It's Okay to Say "I" (Even If You're a Nonprofit)

For my entire career, I've been telling nonprofits they need to centre their audience. Make the donor the hero of the story. Start with “you”. 

So I've been surprised lately to notice more and more content creators using the word “I”.

Over the last year or two, there's been a notable uptick in creators centring themselves in their content. Just a few examples from my morning tea-and-scroll session today:

As a rule, I keep an eye on what the influencers are doing. Their job is to get views. Period. They don't need to sell a product (brand deals aside). They don't need to spread a pre-defined message.

They just need to get eyes on content.

And the good ones get LOTS of eyes.

So when we, as non-profits, want to get more eyes on OUR messages--the very much pre-defined messages that actually matter and make the world a better place--looking at just HOW those creators are getting people to pay attention can be a good place to start.

Not everything creators do is transferable. It might not make sense for your nonprofit to do a "get ready with me" video or turn a text chain into a gospel song (I've actually seen NPs do the former well. Still waiting on the latter). But there are a lot of creator techniques we CAN borrow to bump our views without seeming off-brand.

Is "I" one of them?

Initially I was pretty skeptical. Good content always comes from a genuine place, one that feels authentic and not too forced. Nonprofits aren't "I"s. They're groups of people, working together, so framing hooks around a single "I" didn't make a lot of sense. I filed it away under "interesting, but not for us."

But those "I"s just wouldn't go away.

They just kept popping up, all over my feeds, and I could see they were doing something special. They were making posts feel relatable, approachable - like advice you were receiving from a friend. And that was sticking far better than "you" framed instruction.

Time for some testing...

I started playing with "we" hooks for some nonprofit clients. "We wish more Manitobans knew _____". "5 things we'd never do as people who care about our climate". Results did go up, in a few cases notably. We were making progress in being more relatable, but the numbers weren't dramatic enough to signify something particularly useful.

Plus, a lot of the phrasing just didn't make sense. Sometimes the "we" felt awkward--"Hills we will die on as an organization that believes every kid deserves the right to a safe place to sleep"--doesn't quite have the same sticking power as those originally. Other times, it felt more isolating than relatable - the results came out too organization-centric, too obvious, too try-hard.

So I left things alone for a while. Marketing's all about trying things, and seeing what lands. "We" wasn't landing, so I moved on to something else.

But then I realized....I'd never actually tried "I".

What if I told my inner copy-editor to shove it? If I ignored the fact organizations aren't "I"s, and just called them one anyway?

And that's when everything turned around.

Look at the difference with this one client: First, two reels with pretty standard "you" framing.

These have 1.2K and 1.3K views - above the baseline for most nonprofits I see in Winnipeg, but nothing particularly impressive.

Then, the "I" tests:

Both of these came in at 4K views.

Now, 4000 views isn't much in a creator context, but it's a heck of a lot for most local nonprofits. And better yet, it was repeatable. During one week of posting that organization shared 3 different posts all using "I" framing in slightly different ways. Every one outperformed their average, and together those 3 posts received more than 10K views.

Another client tried similar "I" framing, and their posts also saw a 3-4x increase over their averages for the same month.

3-4 times the views. Just from giving your organization a personal, individual voice.

To be fair, more is happening in these examples than just switching "you" to "I". The audience is getting actual context clues - not just a random list of events, but self-selecting info about who this is for: people, maybe in their 30s, who feel like things aren't going well at the moment. It’s not just a warmer hook, it’s community building in action: if this is you, you’ve found a friend.

This isn't a formal A/B test, but it sure seems to have consistency. When the organizations I work with started using "I" framing their hooks got better, more relatable, less prescriptive, and more welcoming. They invited audiences in, helped them see themselves and feel connected.

So, does centering your organization make your content perform better?

Of course it doesn't. The marketing truth that your audience is the hero survives unscathed.

The real secret here is in connection.

The creators that succeed are the ones that make us feel like we know them. That we can relate, that they 'get' us. That maybe we'd even be friends, if we met irl. Social media is meant to be SOCIAL, first and foremost, and we're all looking for that hit of community.

And the truth is, it's hard to feel connected to an organization. This is why brands hire spokespeople, or raise up their founders. We are hard-wired to connect with individuals, not faceless groups.

Turning your organization into an "I" isn't about de-centralizing the audience--it's about creating a personality your audience can actually connect with.

When a creator says "hey, this is me. This is who I am. Does that click with who you are?" it's inviting a relationship. When we reach out to our audience as people, not a faceless institution, we can invite the same--real connection (which is what most of our audiences are craving anyway).

So, no matter how much it may hurt your inner grammar nerd, it might be time to lean in and start calling your organziation an "I".