A nonprofit content strategy sets out what the organization publishes for the people it serves, the volunteers who deliver its programs and the donors who fund them, and how a small team produces it. It is owned by the communications manager and agreed with the executive director and the heads of programs, volunteering and development.
This is the Nonprofit version of the content strategy template.
A complete content strategy for a fictional organization: adult literacy and English language nonprofit running free classes and tutoring across a metro area.
| Organization | Adult literacy and English language nonprofit running free classes and tutoring across a metro area (50 staff) |
|---|---|
| Ambition | Fill our classes, recruit and keep enough tutors to shorten the waiting list, and turn one-time donors into regular givers, using content a two-person team can sustain. |
| Horizon | 1 year |
We teach reading, writing and English to 2,900 adults a year on a $5.2 million budget, with 620 volunteer tutors. One-to-one tutoring has a waiting list of 540 learners because we lose 42% of tutors each year and train only 190 new ones. Meanwhile 22% of seats in group classes at library sites start each term empty. The website is written for funders at an eleventh-grade reading level and in English only, though 38% of learners speak Spanish at home. The find-a-class page gets 3,100 visits a month and 4% complete its 19-field interest form. Only 27% of first-time donors give again.
Challenges| Audience | What they need | Where they look |
|---|---|---|
| Adult learner or family member | Is it free, where and when are classes, what happens on the first day | Library and clinic staff, word of mouth, phone search, Facebook |
| Prospective tutor | What the time commitment is, whether teaching experience is needed, what training covers | Search, employer volunteer programs, faith and community groups |
| Active tutor | Lesson ideas, help when a learner stalls, a sense of progress | Email, tutor meetups, the tutor resource page |
| Individual donor | What a gift pays for and whether learners make progress | Email, mail appeals, Facebook, friends who volunteer |
| Foundation or government funder | Outcome data and evidence of reach in priority neighborhoods | Grant reports, the impact page, site visits |
| Pillar | What it covers | Example topics |
|---|---|---|
| How to start | Class and tutoring information in plain language, by site and schedule | What to bring to the first class; evening classes near a bus line |
| Learner progress | Stories told with learners, in their words, about goals reached | Reading to a grandchild for the first time; passing a high school equivalency test |
| Tutoring well | Practical help for volunteers before and after training | A first-session plan; what to do when a learner misses three weeks |
| What a gift does | Costs, outcomes and reach, reported plainly | What $150 a month covers; reading level gains by site |
| Format | Channel | Cadence | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plain-language class page | Website, English and Spanish | Updated before each of three terms | Let a learner find a class and sign up from a phone |
| Text message reminders | Text to interested and enrolled learners | Three per learner before a term starts | Turn interest into attendance on the first day |
| Learner story | Website, email, appeals, grant reports | 2 per month | Show progress to donors, tutors and future learners |
| Tutor tips email | Email to active tutors | Every two weeks | Keep tutors confident and connected in their first year |
| Donor impact update | Email and mail | Quarterly | Report what gifts did before asking again |
| Short video | YouTube, Facebook, class pages | 1 per month | Show a class or tutoring session to people who would rather watch than read |
| Planning | One calendar per term, agreed with the heads of programs, volunteering and development at a single meeting. It fixes the dates of enrollment pushes, tutor training cohorts and the three donor appeals. Requests outside the calendar wait for the next term unless the executive director approves them. |
|---|---|
| Production | Program coordinators submit one story lead a month using a short form. The communications coordinator interviews the learner with their tutor present. Learner-facing pages are written at a fifth-grade reading level and translated by a paid translator, then read aloud to two current learners. |
| Review and approval | Learners read or hear their story and approve it before publication, choose whether their name and photo are used, and can withdraw at any time. We never publish immigration status, employer names or home neighborhood. The development director approves donor appeals; the program director approves class information. |
| Maintenance | Class pages are checked against the schedule two weeks before each term. Consent forms are renewed every 12 months, and a story without current consent is taken down. A grant restricted to learner outreach funds translation and text messaging, and its spending is tracked separately from donor content. |
Priorities and measures
Group classes have room while the tutoring list grows. Pages a learner can read on a phone, in their language, can fill those seats without adding staff.
| Outcome | Baseline | Target | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| Group class seats filled at the start of term | 78% | 92% | Q3 2027 |
| Find-a-class visitors who complete the interest form | 4% | 10% | Q2 2027 |
| Learners who sign up and attend the first session | 61% | 75% | Q4 2027 |
We lose more tutors each year than we train. Honest recruitment content and regular support in the first year address both sides of that gap.
| Outcome | Baseline | Target | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| New tutors completing training per year | 190 tutors | 300 tutors | Q4 2027 |
| Tutors still active 12 months after training | 58% | 70% | Q4 2027 |
| Learners on the one-to-one tutoring waiting list | 540 learners | 400 learners | Q4 2027 |
Nearly three in four first-time donors never return, and most hear from us only when we ask. Reporting back between appeals costs little and uses stories we already gather.
| Outcome | Baseline | Target | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| First-time donors who give again within 12 months | 27% | 35% | Q4 2027 |
| Monthly donors | 210 donors | 380 donors | Q4 2027 |
| Annual revenue from gifts under $1,000 | $610K | $700K | Q4 2027 |
Stories serve learners, tutors, donors and funders, yet they are gathered at the last minute and often without proper consent. A steady supply removes most urgent requests.
| Outcome | Baseline | Target | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| Published learner stories with current signed consent | 55% | 100% | Q1 2027 |
| Learner stories gathered per quarter | 4 stories | 12 stories | Q3 2027 |
| Staff hours per month spent on unplanned content requests | 60 hours | 20 hours | Q4 2027 |
The same structure with a prompt in every field. Copy it, or download it as a Word or Excel file.
