Writing Wrong
OK wise guy … yes, it’s ‘writing wrongly’. But that doesn’t make for as intriguing a headline. Or so I thought.
Last week, writing in Fundraising Success, Pamela Barden offered three wonderfully simple cautions regarding fundraising copy. I thought they deserved further airing now that we’re all back at our post-summer desks. Here’s what to avoid …
Writing to the wrong person — you’re writing to your relatively uninformed and distracted donor, not to your board of directors.
Writing about the wrong person — you’re also writing about your donor, in the sense of ‘what does this mean to him or her’, not to the organization.
Writing from the wrong person — it’s a person-to-person communication, not an institution-to-person memo. Put some personality in your copy.
Very simple and very sound.
Tom
Behavioral Science Q & A
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