Words That Move
Today's nonprofit professionals are communicating in an increasingly complex funding environment, where language may carry different implications across funders, policymakers, donors, community members, and the people their organizations serve. At the same time, they still need to tell compelling stories, demonstrate impact, protect essential meaning, and communicate with clarity and credibility across all of those audiences.
That's a challenge for even experienced nonprofit leaders.
Words That Move is a highly interactive, grant-focused half-day workshop that helps nonprofit professionals communicate with greater clarity, credibility, and care across grant proposals, reports, donor communications, websites, and other nonprofit writing. Participants learn practical frameworks for navigating language, audience, ethics, and shifting funder expectations.
Nonprofit Storytelling for a Changing Funding Landscape
Why This Training Matters
Nonprofit communication is becoming more complicated.
Policy shifts, changing funding expectations, and a more politicized environment are affecting how nonprofit language is interpreted, evaluated, and sometimes challenged. These pressures reach across funding sources and audiences, shaping grant proposals, organizational messaging, donor communications, and decisions about how nonprofits describe their work.
At the same time, organizations still need to communicate clearly about who they serve, what their communities are experiencing, why their work matters, and what their programs make possible.
That creates real communication decisions for nonprofit professionals. How much context does this audience need? When does language need to be clarified or adapted? What meaning needs to be preserved? How can an organization respond strategically to changing expectations while remaining grounded in its mission, values, and responsibilities to the people it serves?
Words That Move gives participants practical frameworks for making those decisions with greater clarity, confidence, and care.
More Than a Storytelling Workshop
Words That Move strengthens the professional judgment nonprofit staff need to communicate effectively in a changing funding and political landscape.
Participants learn practical frameworks they can use when decisions about language, framing, evidence, audience, and context become complicated. Together, we examine how purpose, audience, ethics, values, funder expectations, and potential consequences can shape communication choices.
Participants practice deciding what to keep, clarify, rephrase, reframe, or protect. Our goal is to build greater confidence in making thoughtful decisions - even when different audiences bring competing expectations.
These frameworks remain useful as funding environments, terminology, and external expectations continue to change.
What Participants Will Learn
Participants will leave with practical strategies they can immediately apply across grant proposals, donor communications, reports, websites, case statements, newsletters, and other nonprofit writing.
Together, we'll explore how to:
Build Stronger Narratives
- Build compelling nonprofit narratives that balance human stories with meaningful evidence
- Strengthen grant proposals and donor communications through clearer, more intentional writing
- Apply ethical storytelling principles across a wide range of nonprofit communications
Recognize and Revise
- Recognize and revise common narrative pitfalls, including deficit framing, saviorism, and missing context
- Represent people and communities with dignity, accuracy, and respect
- Understand when language needs clarification, reframing, or added context
Make Thoughtful Decisions
- Navigate shifting funder expectations and politically sensitive language with clarity and integrity
- Make thoughtful communication decisions across audiences, purposes, organizational values, and contexts
- Develop shared communication standards that improve consistency across teams
What Makes This Workshop Different
Many nonprofit writing workshops focus primarily on storytelling techniques or persuasive writing. Others focus almost exclusively on language debates. Words That Move takes a different approach.
Participants work through realistic nonprofit communication challenges using practical decision-making frameworks that reflect the complexity of real-world nonprofit work. This workshop is:
Interactive rather than lecture-based
Grounded in today's nonprofit funding and communications landscape
Built around real examples and discussion
Practical enough to use immediately
Thoughtful without becoming prescriptive
Designed to strengthen judgment, not simply teach rules
Participants leave with tools they can adapt across different audiences, funding environments, and organizational contexts.
Who Should Attend
This workshop is designed for nonprofit professionals who communicate their organization's work in any capacity, including:
Grant writers
Development professionals
Executive directors
Communications and marketing staff
Program managers
Evaluation staff
Board members
Anyone who writes or speaks on behalf of their organization
Because nonprofit communication is collaborative, organizations often see the greatest benefit when multiple staff members attend together. Shared participation creates common language, stronger internal alignment, and more consistent communication across departments.
For Community Foundations, United Ways, Nonprofit Associations, and Professional Networks
Strengthening Nonprofit Capacity in a Changing Funding Environment
Nonprofit organizations are making increasingly complex decisions about how they describe their work, communicate impact, and respond to different audience and funding expectations.
Community foundations, local United Ways, nonprofit associations, statewide networks, and other capacity-building organizations are well positioned to help their nonprofit partners navigate those decisions thoughtfully.
Words That Move gives participants practical frameworks they can use across grant proposals, reports, donor communications, websites, and organizational messaging. Through realistic examples and hands-on exercises, participants build skills in ethical storytelling, adaptive framing, conscious language, evidence, audience analysis, and communication decision-making.
For hosts, the workshop offers a timely professional development opportunity that responds to challenges nonprofits are facing right now while giving participants tools designed to remain useful as the landscape continues to change.
Workshop Format and Investment
Words That Move is a four-hour, highly interactive workshop for organizations seeking practical, substantive learning opportunities for nonprofit professionals. It’s designed for all experience levels and can be tailored to reflect your audience, learning goals, mission areas, and funding environment.
