Future Fundraising Now

29 writing tips for wide-awake fundraisers

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by

Jeff Brooks
in
  1. Be SURE about your writing: Make it Simple, Urgent, Repetitive, and Emotional.
  2. Write colloquially: Use a conversational tone that sounds like a person talking. Simple, short sentences, contractions, sentence fragments, and common words.
  3. Use “You” frequently: The word “you” helps you make your message about the donor and how they can change the world.
  4. Avoid overusing “I” (and its forms like “we,” “us,” and “our”): “I” makes the message about your organization … not an effective way to motivate donors.
  5. Keep it simple and readable: Use short words and sentences to achieve a low reading grade level (around sixth grade is good).
  6. Make the text visually easy to read by using short paragraphs, underlining, boldface, italics, subheads, and plenty of white space.
  7. Don’t be afraid of clichés: Clichés are familiar and can make communication easier.
  8. Don’t worry too much about being “choppy.” Donors skim. You don’t want to lose them in transitional material.
  9. Write long messages: Longer messages almost always perform better than short ones, especially in direct mail. Donors may not read every word, but they respond to them.
  10. Focus on one person: Stories about a single individual are more effective than stories about a group, a region, or a concept.
  11. Center your stories on a solvable problem: Many would-be donors feel powerless against huge issues like “poverty,” but they can imagine helping one person.
  12. Be wary about telling stories that show a problem already solved. That means the donor isn’t needed. Invite the donor to become part of the story and help create the happy ending we all want.
  13. But do share fully resolved stories when you thank donors and report back. That’s where you complete the donor’s story arc.
  14. If you lack a specific, documented story, create a “word picture” — a short, present-tense snapshot of a situation without specific names or a plot. Ensure the details are based on reasonable suppositions from known facts.
  15. Don’t try to educate donors: People don’t give because of knowledge; they give when their hearts are moved to act. Giving leads to knowledge, not the other way around.
  16. Don’t brag about your organization: Instead of boasting about your effectiveness, show donors how giving to you increases the impact of their gift.
  17. Avoid Fundcrushing with big numbers: Using large, overwhelming statistics about a problem makes it seem unsolvable and discourages giving. Focus on bite-sized, solvable problems.
  18. Balance the “bad news” that spurs action with the “good news” of what a donor’s gift can accomplish. Show a problem and then clearly present the solution the donor can make possible.
  19. Be cautious with guilt: Guilt can be a powerful motivator, but when people feel manipulated, they can turn away in an instant.
  20. Create a strong, specific call to action: Your fundraising “offer” is its foundation. Make your ask as tangible and specific as possible.
  21. Price your offer: The fundraising offer should have a specific cost as often as possible, such as “$1.79 provides one meal.”
  22. When a specific cost is not possible, suggest amounts the donor might give.
  23. Make it a good deal: Show donors their gift has a big impact.
  24. Repeat your ask: A strong fundraising appeal asks many times. Because donors skim, repetition helps ensure they will see a call to action.
  25. Don’t worry when your first draft is dreadful. That’s okay. Accepting this frees you from writer’s block and allows you to get words on the page that you can revise later.
  26. Cut the beginning: Almost every piece of writing is improved by cutting the first sentence or first few paragraphs. You’d be amazed how often your writing improves when you do this.
  27. Use a swipe file: Collect examples of fundraising mail and email from other organizations. Use them for inspiration and to understand what others are doing.
  28. Practice freewriting: Write for 10 minutes without stopping or editing. This daily exercise will make you a stronger, more fluent writer.
  29. Donate: To truly understand fundraising, you must be a donor. This will give you insight into how it feels to give and be asked. You might be surprised.

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    The future of fundraising is not about social media, online video, or SEM. It’s not about any technology, medium, or technique. It’s about donors. If you need to raise funds from donors, you need to study them, respect them, and build everything you do around them. And the future? It’s already here. More.

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    Jeff BrooksJeff Brooks has been serving the nonprofit community for more than 35 years and blogging about it since 2005. He considers fundraising the most noble of pursuits and hopes you’ll join him in that opinion. You can reach him at jeff [at] jeff-brooks [dot] com. More.

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    The future of fundraising is not about social media, online video, or SEM. It’s not about any technology, medium, or technique. It’s about donors. If you need to raise funds from donors, you need to study them, respect them, and build everything you do around them. And the future? It’s already here. More.

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    About the blogger

    Jeff Brooks has been serving the nonprofit community for more than 30 years and blogging about it since 2005. He considers fundraising the most noble of pursuits and hopes you’ll join him in that opinion. You can reach him at jeff [at] jeff-brooks [dot] com.