Life is better when shared. This is the 169th Fundraising Writing Newsletter. If you find value here, please tell a fundraising friend. (Your fundraising friend can subscribe here for free.) Wednesday, May 7, 2025 Hi Reader, On Saturday, Brett and I will be headed to the UK. We're so excited. It's my first time out of North America, and Brett's first time returning to Bath, England, since he studied there for a semester in 1992. We will end our trip in Dublin, where I'll be presenting with Jeff Brooks at The Fundraising Summer School. My session with Jeff, called From Rubbish to Rescue to Relationship: Fundraising Storytelling Reconsidered, will dive into Philanthropic Psychology principles to challenge the status quo. In one sense, “rescue fundraising" works. It raises money. But it focuses only on compassionate love. Compassionate love is not quite as powerful as companionate love, which is the kind of connection you have with family or close friends. Here's one tip for you from our presentation: Invoke our shared humanity. 1 thing we all share 🧑🤝🧑Invoking our shared humanity means grounding your story in emotions every person is intimately familiar with. Feelings such as fear, grief, hope, joy, love, and loneliness. Take the following opening line from a fundraising appeal letter written by Beth Beall, Executive Director at Vida Joven Foundation:
You and I both long for more peace in our world.
Maybe you’re wondering what the connection is between my donation and peace on earth?
[First Name], there’s a direct link between your kindness and a more peaceful, stable life for a child such as Gael.
This approach works because it taps into something much deeper than pity. It taps into shared humanity. The donor is not just helping a stranger. They’re feeling something they've felt before, that resonates with them, that's relevant to them. That feeling makes them identify with your fundraising story in a personal way. That’s how you foster companionate love. From our shared humanity, family. 💛 Poll resultsLast week, Brett wrote about his concerns of an imminent AI backlash and included the poll question "Does your org have an AI policy?" Here are the results, for those keeping score: Again, our takeaway is: No one knows what's coming in the wake of AI as it progresses faster than and different from any previous tech. Or what precautionary steps ought to be taken. But perhaps forewarned is forearmed. And perhaps an AI policy for your org is in order. If you've created an AI policy and don't mind sharing what you learned in the process, please reply to this email. We'd love to pass it along to our readers. Randomly yours: to inspire and recharge youFor your brain, heart, and funny bone...
Until next time: May you move past rubbish and rescue to relationship, where our shared humanity reminds us we're alive, we feel it, and we want to give back! Grateful,
PS: On May 29th at 1:00pm ET, I'll be moderating Tom Ahern's webinar "Writing Your Case for Support (with a mini tour of annual reports)" featuring John Lepp in our unlimited Q&A session. It's well worth your time and investment! I hope you'll join me!!
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We're Julie Cooper and Brett Cooper, fundraising copywriters for great causes. Does your fundraising bring in as much money as it could? You can send donor communications that stir hearts to action. We'd love to help. 💛 Start by subscribing to our FREE and fun weekly newsletter.
Sing it! This is the 177th Fundraising Writing Newsletter. If you find value here, please tell a fundraising friend. (Your fundraising friend can subscribe here for free.) Wednesday, August 27, 2025 Hi Reader, For a long time, I really did not like country music. Then I came across the classic country station "Willie's Roadhouse" on Sirius XM, and I started paying attention to the lyrics. Tears flowed. My heart swelled and broke and swelled again. Now I know what before I did not: some of the...
Easy thumbs-up. This is the 176th Fundraising Writing Newsletter. If you find value here, please tell a fundraising friend. (Your fundraising friend can subscribe here for free.) Wednesday, August 13, 2025 Hi Reader, If you've done any writing at all, you've probably heard the advice “show, don’t tell” about a million times. But “showing” is not just about sensory details or dialogue. It’s also about you-were-there "time travel." Are you forgetting the ING in your fundraising writing? An -ING...
Well, hello there! This is the 175th Fundraising Writing Newsletter. If you find value here, please tell a fundraising friend. (Your fundraising friend can subscribe here for free.) Wednesday, July 30, 2025 Hi Reader, Have you heard of "audience capture"? It's when a person (typically an artist, performer, or influencer) is shaped almost entirely by the feedback from their audience. Instead of doing what they feel ought to be done, the person does only what they feel the audience thinks...