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Since President Trump took office, a wave of policy rollbacks and increased public skepticism toward philanthropy and government have converged to reshape the environment in which nonprofits operate. To meet these challenges, the sector needs to change the way it describes its work. That doesn’t mean abandoning values or capitulating to political pressure. But it does means communicating in a less elitist, more grounded, and more deliberate manner.
The nonprofit sector’s language has become increasingly coded, more abstract, and — ironically — less meaningful. Phrases such as “inclusive infrastructure,” “equity in multisectoral collaboration,” and “systemic resilience” are so common, they often pass without notice. But to the people the field claims to serve, they sound like what they are: carefully calibrated, institutionally safe, and completely disconnected from everyday life.
Amid heightened public distrust of institutions, rising inequality, and growing hostility to nonprofits, such communication isn’t just ineffective. It’s dangerous.
I see this issue often as a consultant who helps foundations and nonprofits write grants, design programs, and craft messaging. When organizations say “outcomes-based transformation” instead of “housing” or “multi-stakeholder alignment” instead of “food access,” they’re obscuring goals, not clarifying them. In doing so, they’re failing to build trust while reinforcing the very elitism already associated with philanthropy.
This problem touches every corner of the nonprofit world. It affects how nonprofits describe their programs, how funders define strategy, how grant makers evaluate grantees, and how organizers build advocacy campaigns.
We’ve professionalized ourselves into a rhetorical corner in which sounding legitimate to each other often outweighs legibility to the public. It’s both a stylistic failure and a strategic one.
A Logical Response
The shift toward technical, jargon-filled language didn’t happen in a vacuum. It was a logical response to increased demands for data, accountability, and measurable outcomes. Especially in the Obama and Biden eras, federal funding and philanthropic strategy prioritized evidence-based design, cross-sector coordination, and addressing the root causes of problems. These approaches brought real gains.
But with that came a new lexicon that now dominates proposals, reports, and strategic plans. This language was never designed to persuade the public. It was meant to reassure grant reviewers, institutional partners, and compliance staff. Over time, though, it infiltrated nonprofits’ public-facing communication — and that’s precisely the problem.
Even now, as political conditions shift and nonprofits and funders strip equity and justice language from grant guidance and program descriptions, many organizations have no idea how to pivot. The words they once relied on for legitimacy such as “intersectional equity” and “decolonizing systems” are being turned against them. Much of that language was already hard for the public to understand. Now, under political pressure and in an attempt to sound more neutral, many groups are simply swapping one unclear word for another.
Lost in Abstraction
When an organization says it supports “climate resilience and community-level capacity building” — as one foundation I work with recently wrote — most people will hear, “This isn’t for me.” When a nonprofit describes its work as “trauma-informed multisystem coordination,” all that people want to know is: Can you get me mental-health care without a six-month waitlist?
A housing-focused grant application I recently reviewed opened with the phrase “integrated anti-displacement strategies within mixed-income redevelopment corridors.” I read it three times before I realized it meant “We’re trying to stop long-time residents from being pushed out of their neighborhoods.” That sentence wasn’t written to connect with the people the nonprofit helps but to pass through a funder’s scoring rubric.
Civil society’s insider jargon has crept into the political sphere as well, with politicians using phrases such as ”human infrastructure” or “justice-involved populations” in speeches and policy plans. But for voters struggling to pay rent or find a doctor who takes their insurance, this language doesn’t inspire. It alienates.
This gap matters. If people can’t understand a nonprofit’s work, they’re unlikely to trust, support, or believe in it.
In a time of deep polarization and anti-institutional sentiment, the stakes for clarity are even higher. Americans overestimate how ideologically extreme their political opponents are, often because they rarely hear from the middle, according to research from the nonprofit More in Common. The same is true in philanthropy. Public statements that sound more like white papers than real-world commitments widen the divide between those doing the work and those living its consequences.
Committing to Clarity
To rebuild trust and relevance, philanthropy must use clear language that’s rooted in reality, not abstract frameworks. That doesn’t mean abandoning rigor but pairing evidence with empathy and strategy with storytelling.
Start with the basics. Lead with what people need: rent, wages, heat, transportation, food, child care. Connect that need to the broader systems and policies shaping it, such as housing law, unaffordable health care, or underfunded public transit. Then bring in data to support the point.
For example, rather than saying, “We advance anti-displacement strategies through equitable redevelopment,” say, “We help people stay in their homes as rents rise, neighborhoods change, and minimum wage remains stagnant.” These changes aren’t about dumbing things down but respecting the public enough to speak plainly about what’s at stake.
Intentional code-switching can also help. Technical language makes sense in internal documents, funding reports, and legal filings. But nonprofits shouldn’t use the same voice to write a grant proposal and to engage the public. Translation is a valuable skill, and the sector should treat it like one.
Finally, the nonprofit world needs to change how it trains communicators. Many professionals enter the field through policy schools, fundraising departments, or advocacy shops that reward abstraction over clarity. Writers, strategists, and grantees must learn to speak clearly about the real-world results of their work and to treat clarity as a core part of equity.
I recently heard a nonprofit leader describe their mission as “co-creating culturally grounded service delivery systems across historically marginalized geographies.” When pressed, they said: “We run rural food banks.” That work is crucial. But the language creates a barrier where there should be a bridge.
If we believe in public work, we must speak like we do. If we want people to trust philanthropy, we need to stop hiding behind language that makes sense only to us. Because right now, the way we talk about our work matters just as much as the work itself.
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