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“What do you think?” Those four
little words could insure that your organization’s efforts to raise
money through direct mail are dead in the water.
Don’t get me wrong, I am all for
“group think.” As a trained facilitator, I often begin meetings with
the phrase: “None of us is as smart as all of us.” Brainstorming is
definitely essential to moving any organization forward. But when it
comes to writing fundraising letters, you have to know when to use a
group’s thoughts and when you should not. You have to remember the
fundraising letter cardinal rule: “Write one to one.”
A good fundraising letter is
personal. When you read it, you feel that its author is speaking
directly to you. It is written dialogically. The writer is a
singular, clear, articulate voice in your head carrying on an
imaginary conversation with just you. It is best written from an “I”
to “you” perspective, not from “we” to “them.” In a good fundraising
letter, the conversation leads you to the inevitable conclusion that
you must act in support of the organization being represented.
A good fundraising letter is also
about one, clearly focused premise. We must assume the reader has
little time or will generally not read every word we write, so that
means the premise must repeated several times. Therefore, the
premise must be simple, clear and easy to grasp. Bad fundraising
letters have a laundry list of reasons why someone should give that
cloud the premise and make it almost impossible for a conversation
to form in the reader’s brain.
Introduced too late in the process,
group think produces these laundry lists and a political expectation
that everyone’s ideas will be somehow woven by the writer into the
copy. As a writer, my stomach always turns sour when I hear that
someone wants to send my copy through a “committee.” Clearly, I
believe my work can always be improved. I edit, edit, edit
ruthlessly and even still, often wish I’d had another chance at
something I write after it’s published. All good writers are that
way.
Far too often in my experience,
committees have harmed the creative process and forced me to
compromise my work. When this happens, simplicity and clarity are
sacrificed in the name of making sure everyone’s ideas are
incorporated. You know the old saw about a camel being a horse that
was built by a committee? Well, I’ve written lots of copy that
started out life as a sleek thoroughbred only to be morphed into a
slouching camel through the group think process. Horses move swiftly
and with purpose, camels may get you across a desert, but they tend
to amble along and spit a lot along the way.
Please don’t “camelize” the work of whomever is writing your
fundraising letters. If that’s you, don’t subject yourself to a
committee end up drowning in camel spit. The truth? It’s the
writer’s job to come up with a great letter that talks to just one
person about one idea, not to be “politically correct” and salve
everyone’s egos by including several different thoughts in one
letter.
Yet, I must tell you that there
definitely room for more than one opinion when it comes to creating
good fundraising copy. It’s just a matter of timing. Don’t include
the group after a writer has come up with a well-written, one-to-one
letter based on a solid, singular premise. Do include the group
before he or she ever sets fingers to the keyboard to write.
The proper place for group think is
in brainstorming for the premise of your fundraising letter. Your
writer will love you for giving them the benefit of everyone’s ideas
as well as their own from which to choose. Ask your group: “What’s
the one best reason we are writing to ask for a donation?”
The best answers are going to be tied to your mission. “To help more
people like ....” is often a very good premise for a letter. “So we
can….” followed by a clearly stated goal for the organization can be
another . A letter’s premise is that one idea or need to which most
of your donors will respond.
Let your board, your staff, your
boss’s wife and her Canasta club, the regulars at your neighborhood
Starbuck’s or whomever challenge you with as many possibilities as
they want. You will end up with one but you can start with many.
Take the best ideas from your group
and write a couple of candidate letters, then float those by your
group for input on which you should use. Ask them which idea held up
the best when written into letter form? Along the way, if someone
helps the writer say something more succinctly, clearly or
dramatically, allow the writer consider that input, as well. But no
writer should be forced to veer off the premise they have chosen to
include someone’s pet thought or idea when it doesn’t fit. That’s
when a thoroughbred’s spine begins to curve into a hump! Don’t let
that happen.
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Jerry has been involved in the
media for over 30 years with experience that spans television, radio
and print. His growing passion over the past decade has become
development for non-profit organizations. Before joining
Advocace, he served as a development consultant for another firm,
and as General Manager for one of the top Christian music stations
in the country, and as Donor Marketing Director for WAY-FM Media
Group. Currently also Director of Development for the University Of
South Carolina School Of Law, as well as an active speaker, writer
and facilitator.
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