing clean drinking water to communities in the developing world. They are a go-to source for me when I want to see best nonprofit marketing and copywriting practices in action.
Here, they’re calling their community of monthly donors The Spring. This metaphor dovetails perfectly with their mission and makes donors feel like an essential, life-giving part of the organization’s work. As well they should.
2. Thistle Farms
Thistle Farms helps women survivors of trafficking, prostitution, and addiction heal and rebuild their lives. Their homepage uses two metaphors to drive this mission home:
Together, we light the way home and You help blaze a path are metaphors that figuratively convey the impact that donors have on the lives of the survivors they work with.
“Stem the tide” is clever imagery used by the Ocean Conservatory in their campaign to reduce the amount of plastics that end up in waters. This metaphor is more inspiring and poetic than saying “Reduce Ocean Plastics.”
Whether you’re writing copy for your homepage, for an email campaign, or for a blog post, work to include metaphors. Like any literary device, you don’t want to go overboard, but in my experience, most of us could benefit from a few more well-placed metaphors.