The Little Words Mean the Most

Pulling bittersweet

 

You know, it was kind of a soap opera of [my] family's lamentable back stories until "An evil woman who committed suicide"

 

 

came up

 

mother

 

my sister sharing family stories for the holidays

 

 

 

 

FIRST draft(y)

 

 

In sales copy, start with this the memo said

 

There is some pain involved in taking this course.

 

 

You'll have to forget all the "rules" you thought you knew.

That 10th-grade English teacher you revered like a goddess descended from the OED? She was wrong-ish.

Go ahead: start sentences with conjunctions. Or not. Yet why not?

We say you can.

Create on your page tall ladders of single-line paragraphs?

We tell you to do it. It's your page. Take charge.

Despite what she/he said? We tell you that half sentences and fragments are often way more attention-getting, way more penetrating, way more convincing, just way better than full sentences.

Oh, yeah, almost forgot....

Being personal draws the reader in. Using the pronouns "you" and "me" and "I" and "yours" raises far more money than a formal tone. Stop watching 1930s English films about the upper crust and how they spoke and wrote.

Oh, and stories.

Little stories are way better than big statistics. (Tom Ahern here) I bet your boss doesn't know that. I bet your program colleagues don't know that. Or your marketing comms people.

BTW: that common misjudgment seriously undermines fundraising intended for individual donors. Stats are fine for grants. Stats are duds speaking to individuals and small private foundations.

One more thing, then I'll stop trying to scare you away from my Moceanic course: Being objective and clinical and exact and jargon-permissive forces the reader away.

And you might even have to defy your boss!

Don't be shy: it's good for the soul to defy your boss. It's what revolution is made of.

 

 

 

grade level: 4-5; reading ease: well above 70

 

 

My North Star, she prepares to tackle via webinar a West Coast graduate school offering degrees in nonprofit management

 

 

 

 

Breakfast with the Laramoops at the country club, so we decided to walk