How to Review Fundraising Writing Fast

By: Michael Taylor, CFRE, CEO

Do you spend a lot of time revising documents produced by fundraisers? Many CEOs have complained to me privately about this.

I’m talking about drafts of grant proposals, LOIs, donor appeal letters, fundraising reports, cases for support, newsletters, even donor emails—documents like that. If so, this brief guidance is for you.

Over the years I’ve observed that before marking up the entire document, the executive’s role is to first make a determination as to its overall quality.

A first determination is a quick assessment. This is where the time-saving aspect comes in.

Here are three major categories I use to quickly determine the quality of the document.

  1. NO WAY: The draft is not acceptable, please rewrite it, and here’s what’s wrong.
  2. YES, BUT: It’s really good, but here are minor edits as shown in track-changes.
  3. RIGHT DIRECTION, BUT: It’s a good first draft, but here are some major changes that I’d like to see for the second draft.

Sometimes I give this feedback by email, but I generally prefer a short phone call with the author to give the feedback personally.

Obviously, if the document is perfect as is, say thank you, be grateful, and move on.

These points apply to all professional or technical writing.

I have editing tips that I can share with you if you email me privately, but I’d bet you have your own approach to that. The step suggested here—determining quality—is meant to take place BEFORE you start editing.

As an aside, a resource I rely on is anything written by the forward-thinking author Tom Ahern, especially his short tome: How To Write Fundraising Materials That Raise More Money. Tom writing considers how donors read (or not) our appeal letters and he’s been able to document higher response rates using his approaches.

We welcome your comments about this post on the NPI blog.

Leave a Reply

Related Posts

Has Donor Trust in Charities Changed?

In this age of “fake news”, “alternative facts” “hyper partisanship” and what seems to be a general erosion of trust, why should we even care?  And if we care what can we fundraisers do about it?

Of course, every fundraiser should care because trust is the lynchpin of a solid and sustainable relationship with a donor.  And because there are ways to measure trust, taking steps to increase the level of trust, and by doing so increase donor value and an organization’s net revenue.

Read More »

MacKenzie Strikes Again

You probably won’t recognize most of the names on the list of the top 50 mega-philanthropists.

MacKenzie Scott’s name, though, immediately rings a bell and puts a smile on the face of those of us serving in the non-profit sector.

Ironically, she is not on that list, unlike her ex-husband.

Yet we love her for the special sensitivity she shows us, and her latest “strike,” an announcement to give away $250 million in funding to small nonprofits, is no exception.

Read More »

The CEO as Chief Fundraiser: A Role That Should Never Be Delegated

Our recent posts have lasered in on fundraising perennials–retention of fundraising staff, annual funds, and why donors give.  Another perennial stacks up as equally worthy of thoughtful commentary, and that’s the role of the chief executive officer in fundraising.  

A short definition of a CEO is he or she who makes decisions.  Nowadays, we recognize the value of consensus decision-making, and that’s fine.  But the kinds of decisions I’m referring to are the big ones, decisions such as those made by the captain of a ship.

Read More »