Half-Day Workshop
Investment: $2,000
Each workshop includes:
A planning conversation to understand your audience, goals, and context
Four hours of live, interactive training
Thoughtful tailoring of examples and discussion
Real-world nonprofit writing examples
Guided exercises, facilitated discussion, and Q&A
A digital participant resource kit
A workshop description and media kit to support event promotion
Participant Workbooks
Printed workbooks are available at $20 per participant.
The Words That Move workbook is designed to be used throughout the workshop, not simply handed out at the end. It gives participants a structured place to complete activities, capture insights, and begin applying the workshop’s frameworks to their own writing.
The workbook brings the session’s exercises, reference materials, decision tools, and planning prompts together in one cohesive resource. Participants can continue using it after the training as they work on grant proposals, reports, donor communications, website copy, and other organizational messaging.
Workbook content includes:
Guided storytelling and narrative-development exercises
Tools for connecting human stories with meaningful evidence
Activities for identifying deficit framing, saviorism, and other narrative red flags
Language and framing decision tools
Practice scenarios for deciding when to keep, clarify, rephrase, or reframe
Templates for developing shared communication standards
Reflection and planning space throughout the session
For the strongest participant experience, I strongly recommend providing a workbook for each attendee.
About Your Trainer
Morgan Carpenter, GPC
Morgan Carpenter is a Grant Professional Certified® (GPC) nonprofit consultant and founder of Carpenter Nonprofit Consulting. She helps mission-driven organizations strengthen their programs, clarify their strategies, and build more sustainable approaches to funding and community impact.
A Grant Professionals Association-Approved Trainer and author of Prepare for Impact: Everything You Need to Know to Win Grants and Supercharge Your Nonprofit, Morgan brings deep expertise in narrative development, ethical storytelling, grant strategy, and nonprofit communication.
Morgan works directly with nonprofits every day as a grant writer and consultant. The examples, questions, and frameworks she brings into each workshop reflect the real decisions nonprofit professionals are navigating now, from communicating impact with credibility to balancing storytelling, evidence, ethics, and changing funder expectations.
Known for her practical, values-forward facilitation style, Morgan blends clarity, humor, and warmth to create learning experiences that are interactive, thoughtful, and grounded in real-world nonprofit practice. Rather than offering one-size-fits-all answers, she helps participants strengthen their judgment, build confidence, and leave with tools they can use right away.
Selected Training & Speaking Engagements
Morgan is a frequent trainer and speaker for local, state, regional, and national nonprofit audiences.
What Participants Say
Frequently Asked Questions
Audience & Content
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Words That Move is designed for nonprofit professionals who contribute to proposals, reports, donor communications, organizational messaging, or other public narratives.
Participants may include grant writers, development and communications professionals, executive directors, program leaders, data and evaluation contributors, and other staff or board members involved in communicating an organization’s work.
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No. The workshop is designed for all experience levels.
It can be especially valuable when professionals in different roles attend together and develop a shared approach to stories, evidence, dignity, and language.
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Yes. Grant writing is an important context for the workshop, but its principles and tools also apply to reports, donor communications, case statements, organizational messaging, and other nonprofit narratives.
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Yes. The workshop focuses on clarity, ethics, strategy, and professional judgment. It acknowledges changing political and funding contexts without turning the training into a political debate or prescribing one set of beliefs or vocabulary.
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Yes. Examples, exercises, and discussion can be adapted to reflect your audience, mission areas, funding environment, and learning goals while preserving the core curriculum.
Format & Logistics
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Yes. Although Words That Move is designed primarily as an in-person half-day workshop, it can be delivered virtually when an in-person event is not feasible.
The virtual format consists of two live, interactive two-hour sessions that include the complete curriculum and core learning outcomes. The sessions are booked together as one integrated series for the same $2,000 investment.
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Travel expenses may apply for in-person workshops held more than 50 miles from Bloomington, Indiana. Any anticipated travel costs will be discussed and approved in advance.
Participant Materials
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The digital resource kit is included with the training and gives participants practical tools they can use after the session.
The professionally printed workbook is designed to support the complete in-person learning experience. It organizes the workshop’s activities, reflection prompts, reference materials, and reusable planning tools into one cohesive resource participants use throughout the workshop and take home afterward.
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They are not required, but they are highly recommended.
The workbook supports active participation during the exercises, keeps the workshop’s activities and reference materials together, and gives attendees a substantive resource they can continue using after the training.
Bring Words That Move to Your Community
If you're looking for practical nonprofit communications training that helps participants write with greater clarity, credibility, and care, I'd love to learn more about your audience and your goals.
Together, we can create a learning experience that gives nonprofit professionals practical tools they'll continue using long after the workshop ends.
or
Looking for a different training topic?
Words That Move is one of several practical, interactive trainings I offer for nonprofit professionals, boards, associations, foundations, and networks. My full Training Catalog includes sessions on grant strategy, prospect research, program design and outcomes, governance, nonprofit finances, narrative strategy, and more.
Trainings can also be adapted, combined, or developed around the specific needs of your audience. If you’re planning professional development and aren’t sure which topic or format makes the most sense, I’m happy to talk through your goals and recommend an approach.