Cut the jargon: Marketing simplified for charities

What is marketing?

For many of us in the charity sector, marketing can feel like a bit of a mystery full of jargon and complicated strategies. But at its heart, marketing is just about reaching the right people with the right message. This beginner-friendly guide cuts through the noise and focuses on the essentials, so you can make sense of marketing and how it can best support your charity.

What’s involved in charity marketing?

Marketing is how you get people to notice, understand, and support your charity. It’s not just about selling, it’s also about building relationships and showing people exactly why your cause matters. Good marketing helps you:

• Raise awareness: Make sure people know your charity exists and what it does.
• Engage supporters: Keep donors, volunteers, and partners interested and involved.
• Encourage action: Get people to donate, sign up, share, or take part.

The key to great charity marketing is having a clear message and getting it in front of the right people in the right way.

Core elements of charity marketing

• Audience: Who are you trying to reach? Understanding your audience is the foundation of all marketing. Think about:
  • Supporters (donors, fundraisers, volunteers)
  • Service users (the people your charity helps)
  • Partners (businesses, funders, local groups)
• Brand: Your charity’s personality. It’s more than just a logo – it’s how people feel when they think about you. Keep your messages, colours, and tone of voice consistent so people recognise you instantly.
• Messaging: What do you want people to know or do? Keep it simple, clear, and focused on impact. Instead of ‘we deliver a diverse range of community-led initiatives,’ why not say ‘we help local families put food on the table.’
• Channels: Where do you communicate? Pick what works best for your audience.
  • Social media: Quick, engaging updates (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Bluesky)
  • Email: Direct messages to supporters
  • Website: Your digital one-stop shop where people can learn more and take action
  • Press and PR: Local and national news and blogs to reach new supporters

• Calls to action (CTA): What do you want people to do? Every post, email, or flyer should have a clear action like:
  • Donate now
  • Sign up to volunteer
  • Follow us on social media
  • Sign our petition

Common marketing jargon (and what it actually means)

• SEO (Search Engine Optimisation): Making your website and webpages show up on Google search results.
• Engagement: Likes, comments, shares – how people interact with your content.
• Conversion: When someone takes the action you want (e.g., donates, signs up, buys a ticket).
• Content: Anything you create to share your message: posts, videos, blogs, newsletters.
• Organic vs. paid: Free marketing (organic) vs. paid adverts (paid).
• Analytics: The numbers behind your marketing, like how many people saw, clicked, or acted on your content.

Quick wins for busy charity teams

There’s a good chance that if you’re reading this, you’re single-handedly running your charity’s communications and marketing. Or at the very least, you have a small team who cover marketing but likely work on other core elements of the charity, like fundraising and operations.

Here’s some quick wins and tips that can help keep your communications effective and efficient:

• Repurpose content: One story can be used in multiple ways (social post, email, blog, press release).
• Use free tools: Canva (graphics) and Mailchimp or Mailerlite (emails)
• Batch your content creation: Write and schedule posts in advance to save time.
• Keep it simple: Clear, human language always wins over jargon.
• Be consistent: Even if you only post once a week, keep it regular.

Remember: Good marketing is just good storytelling!

Ultimately, marketing is about telling stories that connect with people. You don’t always need a big budget or a marketing degree, just a clear message and a few tried and tested ways to share it. We recommend first and foremost focusing on why your charity matters and the impact it makes. The rest will follow!

Top tip

Looking for a simple way to share with your colleagues what your comms/marketing role means for your charity? Share this resource with them!

It can be hard to explain to colleagues in operations and leadership why marketing is so important for charities, so let us do the hard work for you. Share this resource and encourage them to consider what stories in their day-to-day roles they come across that might be of interest to your audiences.