Ethical Calls to Action: Moving Beyond Manipulation in Nonprofit Storytelling

Gone are the days of guilt-driven appeals and false urgency in nonprofit marketing. In 2025, we are embracing trauma-informed storytelling that empowers, not exploits. In this episode, we unpack why ethical calls to action matter and how they can inspire meaningful engagement without manipulating emotions.

We explore the harm caused by donor saviorism, shame-based giving, and misleading urgency—and offer practical ways to reframe your nonprofit’s messaging to honor the agency of your community while building authentic donor relationships. It’s time to rethink outdated CTAs and invite people into a movement, not a rescue mission.

About Host Maria Bryan

Maria Bryan is a trauma-informed storytelling trainer. She helps nonprofit leaders tell powerful and impactful stories that resist harm. Maria has over fifteen years in marketing communications in the public sector. She has a Master’s Degree in Public Administration, a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism, and is professionally certified in Trauma & Resilience, Trauma-Informed Space Holding, Trauma-Informed Coaching, and Somatic Embodiment & Regulation. Maria is a firm believer that storytellers make the world a healthier, safer, cleaner, and happier place.

Connect with Maria

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Transcript

Gone are the days when guilt-driven appeals and false promises lead our nonprofit marketing and fundraising. It is 2025, and we are moving toward trauma-informed and ethical calls to action - those that inspire and don't manipulate. I recently shared a LinkedIn post about what's in and what's out for storytelling in 2025. And one thing that really seemed to resonate with folks is that manipulative calls to action are on their way out. Thank goodness. So I thought I would do an episode and explore this a little bit more.

Here forward, I'm going to use the acronym CTA in place of call to action because it is a mouthful. A CTA is simply what that ask is after you tell a story, or really with just about any communications we want to have a call to action. We want folks to act on our stories, so we're not throwing away CTAs. Rather, it's time to rethink, unlearn, and learn again what kind of CTAs are problematic.

What do I consider manipulative CTAs? These are the CTAs that evoke false urgency, that bring up guilt or shame, and oftentimes exploit story owners' stories in order to get people to act. And these are harmful for a few reasons. I don't want folks to donate to your organization because they feel guilty because they feel this sense of doom when in actuality, they don't have the means for it. It's not the right time for them. We don't want people to donate or volunteer or sign up to mentor, whatever it may be, and then feel icky about it.

It catches up to people when they are giving from a place of guilt and shame or false urgency instead of a place of agency and control. Not only that, oftentimes when our CTAs are manipulative, we are giving a direct correlation from the donation or the volunteer to our program outcomes. And what that does is, well, quite honestly, it's not true. Yes, our donors and our board members and our volunteers play a crucial role in us getting our services to those who need them, but when you are telling folks that because of their donation, no matter how big or small, that mouths are being fed and people's lives are being saved, it's just not honest.

And what it does is it creates donor saviorism. This is something that we have been combating in the nonprofit space since the beginning of time. How can we get folks to learn about these issues, act on these issues, but not feel like they alone are saving the day? Donor saviorism perpetuates all kinds of harmful power imbalances.

I'm going to give an example. And I'll give a content warning here. I'm going to be talking about abortion. So if that's something that is triggering for you, something you don't have capacity for, I would pause right here and come back when you have the capacity. And I want to share probably one of the most problematic CTAs that I've seen over the years. I'm not going to call out this organization, and I actually share this with grace and love, even though I find it deeply, deeply harmful.

There is an organization I was introduced to a few years back that provides alternative services to abortion. The core of their messaging is: if they just knew that they had support to explore adoption, it would have prevented them from getting the abortion. Women would come to them who had a scheduled abortion. So they had abortion on the calendar and they would run these fundraisers. Each woman had her own fundraiser. And now they might've even had these women be anonymous. I don't know. Remember, I know that they used names. I don't know if they were real names.

What the call to action was, it would be something like: Susan has an abortion on her calendar next Thursday. If we're able to raise, let's say $5,000, we will be able to support her to have both a healthy pregnancy and to be able to explore adoption. Help us raise $10,000 by the end of the week, or she will get this abortion. There's no better example of false urgency. If they've created this fundraiser, I'm going to assume that they're actually going to provide services for her. I can't imagine a situation where they would create this and then say, sorry, we weren't able to raise the $5,000. Go ahead and get your abortion anyway. I mean, clearly they are providing services to these people.

From a donor perspective, you now are giving to an organization, you're feeling highly emotionally connected, coming to find out that urgency isn't really authentic and that there would be other opportunities for you to give to this cause. Also all the implications of this woman having her story out there in the public during likely a very traumatic and difficult season of her life. While that's an extreme example, that is a real example. Let's get into a few other kinds of examples. And again, I'm sharing this with you with grace and love, and an opportunity to know better and to do better.

Let's explore a little bit more this false direct correlation. Like the previous example, you may be telling the story of someone, and stopping in the middle of their story, then asking for support. You tell the story of Jane Doe, and then at the end, you're saying give now so Jane Doe can receive life-saving cancer care, or give now so Joseph Doe can receive the support he needs to recover from alcoholism. You're giving the impression that you are directly supporting this one person.

