Freelance Writing for Nonprofits

One definition of success is doing the right things frequently and the wrong things rarely. Here are ten mistakes that can sabotage the success of your freelance writing career.

1. Taking requests for changes personally. Your clients are the ultimate decisionmakers and it’s your job to rewrite drafts until you get it right. Don’t get offended or hurt when they ask for changes. Focus on understanding what the client wants.

2. Getting sloppy with style and grammar. Mistakes happen, but you are being paid for your professional services in these areas, so take the time to get it right.

3. Insisting on being a Grammar Nazi with clients. At the same time, don’t go nuts on clients who disagree with your style advice. If, after explaining your position, your client still insists on a questionable grammar decision or a style faux pas, accept it. Incorrectly capitalizing titles (e.g., He is the Director of the project) is one case where I often give in.

4. Treating your career like a hobby. If you think of freelance writing as a hobby, you will present yourself as an amateur. People pay professionals, so think of yourself that way.

5. Charging too little. You can always spot the newbies because they don’t charge enough.

6. Ignoring technology. I know a couple of writers who fought getting an email address and only did so a couple of years ago. Needless to say, they don’t make much money freelancing. Keeping up with various computer programs also expands your options for the kind of work you can get paid for.

7. Failing to describe what it is you actually do. When I first started freelancing, I told people I was a writer for nonprofits and I got a lot of blank stares, even from nonprofits. Now I say that I write newsletters, web content, annual reports and other marketing materials for nonprofits. If people don’t understand what you do, they can’t hire you or recommend you to others.

8. Spending too much time on a job. Time is money. At some point, you have to let go of your quest for the perfect lead and go with the one that’s really good instead.

9. Not caring why you were hired. Serving your client is about more than writing. If you understand why you were hired in the first place, you’ll provide better support to the client. Are they too busy to meet deadlines and need you to work quickly? Or do they simply hate writing the newsletter and want someone who likes to write to tackle it?

10. Thinking you’ll fail as a freelance writer. A little confidence in your decision to become a freelancer will go a long way. Trust your instincts and believe in yourself!

I’ll elaborate on many of these points in upcoming posts.This is also my reply to the meme sent to me by Laura at Writing Thoughts.

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Yvonne at Grow Your Writing Business tagged me with a two-part meme: Who Do You Write For? and Are You Talking to Your Readers?

I am writing this blog for freelance writers, aspiring and professional, who want to work for nonprofit organizations. It’s a great niche and one I love. This blog lets me share my experiences and offer tips to others who want to break into this part of the business writing field. I also cover the business side of freelancing, self-employment, working at home, etc. Given this goal, I hope that I am talking to my readers and that they will talk back! This is a relatively young blog, but I do have some comments, so that is a good sign.

I’ve spent much more time and effort on my other blog, Nonprofit Communications. That blog is written for staff at nonprofit organizations to give them advice on how to produce their own print and online publications. It is also useful for freelancers who are serving nonprofit clients. While this blog talks about how to write for nonprofits as a freelancer, that blog talks more about what you write. Nonprofit Communications has really taken off in the last few months. The Technorati rank, which is one indicator of whether you are reaching people, is 72,013 today, and I hope to crack the 50,000 mark by summer. By comparison, this blog is only at 434,644! I’d like to get it closer to the 100,000 mark by fall.

I’m now tagging an old friend from college, Christine Sculati, with this meme. We haven’t seen each other in many years, but we’ve reconnected online and it turns out we are doing similar work.

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I’ve found that 99% of my new clients come to me via either (1) word of mouth from other clients or friends or (2) through my websites or e-newsletters. They either find me through people we both know or through a web search that connects us online.

Early in my career, I listed my freelance writing business on several different directory sites. For example, many writing associations offer directories of members and some nonprofit associations offer directories of service providers. But as far as I could tell, these listings didn’t do much to generate work.

Have you found directories like these useful in bringing clients to you? If so, which directories or associations do you like best?

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Some freelance writers have nice safety cushions in place when they start out, like spouses with six-figure salaries or inheritances. Others start freelancing later in life, as a second career, when they’ve had a chance to weave a safety net of their own. Neither was the case for me, when I took the jump into full-time freelancing at age 29. I had a little bit of savings and had just moved in with my husband (then boyfriend), who was paying the mortgage on his own. But other than that, it was pure guts.

I am the only person in my family who is self-employed. Most of my family members have comfortable government or military jobs. At the time, I didn’t even know that many self-employed people. But I was still confident that I could make it work, because of a healthy streak of independence and self-confidence that I thank my mom and my aunt for giving me as I was growing up.

My mom stayed at home with my sister and me, and my Air Force dad was often on assignments long from home, for weeks and months and, in one case, more than a year at a time. She took care of everything for us, including the more stereotypical “dad” jobs. Mom made all the big decisions in our house, whether dad was home or not (or at least it seemed that way). Even though she looked like a quiet housewife on the outside, that woman knew how to get any job done! She always figured out a way, no matter what the problem was. Watching her all those years gave me the confidence to know that I’d be able to handle anything that came my way as a small business person, without the back-up of a big office of support staff or management to solve problems for me.

My Aunt Robin also taught me about independence. Many times over the course of her life she has made up her mind about what she wanted to do, and then did it, without worrying about what others would think. She may have labored over these decisions in ways I never saw, but to me, she always looked like a take-charge, just-do-it, live-life-now person. She decided early on she didn’t want kids (she had great nieces after all), moved overseas for several years, changed careers, and always made decisions that were right for her. She describes some of her decisions as “selfish,” but to me, I saw a confident woman who trusted her instincts.

Thanks Mom and Robin for giving me the guts to go it alone in the business world!

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Freelance writers are always bemoaning slow paying clients, whether they are organizations or magazines. (I’ve found that magazines are actually worse than clients in this regard.)

Here are a few ways that you can prepare for and weather cash flow shortages in your freelance writing business.

Automate your savings. I finally got around to setting up an automatic transfer from my checking account to the money market account I use as my business savings account. I’m terrible about stashing away savings otherwise. Now I have a nice chunk of change for when bills come due before clients pay up.

Use those credit card checks. My credit card companies are always sending me those cash advance checks. Sometimes they come with special rates, like no cash advance fee and very low interest rates. In those cases, I save them and use them if I get in a cash-flow crunch. You can pay them off as soon as your clients pay.

Sell something continuously. I sell tip sheets and e-courses on my websites, and that brings in at least a little bit of cash almost every day. If you’ve got an e-book or other product or service that someone could buy at any time of day or night, get it online now.

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