Give donors “permission” not to donate. I know that may seem odd, because they clearly have that permission whether you give it or not. And most donors, most of the time (including your best donors) exercise their right not to give. Still, when you give that permission, you recognize their autonomy and put a decision in their hands. That shared, out-in-the-open declaration of their autonomy can change the situation: your message can move from fundraising that might be relevant, but probably isn’t to something more like fundraising that deserves my consideration. That’s huge. They can still say ..read more

So far in this series about Inclusive Fundraising, we’ve focused on reading and attention issues that make reading a challenge for many people — by some accounts, about 20% of the population in the US deals with these challenges. There’s another set of issues that make reading difficult for even more people: visual acuity issues. These range from presbyopia (which affects nearly everyone in their 40s or older to complete blindness — and everything in between. Since donors are mostly people in the 60s and up, the percentage who deal with visual challenges approaches 100% If you care about bein ..read more

From Total Annarchy by Ann Handley here are some great and unusual writing tips that can help you move faster through the writing cycle, at 6½ Ways to Write Faster: Start with pen + paper. Writing is slower than typing. That’s why this tip works. I used to do this. I couldn’t write without a handwritten rough draft. After decades of trying, I’m able to skip that step now. But I still go back to the pen and paper method for especially challenging project. Stop trying so hard. It’s okay to write something incomplete or half-baked. As long as you go back later and fix it. It’s so much better to ..read more

If you champion plain language, ease-of-reading writing in your organization, you will run into opposition. The habit of complex writing is deeply embedded in our education and professional cultures. There are a number of typical arguments against communicating clearly. Here are ten of them — and their answers — from Writing for Dollars, Writing to Please: The Case for Plain Language in Business, Government, and Law by Joseph Kimble. Plain language is anti-literary, anti-intellectual, unsophisticated, drab, ugly, bland, babyish, or base. It isn’t. Those qualities are inherent in the content ..read more

Book Review: Writing for Dollars, Writing to Please: The Case for Plain Language in Business, Government, and Law by Joseph Kimble This book is a useful and comprehensive guide for the Plain Language movement. It’s light on how-to-write material, but has a ton of foot-noted background information — the kind of stuff bosses sometimes listen to. Two things to note: It focuses on writing in the legal profession, so it’s not quite aimed at fundraising or marketing. But you should have a copy on hand. Also, it is very focused on the US and the English-speaking world, but there is information from b ..read more

Monthly giving is one of the keys to a successful and sustainable fundraising program. Monthly donors give more, stay longer, and do more of other things (like put you in their will). Monthly giving doesn’t happen by itself. It takes work to get and keep these important donors. Here’s a list of common mistakes we make with our monthly giving programs, from the Nonprofit Fundraising Blog, at Roadblocks to avoid: common mistakes in monthly giving campaigns: Failing to Clearly Communicate the Impact of Monthly Gifts. Monthly donors are like all donors: They want to know that their giving makes a ..read more

You may have heard that you must must MUST write your fundraising at a certain “reading ease” level. And that reading ease is measured by formulae you absolutely must follow. Well, maybe … Reading ease scores can be helpful guides for inclusive writing and plain language. Here are the two most common scoring systems: Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level. It gives your writing a “grade level,” where lower means easier. Easy-to-read fundraising should aim for Grade 6 or lower. The downside of this scoring is it implies that the score is tied to the education or age of the reader. It’s not. It only measu ..read more

On this very special day, here are the 5 most-read Future Fundraising Now blog posts in the last month: Letter from a disgruntled donor [PODCAST] When to delete and start again in fundraising The amazingly good news about inclusive fundraising 5 reasons direct mail is still the fundraising powerhouse 2 lousy stories and a great one Looking for some really good (and specific) advice for your fundraising? Book a FREE consultation with Sean Triner of Moceanic. Sean knows his stuff, and can help you find your way forward ..read more

Years ago, I worked at a company where one of the best ways to get ahead was to talk. A lot. Being able to filibuster at a meeting or write staggeringly long emails marked you as a winner. The content of what you had to say wasn’t as important as word count. It was the best path to a vice presidency (and this company had a lot of VPs). When you incentivize something, people tend to pursue it. So there were a lot of people at this company who could really keep up a stream of words. Some of them knew what they were talking about, but not all of them. Having something meaningful to say was second ..read more

Stories sometimes seem like magic. But there’s no magic involved. When you tell the right story, you unlock the generosity of more people. When you tell the wrong one, not much happens. So what stories are right or wrong? Here’s a great answer to that question from the Better Fundraising Blog, at Which story are you telling? Wrong story: The story of one beneficiary who has already been helped. Nice and heartwarming (and highly appropriate for your newsletter), but not good at raising funds. Wrong story: The story about the services the organization provides, what year the organization was fo ..read more