And then we have a different kind of false urgency. I find this a lot at the end of the year where folks might not have reached their fundraising goals and ask sounds like we need to raise 100,000 to keep this incredible program going. And what I'm hearing is if I don't donate, this incredible community program is going to disappear. The year turns and this program is still alive and well. We are not building trust with folks when we are telling them that their dollars keep programs up and running.

Another kind of CTA that I'm seeing more and more: if you give, you are showing that you care, you're modeling that you care. And while I actually think it's important to tap into the emotions of why people give, there's a way to do that that allows for people to naturally give, and then there are those that will conjure guilt and shame and a whole bunch of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), and we don't want that. We don't want people to see this reoccurring gift every month knowing that they just signed up for that because they felt FOMO at that time.

I think these kinds of CTAs are growing because we're learning that folks give because they want to be part of something bigger than themselves. Folks will give to show parts of their identity, they care about certain issues, to show that they are putting their money where their mouth is. My fear is that we are going too far, leaning too deeply into this identity-based giving and we are ending our stories with this kind of "I dare you, prove it. If you care about this, donate." And this is an incredibly manipulative call to action.

When someone is experiencing trauma, they are not in control. They don't feel safe. And your CTAs can trigger that. When you're evoking shame and guilt, people will associate these icky feelings, feeling emotionally unsafe with your brand, with your organization. What we want is for people to feel at the table and safe and as if they are giving what they can when they can.

Also, your CTAs play one of the most powerful roles within your narratives to elevate the people you're working with, your story owners. Be very, very cautious that you're not using them as objects of pity or even re-traumatizing your community members by reading these really painful stories and seeing that all culminating in this ask. Imagine if your community members were reading your stories and reading these calls to action, how would it make them feel?

So how can we shift from manipulative calls to action to ethical and trauma-informed calls to action? One of the first things that we can do is make sure you're completing stories. Make sure that you are not stopping in the middle of this very painful story before there's a transformation, before there's any kind of resolve, and have your ask at that point of the story.

Saying your donation will help Jane Doe receive life-saving services is the same thing as saying without your donation, Jane Doe will not receive life-saving services. So be thoughtful about that. Also, give your people credit that they have their own urgency around your mission. Share impact, be authentic, and then invite people to play a role in your organization, not to come in and be saviors.

And with that, make sure that within not just your story, but your call to action, you are promoting resilience and agency for the folks that you serve. Instead of saying you can help get this struggling family on their feet, the story that you should be telling is that this struggling family was able to get on their feet because of their own courage and strength and hard work, and with the help of this nonprofit. Then the ask is if you give to us, you support more families like this.

You see that? And I'm going to say that again. Instead of saying, when you give, you help this struggling family to get on their feet, the cause and effect should be this family was able to get through a challenging time because of their work and their courage and with the support of our nonprofit. And then what are you asking your donor? Not to directly support this struggling family because we've told a transformation story, right? So this family has already started on a bright path. But we are asking people to give to your organization because it's evidence-based that you're having an impact in your community. Can you center your donor's role as part of a movement instead of the sole solution?

Okay. What's next? You are either patting yourself on the back, or you want to throw up because you feel like your CTAs are causing all kinds of harm. So take a deep breath. And again, 2025 is the year that we are stepping away from manipulative CTAs. We are going to let go of the harmful CTAs of the past and move forward. And this is what you can do to be on that path.

The first thing is to audit your messaging. I want you to pull up all of your end-of-year fundraising maybe just from November and December and highlight your CTAs and think long and hard. Are these CTAs conjuring up feelings of false urgency, false promises, guilt, shame, or saviorism? The difference between "donate now so children in our community won't go hungry" with "your generous support supports community-driven solutions to end hunger." Now we're asking people to be part of a movement, not solely solve hunger.

You've audited your messaging, and you're ready to rewrite your CTAs, pull out your mission and value,s and make sure they are forefront. And if you haven't done so yet, you should have some kind of document that is very specific to your storytelling values. Some people call this storytelling pledge. Sometimes they call them guidelines, whatever you call this document, it should be a guiding light for something like your CTAs. What are your mission and values for your organization and for your storytelling? And are your CTAs reflecting that?

So, we, at times, will spend a great deal of effort to ensure our stories are trauma-informed and ethical. And then we forget the CTA. And again, I find the CTA to be one of the most potent parts of our story. Also involve other people to review these CTAs. You do not need to be in a silo and make these decisions yourself. This is the perfect time to have some kind of a review committee. Maybe they are folks who have been story owners, community members, alumni of your program, who can shed a whole lot of important light on how the community might feel about your CTAs.

Bring in some donors, right? This is a great exercise for possibly board members or a junior board. Bring in some of these CTAs and ask them if they feel like they evoke guilt and shame, or if they evoke inspiration and awe and hope and excitement.

Folks, just to wrap up here, that one sentence at the end of our story, that one little sentence in our email marketing and in our websites and social media, carries so much weight. So take some time to audit your current CTAs. Have some guidelines in place for future CTAs. 

When you invest in trauma-informed and ethical CTAs, you are community building. You are creating your biggest fans and loyal ambassadors. So let's move toward honest, authentic collaborative calls to action that are going to inspire long-lasting and genuine change.