Think first, write later: an A to Z

Every communicator in the IFRC network is working under high pressure. Every day, there is another crisis to cover, and the needs of another community to highlight. It can be overwhelming.

But no matter the pressure, it is always worth taking a deep breath and asking some questions before you start to write.

• Who is the audience/s I want to reach?

• What is their level of knowledge of the IFRC or the issue I am writing about?

• What do I want this audience to understand, feel, and do after reading my communication?

• Is there a specific “ask” to be communicated?

• How can I structure this story/report to encourage people to keep reading?

When you are drafting your story, script or report, be mindful of the language you are using. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Am I putting people at the heart of this information, and showing them as dignified individuals with agency?

• Is my language inclusive? Have I accidentally used language that could increase stigma, or reinforce stereotypes?

• Is my writing clear, or am I using internal jargon and industry language out of habit?

The following A-Z is designed to give advice and help answer any questions colleagues may have. It is a work in progress and will be expanded/improved with all feedback received. Please send any questions or suggestions to Alison Freebairn.

Accessibility

We often say that the IFRC network aims to “leave no one behind”, and this should also apply to our communications.

When writing for the web, please remember that people read online content by scanning it rather than reading every word.

You have a limited amount of time to grab people’s attention.

Please structure your communication as a reverse pyramid. The most important information must be in your opening paragraphs.

Ask yourself: if a visitor only reads half of this story, will they learn everything I want them to know?

You can encourage people to keep reading by using subheadings. These will break up the text. We recommend a “trees of threes” method: there should be an eye-catching subheading after every third paragraph.

This is interesting

Pick your subheadings carefully: online readers scan a text looking for something specific, or something that seems interesting.

Remember that IFRC communications will be read by people using screen readers. Avoid confusing text such as “click here” when hyperlinking.

👍 Do: “You can read more about our response to the flooding in Libya here.”

👎 Don't: “Click here for more information about the flooding in Libya.”

You can also support people using screen readers by using clear alt text on all images accompanying your story or report. Describe what is happening in the image as clearly as you can.

It is not recommended to use graphics that are text-heavy, as these cannot be fully described in alt text and therefore are not accessible.

Acronyms and abbreviations

In public-facing communications, using acronyms is the quickest and easiest way to alienate your audience – even an IFRC audience. Someone focusing on protection, gender and inclusion in Asia Pacific will not necessarily understand the acronyms used by colleagues working in Shelter in Africa.

Always put the reader first when you’re writing. Please spell things out in full, unless an acronym is globally recognized, such as UN, CNN, BBC, or WHO.

👍 Do: “Thousands of families in Egypt and Libya now have access to safe drinking water thanks to a new agreement between IFRC and sanitation company Loocorp.”

👎 Don't: “The IFRC has signed a MoU with Loocorp and will now scale up its WASH activities among targeted beneficiaries in MENA.”

The first example not only avoids acronyms, but also puts people at the heart of the information we’re presenting.

Alphabet

The international nature of our work means that, sooner or later, you’ll have to include a list of countries or National Societies in your writing.

We advise that you list the countries or National Societies in alphabetical order. This is a simple solution and avoids any perceptions of bias on the part of the writer or the reader.

Exceptions to this rule can be made in donor-facing communications on a case by case basis, e.g. if placing an initiative’s largest donor at the end of an alphabetical list would offend the donor.

Ask

The ask is associated with fundraising, but also applies to advocacy and campaigning. What do you want your audience to learn by reading your story/watching your video/reading your posts/etc.? What do you want them to do?

The ask should be a specific question that invites the audience to take a specific action: to join a campaign, donate to an appeal, take a first aid training course etc.

It can be as simple as asking readers to become aware of an issue. It can be as complex as inviting a private foundation to invest in the IFRC. But it must always be clear and specific – and compelling.

Work with relevant colleagues (file-holder, senior expert, strategic partnerships and resource mobilization department, global communications team) to identify any ask, and make sure it’s both clear and prominent.

Audience

Who do you want to reach? What’s their level of knowledge and understanding about the issue you wish to communicate? Where is your audience? Is it best to use social media, an opinion piece in an international broadsheet, or community radio?

Have a clear audience in mind, and tailor your messages to them. Be concise. Be dynamic. Be interesting.

The more high-level the audience, the less time you have to get your message across. Remember that you are trying to reach extremely busy people who have a long list of priorities, and an even longer list of people who are trying to get their attention.

Take the same approach when writing for the public – and even when writing to your colleagues. Everyone is busy, and people are bombarded with countless messages and calls for support.

Your work will have a better chance of connecting with people, and making them care about your message, if it is tailored to a specific audience.

