In Kenya, cash is not always king. Agriculture dominates the country’s economy, and farmers function within a largely cashless society where crops and livestock hold great value. Those unfamiliar with rural Kenya’s local economy may inaccurately judge and imprecisely describe people who experience life in a way that differs from their own.
When a local Global Press reporter recently wrote about these farmers, a copy editor added a line to her story labeling the Kenyan farmers as “the poorest of the poor,” because they live on less than a few dollars a day.
The copy editor was unfamiliar with the region and relied on World Bank data to draw this conclusion, not realizing that global standards of poverty don’t apply to a farmer who is rich in noncash assets and would never consider himself the poorest of the poor.
The reporter’s reaction to the phrase was swift and negative. The error led to creation of the Global Press Style Guide, a free online resource that ensures dignity and precision in international journalism.
This story demonstrates the power of words. Language used to describe nonprofit programs, processes, and people can illustrate the rich diversity — and unique challenges — of our global society and should treat people with the respect they deserve. Conversely, language and labels can be harmful and perpetuate the very inequities nonprofits are trying to solve.
Words Can Reinforce Old — or Open Up New — Worldviews
As leaders who want to create a more equitable world, we all should reconsider the language we use. Let’s ask ourselves: What kind of world do we want to create? How are our words and messages supporting or eroding that desired outcome?
At Room to Read, we’ve worked with more than 32 million children in 21 countries around the world — from Tanzania to Pakistan to the United States. Recent attacks on social justice around the world reinforced our commitment to promoting the dignity of the people we work with and led us to re-evaluate our language and establish new guidelines.
For help, we turned to Global Press, an international media organization that trains and employs local women journalists to produce ethical and accurate reporting in the world’s most challenging places. The Global Press Style Guide is a leading resource for those who want to ensure they are using precise and inclusive language. Global Press also conducts language audits and offers tools for organizations to describe their work in more equitable terms.
Our work together has taught us a lot, and we’d like to help other nonprofit leaders join us in this effort. To that end, here are a few recommendations for how to remove bias from communications.
Recognize Language That Needs to Change
Start by evaluating your current communications, including guidelines that shape fundraising and marketing messages and the way the organization describes its work and the people it works with. Questions to ask include:
- What do the words you use communicate about the people you serve?
- Do terms and phrases align with organizational values?
- Is language precise and unbiased?
Develop Guidelines
After its evaluation, Room to Read developed the following principles to ensure its language upholds human dignity.
Communicate individuals’ agency, and honor the dignity of all people. Every human being holds inherent rights, regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, age, or any other identity. Nonprofits should choose language that illustrates those rights.
For Room to Read, this means positioning education as an inherent right, not a gift. Room to Read is no longer educating children or empowering girls; instead, it is facilitating learning opportunities and supporting children as they to pursue their education and change the trajectory of their lives. Simply put, Room to Read cannot give children the gift of an education; it is a right they should be born with. Children in Room to Read’s programs are now referred to as students and young learners, instead of beneficiaries.
Describe people in the context of their larger environment, and avoid inaccurate or vague labels. A core tenet of Global Press’s training is to refer to people as people as often as possible. When we reduce individuals to the circumstance they are in, often through no choice of their own, we strip them of their dignity and perpetuate inequity.
Room to Read now embraces “people-first language,” by referring to program participants as children who cannot read yet, instead of illiterate children. Similarly, Room to Read works with families experiencing poverty, instead of low-income families. The organization uses detail and context to avoid victimizing children, referring to children who are at risk of dropping out of school instead of using the term at-risk children.
Use terms with precise definitions that pave the way for dignity. In a survey commissioned by Global Press, not one respondent from the United States could define Global South, a commonly used term in the international development sector that refers to a group of countries presumed to be within certain socioeconomic standards. Geographically imprecise terms force people to make assumptions, and they often reflect and perpetuate bias by defining complex communities with singular perspectives.
Room to Read does not refer to the areas in which it works as the developing world or Global South. Instead, we use more detail and describe work in precise locations, such as historically low-income countries and in communities facing deep educational and economic inequities.
Avoid words that imply violence. Words common in the social-impact sector — such as target, field, deploy, and impact — are militaristic in nature and may carry a connotation of violence. Dignified language avoids terms that carry such significance, especially when referring to people.
Consult Those You Work With
In evaluating and updating language, it’s important to talk with the people you are describing. Ask them how they would like to be identified, and make sure they recognize themselves in the words you use and the stories you tell. What do certain terms mean to them? Do words resonate among diverse cultures and languages?
When updating its language guidelines, Room to Read involved multiple groups within its organization for review and feedback. Most important, nonprofit partners, staff members on the ground, and leaders from all over the world participated in this process. They provided powerful feedback that shaped final recommendations, enabling many voices to describe their local contexts.
Assess the impact that your words have on others. When talking to donors, pay attention to how you describe the individuals you serve. Would you use the same vocabulary when speaking directly to the individuals you are describing? Are you intentionally or unintentionally using a victim-focused narrative to inspire giving?
We each have a role to play in supporting dignified language. After finalizing new standards for dignified language use, make time to train every member of your organization, so everyone understands why the changes are being made and how they can play a part.
Room to Read developed customized training materials for staff members, board members, volunteers, and high-profile supporters, so that each person could explain the connection between word choice and worldview and feel excited about the changes to their communications.
The journey toward dignified language is just that, a journey. No “one size fits all” set of guidelines will work for every organization, and change takes time. Yet through a collective and consistent effort, we can make dignified language the norm in the nonprofit world.
Global Press has seen its approach boost trust in journalism and help transform worldviews. In a 2021 reader survey, 76 percent of readers in the United States said stories that followed the Global Press Style Guide were clearer, more interesting, and more meaningful than stories from other news outlets that do not use the guide. (Participants in three focus groups reviewed and compared 10 sets of stories published by Global Press and other news outlets.)
Local audiences agreed. One individual in the Democratic Republic of Congo wrote to Global Press to express thanks for “showing me that where I live is actually a beautiful place.”
