Five Tips for Inclusive Communication

Small tweaks to your communication can go a long way.

Here's how schools, agencies and nonprofits across the ReachWell network send communication that's both eye-catching and inclusive.

Section headers make newsletters easy to navigate.

By incorporating section headers with a different color and font size, contacts can quickly absorb important information. They can read section that interest them in more depth.

Bullet points and 3rd grade language are more accessible to lower-literate readers

When communicating to contacts with a variety of needs, language capabilities, and reading levels, simplified languages ensures all contacts can engage with the information that you're sharing. Similar to section headers, bullet points help contacts better absorb information. Plus, when you don't have to write long paragraphs of information, it's a time-saver for you!

Photos and giphs brighten up every newsletter.

In surveys, contacts have shared that they're more likely to engage with your communication when it has some fun and flair. Yes, they want to be informed, but they also want to look forward to reading what you send them. Including photos from your community is a great way to draw contacts into your communication. Overtime, a more engaged and informed community leads to deeper relationships.

Avoid play-on-words for the best translation.

Most organizations can't have a human translator available for every language and every outgoing communication needed, which is what makes machine translation such a powerful tool. While machine translation is getting better and better with time, idioms and puns don't often translate well.

Emojis help English-learning families better understand the message.

Like photos, emojis add the fun factor to your community outreach. An added benefit is they convey your message visually so that all contacts--no matter their language or reading abilities--can understand the message.

Tell us how else you inclusively engage your community in the comments!