Seven more ways to write better fundraising copy

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25 March 2010

Seven more ways to write better fundraising copy

Here's good copywriting advice from the Word Wealth blog: 7 Time Tested Tips for Making Your Advertising Work. Most of these make as much sense in fundraising as they do in advertising:

Tell a story.
Use cliches.
Never write any marketing pieces if you do not believe in what it is you are selling or trying to accomplish.
Don't try and be cute or sophisticated.
Write to a grade 7 reading level.
Pretend you are sitting around a fire with one of your best friends.
Always use real postage stamps on your envelopes – never metered mail.

On #5: I'd aim even lower: 5th or 6th grade level. It's not easy to achieve, but the readability bonus is high.

I can't vouch for #7 in fundraising contexts; I've seen virtually every type of postage treatment win in various tests.

Posted by Jeff Brooks on 25 March 2010 at 07:53 | Permalink

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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 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. More.

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I'm a Fundraisingologist at Moceanic, the company that can help you transform the way you do fundraising through one-on-one coaching or membership in The Fundraisingology Lab. Find out what we can do for you and with you!

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