Middling is a Losing Strategy: Why Nonprofit Storytelling Needs Stronger Narratives

Introduction: Lessons from Rome

In ancient Rome, the praeco—the public crier—was the living voice of truth. His job was to stand in the chaos of the Forum and proclaim what mattered: summoning citizens to court, announcing new laws, even auctioning seized property or hyping the next gladiator games. But his power wasn’t in the facts alone. It was in how he spoke to them. A decree whispered into the din was useless. A booming proclamation, clear and undeniable, rippled through the city until it became reality.

Two thousand years later, nonprofits face the same challenge: How to design nonprofit communications strategies that inspire supporters, mobilize action, and strengthen fundraising campaigns.

If we hedge, soften, or “middle” our messages, we risk becoming background noise. If we speak with clarity and conviction, we create the narratives that move people, mobilize support, and shape culture.

The Villain: Middling Messaging in Nonprofit Storytelling

The greatest threat to nonprofit storytelling isn’t a lack of facts, passion, or even resources. It’s middling—the instinct to smooth edges, hedge language, or stay squarely in the “safe” middle. Middling isn’t safe; it’s a self-sabotage that weakens nonprofit communications strategy and makes your storytelling forgettable. Nonprofits often default to middling when they feel pressure to:

• Keep funders happy by avoiding anything that could feel controversial.
• Anticipate what audiences might want to hear, instead of telling the truth.
• Stick with institutional language that sounds polished but forgettable.

The result is messaging that feels vague, cautious, and easily drowned out. Middling isn’t safe—it’s self-sabotage. As one recent nonprofit communications survey showed, more than half of nonprofits cited fear of backlash or funder sensitivity as a barrier to bold messaging. That fear often pushes organizations to dilute their own narratives until they say very little at all.

The Reality: Why Facts Alone Don’t Win in Fundraising Communications

Audiences crave clarity and conviction. They can sense when organizations are hedging. They respect nonprofits that speak with confidence—even if they don’t agree with every tactic. Avoiding politics doesn’t mean avoiding reality.  A nonprofit can:

• Name what’s happening in communities
• Connect facts to lived experience
• Explain why it matters, in language anyone can understand

Without that narrative spine, communications scatter. Research shows nonprofit messaging is often siloed and inconsistent across channels, leading to fragmented stories that fail to add up to a larger whole.  At the same time, many nonprofits over-index on sending more content—2024 data shows nonprofits sent an average of 62 emails per subscriber—but without sharper narrative frameworks, more volume simply adds to the noise. The lesson? More facts and more volume don’t equal more persuasion. Without coherence, facts fade.

The Solutions: Building a Strong Nonprofit Narrative Framework

Here are five steps every nonprofit communicator can take to replace middling with meaning:

• Anchor Nonprofit Storytelling in Truth Identify the one thing you would say if you could say nothing else. That becomes your north star—a narrative grounded in what you know to be true.
• Speak to Lived Reality Test your messaging against the daily experiences of your audience and community, not just funder preferences. Real people respond to real stories.
• Build a Nonprofit Narrative Framework Don’t let each campaign float on its own. Design a nonprofit narrative framework so that every message—fundraising, mobilization, advocacy—is a chapter in the same story.
• Pair Data with Storytelling in Fundraising Communications A statistic without a story is forgettable. A story without a frame is fragile. Nonprofit communications strategy requires both.
• Trust That Clarity Builds Bridges Taking a side doesn’t mean burning bridges. It means being clear about what you stand for. Funders and supporters may debate your methods, but they’ll respect conviction more than hedging.

Shaping the Weather

The missing narrative isn’t an accident—it’s a gap we can close. Nonprofits don’t lose because they lack data. They lose when they refuse to tell their true stories. Middling feels safe, but it actually makes your cause invisible. When nonprofits speak with clarity, coherence, and courage, they stop reacting to other people’s narratives and start shaping the cultural weather themselves. At Media Cause, this is the work we love: Helping organizations find their missing narrative, tell it with conviction, and build the storytelling frameworks that power fundraising, mobilization, and lasting change.