Credibility

The credibility of the IFRC is an integral part of its reputation, and it is vital if we are to earn – and maintain – the trust of everyone we work with.

Informed consent must be given by the subject of the story or interview regardless of the format. The full names of people quoted should be taken, although these can of course be withheld from publication at the request of the interviewee.

The tone and meaning of any quotes used should not be altered and the writer should be able to prove the accuracy of the original quote when asked. Good practices such as these will allow the organization to uphold its reputation and avoid legal challenges.

Don’t attribute your quotes to “a resident of Anbar” or “a villager affected by the floods”: give people the dignity of their names - unless there are pressing security or privacy reasons not to.

The use of full names will also enhance the credibility of the story, e.g., a generic sentence such as ‘“I’m very grateful to the Red Crescent,” said Mohamed from Syria’ could have been written far from the scene.

Be careful when using quotes from more than one person in the same document. Structure your document so that it is immediately obvious who is speaking, and where their quote ends.

Tanzia Ahmed, the organization’s disaster management delegate, said: “The floods have destroyed dozens of settlements.”

Regional partnerships manager Julius De Michelis added: “I’m concerned about resource mobilization for this disaster.”

If you omit part of a quote – making sure that this does not alter the meaning of the statement – be sure to add an ellipsis to let the reader know that this is only part of the quotation, e.g.:

“The National Society’s work in … humanitarian education has already had a positive impact in how young people view refugees and asylum seekers,” she said.

Describing the IFRC

When naming our organization for the first time in an internal or external document, please use the full title with the IFRC acronym in brackets afterwards, i.e. – International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) – and then shorten to “the IFRC” for each successive use.

The IFRC is an international organization. It is the secretariat for 191 National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. It has its Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, five Regional Offices, and more than 50 Country/Country Cluster offices worldwide. The term secretariat refers to the role we play with our members. The term Headquarters refers to our office in Geneva.

When communicating with all external audiences, simplicity is best. We should refer to ourselves only as the IFRC, never as “the secretariat”.

However, when communicating internally with National Societies or governance – audiences that have a nuanced understanding of our role and the structure of our global network – the term “IFRC secretariat” or just “secretariat” is appropriate.

We are one global organization, present in dozens of countries, supporting National Societies to respond to the needs of their communities. Our language should always make this clear. We are not “IFRC Asia Pacific” or “IFRC South Africa”, etc.

We are the IFRC.

We are not “the Red Cross Red Crescent”. We are absolutely not “the RCRC”.

Take care when typing the name of the organization. Some bizarre variants have appeared over the years, and this damages our credibility. If we cannot even type our own name correctly, how can anything we say be trusted?

Describing work by the IFRC and National Societies, and the IFRC, ICRC and National Societies

Please use “National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies” in the first instance, and “National Societies” thereafter.

Please do not use “Red Cross Red Crescent National Societies” or variants thereof.

If writing about a programme or response involving the IFRC and one or more National Societies, please refer to activities by “the IFRC network”.

If writing about an initiative or response involving the IFRC, ICRC and National Societies all working together, please refer to activities by “the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement” in the first instance, and “the Movement” subsequently.

Do not use internal jargon such as “host National Society” and “partner National Society” when writing for external audiences – this is a level of complexity that nobody needs.

Keep it simple.

👍 Do: “The Lebanese Red Cross reached 10,000 people during the crisis, with support from the Turkish Red Crescent, the German Red Cross and the IFRC.”

👎 Don't: “Partner National Societies in Lebanon supported the Host National Society during the crisis, reaching 10,000 people in need.”

Keep the reader’s attention on the action/result for people at risk, and on the National Societies doing the work.

Diversity

To the IFRC, diversity means acceptance of and respect for all forms of difference. This includes, but is not limited to, differences in gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, HIV status, socio-economic status, religion, nationality and ethnic origin (including minority and migrant groups, regardless of the latter’s legal status).

Language shapes how individuals and communities are perceived across the world. This can be seen in the media every day. Refugees and asylum seekers from the Global South are often referred to as economic migrants, while privileged people from the Global North are usually described as “expats”.

Language also plays a major role in how gender is constructed. Please use the inclusive and gender-neutral “they” in any sentence relating to communities or groups, although feminine, masculine and gender-neutral pronouns should be used for individuals where appropriate: he, she or they, his, her or their, etc.

The generic “he” should be avoided in all IFRC writing.

👍 Do: “Villagers were asked whether they wished to take part in the survey.”

👎 Don't: “Each villager was asked if he wished to take part in the survey.”

The IFRC’s work is people-centred, and our writing should reflect this. Put people first when writing about our humanitarian activities and encourage people to tell their own stories.

