Stop trying to sound so smart: When words get in the way

When I was getting my master’s degrees in public policy and social work, I spoke fluent wonk. My textbooks were filled with terms like “social indicators,” “regulatory capture” and “policy window.” In class discussions, we dissected “feedback loops,” debated the merits of “multi-stakeholder governance” and scrutinized “leveraged public-private interventions.”

But when I tried to explain what I was learning to my friends, their eyes would glaze over. They didn’t speak nonprofit. And even though they cared deeply—just like I did—about equality, justice and human dignity, they weren’t about to decode jargon about “the social health of the nation.” They wanted to understand what the work meant. Who it helped. Why it mattered.

That’s when I moved into nonprofit marketing and communications, where I found my calling: translating the dense, institutional language of the public sector into messages that real people could understand—and care about.

Matt Watkins’ recent piece in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, “When Nonprofits Talk Fancy, America Tunes Out” lays out the stakes. He argues that the nonprofit sector’s over-reliance on jargon isn’t just a communications failure—it’s a strategic and moral one. In an era of deep public distrust and rising hostility toward institutions, the way we talk about our work matters as much as the work itself.

We’ve professionalized ourselves into a corner. Words like “intersectional equity,” “inclusive infrastructure,” and “multi-system coordination” might signal sophistication to funders and partners. But outside that circle? They land with a thud—or worse, they alienate the very communities we say we’re trying to serve.

Watkins recalls a housing grant application that opened with this gem: “integrated anti-displacement strategies within mixed-income redevelopment corridors.” What it actually meant: We’re trying to help long-time residents stay in their neighborhoods. That’s a mission worth rallying around. But the language put a wall where there should’ve been a window.

Lisa Cron, author of Wired for Story, reminds us that humans are wired not just to hear information—but to feel it. One of her core principles is simple: don’t tell me, show me. When nonprofits lean on abstract language to tell us what they’re doing, they bypass the emotional circuitry that makes people care. But when they show us—through clear, vivid, human-centered language—we don’t just understand. We connect. We remember. We act.

Consider this example:

Telling: We are committed to ensuring educational environments remain safe and free from the threat of gun violence through strong legislative advocacy and stakeholder engagement.

Now compare it to:

Showing: As students and teachers return to their classrooms this fall, many are doing so with a sense of fear. The threat of gun violence looms, and instead of feeling safe, our children are hiding behind doors during active shooter drills. We must protect them. 

If we want people to care about our work, we have to stop making them work so hard to understand it.

That means trading abstraction for clarity. Swapping institutional safety for emotional truth. And remembering that our job isn’t just to sound smart—it’s to build trust, move hearts and rally people to a cause.

The world doesn’t need another framework. It needs stories that resonate.