Willis Turner

As with most things, the good writers make it look easy. That’s why so many people think they can do it.

According to the Rule of 7, it takes an average of seven exposures to a message before it sinks in enough to engage your target and make him or her a regular supporter.Drip campaigns create those exposures in a tactical way that dovetails with your overall strategic plan. Here are 11 tips to help you get more drip for your buck.

Every so often you just get stuck when you need an idea. All writers know this. And we all know the standard advice for coming up with a creative inspiration: take a walk, sleep on it, put it aside and come back to it later, and all that.

Of course you should craft your appeals to resonate with the majority of your readers. But you should always allow for the possibility that something great could come from the most unexpected donors.

Do fundraising writers get writer's block? Does every writer? All writers talk about it. Some play complicated psychological tricks on themselves to prime the pump when the well goes dry.

Writing fundraising copy should be detailed and painstaking for you. Reading it should be fast and easy for your donor.

Writing fundraising copy takes concentration and focus. There are a lot of elements, strategic and creative, that have to be accounted for as you write. It takes up a lot of your headspace.

The 10 tips below are basic copywriting guidelines that will help you every time you write a fundraising letter, email or blog post.

I'm a firm believer that empathy has the potential to solve more problems than war and peace put together. From a more practical one, boosting your empathic ability could give your fundraising results a shot in the arm.

Success stories in fundraising focus on the positive outcome. They give you the opportunity to tell the reader how fabulous you are. It's a seductive proposition and a great way to steer your ship into the rocks.

Testimonials allow your reader to see your organization through the eyes of someone you've helped. It's a first-person, ground-level view of how you change lives.

It takes a little extra effort, and often some extra homework, to make case studies compelling enough to persuade a reader to reach for her wallet. But that's what you're there for, right? If it were easy, anybody could do it.

We copywriters have powerful tools at our disposal. Microsoft Word probably leads the pack. It makes our jobs faster and easier. But in today's business-centric world, Word has evolved into an implement for corporate use. As writers who specialize in fundraising, this presents a challenge.

The best way to earn readers' attention, and keep it, is to tell them what they want to know. Not what you want to tell them.

It looks like the future of fundraising is catching up with us. We are afflicted by the ancient Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." And in the year ahead, times are going to get a lot more interesting.