Avoid generalizations or stereotypes by asking individuals how they choose to describe themselves, particularly when writing about members of a marginalized or minority group.

Above all, treat the life stories of marginalized people with sensitivity, and do not increase stigma by making the risks they face the most significant thing about them.

Gender

The IFRC Strategic Framework on Gender and Diversity Issues is inclusive of all people “who are vulnerable to inequality, harm and loss of basic rights” because of their gender.

Gender refers to the social differences between females, males, and persons with other gender identities throughout their life cycles.

Men are usually not introduced and defined by their marital status or how many children they have, and neither should people of other genders.

Please ensure that you have obtained informed consent from marginalized and at-risk communities before identifying them on public platforms.

Please do not use “gender” as a synonym for issues that affect women and girls only.

Language

The IFRC has four official languages: Arabic, English, French and Spanish. Please remember that your writing will be translated. It’s safe to assume that most people reading your English language version will not be native speakers.

Use clear, simple English.

This has many benefits, particularly online. It will allow you to get your message across quickly, to people from different educational backgrounds and levels of language proficiency.

The Plain English Campaign offers several free guides to help writers choose simple and accessible language.

Hyperbole

Every disaster or crisis is experienced differently by the people affected by it, no matter its size or complexity.

Try to keep your language proportionate when describing an incident. A landslide affecting three houses will feel like the end of the world to the families who have lost their homes – and they will need our support to recover.

However, if the landslide is followed days later by a magnitude 9 earthquake that destroys the entire district, you will need to express the full scale of that human tragedy and devastation in your writing. Keep the most emotive and powerful language in reserve for the biggest and most tragic disasters.

Also take care when describing the reactions of survivors, e.g., “traumatized” is a clinical definition that may not apply in the context – please use alternative descriptions such as “terrified” or “shocked” where appropriate.

Intervention

Please do not refer to intervention in an IFRC context, and never refer to IFRC making a humanitarian intervention. This has a particular meaning in political and security contexts, and it’s not one IFRC should be associated with.

Jargon

Jargon and corporate language don’t fill people with emotion and inspire them to change the world. The IFRC has the most compelling stories in the world, so let’s keep humanity at the heart of our writing.

Please explain IFRC’s programmes and activities as you would to a friend or relative who doesn’t work in this sector. And please focus on how our work makes people’s lives safer and more dignified.

Take extra care to ensure that internal jargon and shorthand does not creep into external-facing documents.

For example, describing someone as “an expert in gender-based violence” means one thing in the office or at an industry event - but a member of the public will interpret those words in a completely different way, and they will be horrified.

Key

Use this very sparingly, as it is easily rendered meaningless through overuse. Something is either important, or it isn’t. If everything in a piece of writing is described as “key”, it implies that nothing is.

Key messages

The good news is that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time you want to write something: some of the work has already been done for you.

The global communications team prepares key messages for every major disaster, humanitarian crisis or agenda-setting international event that IFRC is involved with (e.g., COP, the United Nations General Assembly, etc.). Thematic key messages are also available.

IFRC key messages are updated regularly – weekly, in the case of messages related to an ongoing emergency – so you can be sure you have the most recent approved numbers and information at your fingertips.

Each set of includes three to five strong, clear messages on the issue, the people affected, and what the IFRC network is doing to support them.

These messages can be adapted to your audience. Using them will not only improve the accuracy and immediacy of your work, but it will also ensure consistency across the organization.

Localization

Localization has been at the heart of IFRC work from our earliest days. We exist to support all individual National Societies so that they can meet the growing humanitarian needs in their countries, and to ensure effective and accountable coordination of their international work.

The organization has also made commitments to supporting and promoting localization, notably during the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit.

Every video, op-ed, social media post, or web story is an opportunity to tell people that the IFRC network is truly local. That every day, some 16 million trained volunteers work through 190,000 local branches and units to deliver humanitarian services in more than 191 countries.

Our network is powerful because it is rooted in local action and has truly global reach.

Don’t be shy about promoting this: nobody else will do it for us.

National Societies

Our National Societies are our most important partners.

Please use their names in full and in their preferred form, e.g., Red Crescent Society of the Islamic Republic of Iran, not Iranian Red Crescent; Red Cross Society of China, not Chinese Red Cross; Saudi Red Crescent Authority, not Saudi Arabia Red Crescent, etc.

The easiest way to check a National Society’s correct name is to look it up in the Directory on our website.

Please avoid using acronyms when writing about National Societies. “MRC” could be Mali Red Cross or Maldivian Red Crescent; “ARC” could be Azerbaijan Red Crescent or Argentine Red Cross; “PRC” could be Paraguayan Red Cross or Pakistan Red Crescent.