| Organization | [Describe your organization in a few words, with its size] |
|---|---|
| Ambition | [One sentence on where you want to be at the end of the plan] |
| Horizon | [How long the plan runs, for example 12 months] |
[Where things stand today: the facts that make this strategy necessary]
Challenges| Audience | What they need | Where they look |
|---|---|---|
| [Audience] | [What they need] | [Where they look] |
| [Audience] | [What they need] | [Where they look] |
| [Audience] | [What they need] | [Where they look] |
| Pillar | What it covers | Example topics |
|---|---|---|
| [Pillar] | [What it covers] | [Example topics] |
| [Pillar] | [What it covers] | [Example topics] |
| [Pillar] | [What it covers] | [Example topics] |
| Format | Channel | Cadence | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| [Format] | [Channel] | [Cadence] | [Purpose] |
| [Format] | [Channel] | [Cadence] | [Purpose] |
| [Format] | [Channel] | [Cadence] | [Purpose] |
| Planning | [Your planning] |
|---|---|
| Production | [Your production] |
| Review and approval | [Your review and approval] |
| Maintenance | [Your maintenance] |
Priorities and measures
[Why this priority matters now, in one or two sentences]
| Outcome | Baseline | Target | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| [Metric you will track] | [Where it is today] | [Where it should be] | [When] |
| [Metric you will track] | [Where it is today] | [Where it should be] | [When] |
| [Metric you will track] | [Where it is today] | [Where it should be] | [When] |
[Why this priority matters now, in one or two sentences]
| Outcome | Baseline | Target | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| [Metric you will track] | [Where it is today] | [Where it should be] | [When] |
| [Metric you will track] | [Where it is today] | [Where it should be] | [When] |
| [Metric you will track] | [Where it is today] | [Where it should be] | [When] |
[Why this priority matters now, in one or two sentences]
| Outcome | Baseline | Target | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| [Metric you will track] | [Where it is today] | [Where it should be] | [When] |
| [Metric you will track] | [Where it is today] | [Where it should be] | [When] |
| [Metric you will track] | [Where it is today] | [Where it should be] | [When] |
[Why this priority matters now, in one or two sentences]
| Outcome | Baseline | Target | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| [Metric you will track] | [Where it is today] | [Where it should be] | [When] |
| [Metric you will track] | [Where it is today] | [Where it should be] | [When] |
| [Metric you will track] | [Where it is today] | [Where it should be] | [When] |
List your audiences and put the people you serve first. If they cannot read or act on your pages, fix that before writing anything for donors.
Find the constraint in your programs, such as empty seats or too few volunteers, and point content at it. Driving demand for a service with a waiting list helps nobody.
Write down your consent rules before collecting another story: who approves, what is never published and when consent expires.
Count the hours your team has and set cadences from that number. Drop a format or a channel so the remaining ones are dependable.
Check which content a restricted grant can and cannot pay for, and track that spending separately.
Take baselines from your enrollment, volunteer and donor records, not from web analytics alone.
A plan only works if it is reviewed on a rhythm. This is the cadence the example assumes.
| Check-in | Outcome owners update progress and confidence weekly. |
|---|---|
| Review | Priority owners review outcomes and unblock initiatives monthly. |
| Reset | Leadership revisits priorities and targets quarterly. |
Tability keeps this cadence for you. Each priority becomes an objective, each outcome a key result with its baseline and target, and each initiative a tracked task. Owners get a check-in reminder and the plan shows what is on track.
Track this plan in TabilityStill comparing tools? See the 10 best strategy software tools.
It should include each audience and what it needs, starting with the people the organization serves, then volunteers, donors and funders. Add three to five pillars, the formats and cadence a small team can keep up, consent and approval rules, and outcomes tied to program reach, volunteer retention and donor retention.
A nonprofit writes for several audiences who want different things: people seeking help, volunteers, donors and funders. Success is measured in program reach and repeat giving, not sales. Consent and dignity carry more weight, because the stories are about people in vulnerable situations, and some funding can only be spent on specific content.
Get written consent before the interview and approval of the final version before publishing. Let the person choose whether their name and photo appear, and make withdrawal easy. In this example consent is renewed every 12 months and any story without a current form is removed from the website and appeals.
Less than most plans assume. This example commits to two learner stories and one short video a month, a tutor email every two weeks and a quarterly donor update, plus class pages refreshed each term. It works because requests outside the term calendar wait, and each story is reused across appeals, emails and grant reports.
Use measures from program and fundraising records. This example tracks class seats filled, interest form completion, new tutors trained, tutors active after a year, first-time donors who give again and the number of monthly donors. Page views and social followers are recorded but are not used to judge the strategy.
Make content the main source of agency trials and the reason those trials activate, so content-sourced signups add $19,000 in new monthly recurring revenue each month by the end of 2027.
Move the content team from covering the sport to helping riders choose, fit and maintain what they buy, lifting product page conversion and repeat orders while cutting returns for fit.
A content strategy sets out who your content is for, the topics you want to be known for, and how each piece is produced, distributed and measured.
Be known as a year-round hunger relief network that needs funds and public support more than cans, and make sure partners and staff hear our decisions from us first.
Make email the place where an adoption, a first gift or a foster inquiry turns into lasting support, raising $500,000 a year with far less riding on December.
Content strategy example
Horizon: 1 year
4 priorities · 12 outcomes
Targets are illustrative. Adapt them to your baseline before you start.