You’ll have to excuse me … I got Ds in grammar.

By Jerry Huntsinger

10. Play around with parentheses. Why not add a little afterthought to an important thought? It’s a wink, a nudge. It’s under your breath. An aside. It’s a shrug of your shoulders. (Pssst … it’s a way to get even more personal.)

11. Use the question mark liberally. Ask a lot of questions. That gets the reader involved. It begins a dialogue. Why not?

12. And finally ... because I’ve used up my allotted space in this publication ... keep your copy moving forward by using the ellipsis. OK, I know. Grammatically, the three dots together indicate missing text in a phrase. That’s a grammar rule. But as a tool, those three dots can help you move from one paragraph to the other ... or just break up the copy.

Is all the above really grammar? Of course not. It’s marketing. And like it or not, that’s what fundraising is all about.

Jerry Huntsinger is a freelance copywriter and a senior creative consultant at Craver, Mathews, Smith & Co. You can e-mail him at qqq@starband.net.