Remember that some countries’ Red Cross or Red Crescent organizations have not yet been recognized by the ICRC and admitted as full members of the IFRC. Until these processes have been completed, do not refer to them as a National Society, refer instead to “the Red [Cross or Crescent] in [country or territory]”.

As the status of unrecognized republics and disputed territories can be a source of great political controversy, it’s always best to seek advice from the regional communications manager, or from the relevant Country Office or Country Cluster office, on how best to describe unrecognized Red Cross or Red Crescent organizations.

Natural disasters/man-made disasters

Avoid the term “natural disaster” - just use disaster. Even if a natural cause triggered an event, the resulting damage is usually influenced by human (in)action. Consider the different effects of a major earthquake in a country with a culture of disaster preparedness and strict building codes, and in one without these precautions.

“Man-made” is another example of gendered language that we should not be using. Please use “human-made” or “technological” disaster as appropriate.

Non-food items

“Non-food items” is a term that appears regularly in internal documents. But when you are writing about IFRC and National Society work for an external audience, it’s always better to be clear about how we’re helping people.

👍 Do: “More than 10,000 families in the flooded area have received food, water and shelter kits from the Pakistan Red Crescent Society.”

👎 Don't: “Singapore Red Cross volunteers were quickly on the scene and distributed food and non-food items to the survivors.”

Nouns and verbs

Please do not turn nouns into verbs or vice versa. In particular, try to avoid “impacted”, which has needlessly graphic implications in a disaster context. Also, “might affect” is clearer and more concise than the stiff and pompous "could potentially impact on".

👍 Do: “The avalanche happened so quickly that no warning could be given, and many people did not survive the impact.”

👎 Don't: “There are concerns that the land reform proposals will impact on families who were impacted by the 2023 earthquake.”

Please do not verb nouns by adding the suffix –ize or –ized to them (e.g. concretize) as it obscures meaning, confuses translators and interpreters, and looks ugly in print.

Spellcheck

Spellcheck is not a writer’s friend and should not be relied upon. It cannot tell you that you have made a spelling mistake that changes the meaning of a word or sentence, e.g. you typed “enrage” instead of “engage”.

It cannot tell you that a vital word has been missed from a sentence, e.g., “An appeal was launched seeking the unprecedented amount of 19.5 US dollars.”

It’s easy to miss errors like this because the writer’s brain knows what should be there, and it fills in the gaps. A second pair of eyes is invaluable: ask someone to read your draft before it is published.

Stakeholders

We advise against using this word as it has colonial associations: a stakeholder was a settler who would drive a stake into land being stolen from Indigenous Peoples.

Aside from this, it’s a word that is overused in IFRC communications and gives no meaningful information to the reader. It is always better to name the interested parties.

👍 Do: “The IFRC discussed the proposed changes with partners such as National Societies, communities and donors.”

👎 Don't: “The IFRC consulted its stakeholders about the proposed changes.”

Tirelessly

This is the go-to adverb when people want to write about volunteers and volunteering. We’d like you to choose another way to communicate about them.

Describing a volunteer as “tireless” or “working tirelessly” is to do them a disservice. Much of the work – particularly in the aftermath of a major crisis – is exhausting, stressful and dangerous. In the IFRC network, many of the first responders will also be dealing with destruction and death on their doorstep.

Try to highlight the courage and resilience of volunteers wherever possible: make it clear what they are doing to help their community, and don’t be afraid to point out that this can often come at great personal cost.

Vulnerability

By definition, people supported by the IFRC network are experiencing some form of vulnerability in their lives. They might be living with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, or have lost their home in a hurricane, or they could be at risk from violence or trafficking while on the move.

The IFRC wants to highlight the risks that people are exposed to across the world and show how empowered communities are addressing these risks with the support of local organizations such as National Societies.

But we also want to highlight the power of human dignity. Communities are smart, motivated, and intrinsically resilient. Community members are first responders, volunteers, leaders, and organizers.

Many of the people in Red Cross and Red Crescent stories will be experiencing loss, heartbreak, and the uncertainty that follows a disaster or crisis. But this should not define them: they are survivors, not victims.

Who vs That or Which

Use “who” to refer to people. Use “that” or “which” when referring to anything that isn’t a person.

👍 Do: The volunteers, who worked through the night in dangerous conditions, were praised by the IFRC President.”

“The houses that were constructed by IFRC are now the centre of a thriving community.”

“The livelihoods centre, which has won several awards, now faces closure.”

👎 Don't: “The IFRC President spoke to the National Society operations manager that had been at the forefront of the response.”

“She was one of ten volunteers which had been chosen to represent the National Society at the General Assembly.”