Easier Said Than Done: The Magic Words of Fundraising

Dear [name]:

You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. Yes, you. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You.

Sincerely,

[Signature]

P.S. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You.

You see, all the elements of a good fundraising letter — the opening that grabs you, the setup for the ask, the ask itself, how many times to ask, the P.S. — barely matter compared to the importance of making it all about the donor. Get that right, and just about everything else you need will fall into place.

Our researchers also found that the donor's name had exactly the same power as the word "you." Often more.

"You" is the oxygen of the fundraising atmosphere. It makes all life possible. Use it as much as you can.

The bad word
The bad word has even more power for evil than "you" does for good. You might be expecting some exotic imprecation or elaborate profanity. Sadly, the bad word is the most commonly spoken word in English: I.

The funny thing about "I" is that its dark power isn't unleashed when you use it in your fundraising communication; in that context, it's a perfectly useful word — though overusing it makes you sound like a boring nerd, but that's another issue.

"I" does its damage when you use it to talk about your fundraising efforts. As in:

â— "I like it."

â— "I don't like it."

â— "I would never respond to that."

If virtually any sentence about your fundraising contains the word "I," the evil magic will spread like Chianti on a white shirt. That's because "I" causes you to leave reality behind and enter a topsy-turvy world where up is down, big is small, foggy is clear — and you can hardly put three persuasive words together.