Glossary

The words people use — explained in plain English.

Social media, marketing and funding are full of language that can make you feel like you missed a meeting. You didn’t. Here is what each term actually means for a community organisation, with no jargon and no assumptions.

Social media

Algorithm: The system a platform uses to decide who sees your post and when. It is not personal. If a post is quiet, the algorithm simply showed it to fewer people — try a different approach rather than assuming your content was poor.
Boosting: Paying a platform to show an existing post to more people. Only ever boost something that has already earned attention naturally.
Caption: The written part of a post. Your caption carries the story; the image only earns the pause.
Carousel: A post with several swipeable images or slides. Good for a story told in steps or a before-and-after.
Community management: Replying to comments and messages, welcoming new people and keeping conversations going. It matters more than posting frequency.
Engagement: Comments, shares, saves and likes together — people doing something rather than scrolling past. Note the likes, but never let them become the reason you post.
Engagement rate: Engagement divided by reach, shown as a percentage. A small account with a loyal community often beats a big one here.
Hashtag: A keyword marked with # that helps people find posts on a topic. A handful of relevant, local ones beat thirty generic ones.
Hook: The first line or first second that stops the scroll. Covered in full in the Art of the Hook bonus.
Impressions: How many times your post appeared on a screen, including the same person seeing it twice. Always higher than reach.
Insights / Analytics: The statistics page inside a platform. Facebook and Instagram figures live in Meta Business Suite; LinkedIn pages have their own Analytics tab.
Meta Business Suite: The free Meta tool where you manage, schedule and measure Facebook and Instagram from one place. Most of your monthly review numbers are here.
Organic vs paid: Organic reach is what you get without paying. Paid (boosted or advertised) reach is what money buys. This course is built on organic reach.
Reach: Roughly how many individual people saw your post. Useful, but the shallowest of the four measures in Module 7.
Reel / Short-form video: A short vertical video. Currently the format platforms show to the most new people, which makes it useful for reaching beyond your existing followers.
Saves: Someone bookmarking your post to return to. One of the strongest quiet signals that your content was genuinely useful.
Scheduling: Writing posts in advance and setting them to publish later. The backbone of the sustainable content habit in Module 8.
Story (Instagram/Facebook): A post that disappears after 24 hours. Ideal for behind-the-scenes and day-to-day life — not to be confused with community storytelling.
UGC (user-generated content): Photos, videos or words created by your community rather than by you. Always get written consent before you publish it.
Vanity metric: A number that looks impressive but tells you little about impact — follower counts and raw view counts are the usual culprits. Measure understanding, not attention.

Marketing & storytelling

AI prompt: The instruction you give an AI tool. AI produces working drafts only — always check, correct and rewrite them in your own voice before anything is published or submitted.
Audience: The specific people you are speaking to: supporters, volunteers, funders, partners, service users. Write to one of them at a time.
Batching: Writing several posts in one sitting rather than one a day. Fewer switches into creative mode means far less exhaustion.
Brand: Not your logo. It is what people feel and expect when your name comes up — built through consistency over time.
Brand voice: The way your organisation sounds in writing: warm, plain, formal, playful. Decide it once and keep it steady everywhere.
Call to action (CTA): The one thing you want a reader to do next: come along, get in touch, share this, sign up. A post without one is just noise.
Case study: A longer written example of your work with a person or project, usually with a beginning, a change and an outcome. Funders love them.
Consent: Signed, written permission before you publish any photograph, video or story of anyone, adult or child, with no exceptions. Use the consent form in your downloads.
Content pillar: A repeating theme you post about — stories, proof, invitations, behind-the-scenes. Pillars stop the blank-page panic.
Content plan: A simple month-ahead map of what you will post and when. Yours is in the downloadable Content Planner.
GDPR: UK data protection rules. In practice: only email people who have actively agreed, tell them what they are signing up for, and let them leave easily.
Newsletter / Email list: A list of people who have asked to hear from you directly. The only audience no platform can take away from you.
Open rate / Click rate: The share of people who opened your email, and the share who clicked a link in it. Your email provider reports both.
SEO: Search engine optimisation — writing your website so people searching for what you do can find you. Plain words beat clever ones.
The So What Test: Reading your story back sentence by sentence and keeping only what a stranger would genuinely care about.
The Story Prism™: The BR Creative method for turning one story into many pieces of content by telling it from different angles — a post, a newsletter, a bid paragraph, a volunteer appeal.
Tone of voice: How your brand voice flexes to the moment — the same personality, adjusted for a celebration or a difficult announcement.
Visual identity: Your colours, fonts, logo and photography style used consistently, so people recognise you before they read your name.

Funding & finance

360Giving / GrantNav: A free UK database of grants already awarded. Search it to see who funds work like yours, how much they give and where.
Bid / Application: The written case you submit asking for funding. Being a good bid writer is a learned skill, not a talent you are born with.
Cash flow: Money in and money out month by month, showing your closing balance and your lowest point. Profit on paper is no help if the bank is empty.
CIC: Community Interest Company — a business with a community purpose and an asset lock. Being a CIC does not automatically make you eligible for grants.
CIO: Charitable Incorporated Organisation — a charity structure registered with the Charity Commission that gives trustees limited liability.
Core costs: The costs of simply existing: rent, insurance, salaries, accountancy. Harder to fund, so always ask when a funder allows it.
Crowdfunding: Raising smaller amounts from many people online, usually within a set time. It relies entirely on the strength of your story.
Eligibility criteria: The rules deciding who may apply — area, legal structure, size, type of work. Check these before writing a single word.
End-of-grant report: What you send a funder when the work is done: what you delivered, what changed, what you spent and what you learned.
Full cost recovery: Costing a project properly, including a fair share of your overheads, rather than only the obvious direct costs.
Funder: The organisation giving the grant — a trust, foundation, lottery distributor, council or business.
Funding Hour: One hour booked in your diary every month for funding research and applications. Funding stops being an emergency once it becomes a habit.
Funding pipeline: The list of bids you are preparing, submitted or awaiting, with a likelihood score — a realistic expected total rather than a hopeful one.
Governing document: Your constitution or articles of association. Funders ask for it constantly, so keep a signed PDF to hand.
Grant: Money awarded to you for agreed work that you do not pay back, usually with conditions and reporting attached.
Impact: The lasting difference your work makes, beyond the immediate outcomes. Stories and figures together tell it best.
In-kind support: Non-cash help: donated venue, equipment, professional time. Give it a realistic value and record it.
Income streams: The different ways money comes in: grants, trading, donations, contracts, membership. Several small streams beat one large one.
Information bank: Your saved, reusable paragraphs about your organisation, need, beneficiaries and track record — ready to copy, edit and paste into any bid.
Match funding: Money you must raise yourself alongside a grant. Volunteer time can sometimes count — check the guidance.
Monitoring & evaluation: Collecting evidence as you go and judging what worked. Far easier when it is a monthly habit rather than a deadline panic.
National Lottery Community Fund: The largest UK funder of community activity, with programmes from small awards up to multi-year grants. Read the specific programme guidance, not just the homepage.
Outputs vs outcomes: Outputs are what you did (twelve sessions, forty people). Outcomes are what changed because of it (less isolation, new skills).
Reserves: Money set aside to keep you going if income stops. Many funders expect to see a reserves policy.
Restricted vs unrestricted funds: Restricted money may only be spent on the thing it was given for. Unrestricted money can be spent wherever it is needed most.

Missing a word you keep hearing? Tell Bev and it will be added.