This is the 203rd Fundraising Writing Newsletter. If you find value here, please tell a fundraising friend. (Your fundraising friend can ​subscribe here for free.)​

Wednesday, August 19, 2026

Hi Reader,

Did you ever have a teacher who made you do an "egg baby" school project?

I hope so!

For me, it was in Miss Brenner's 8th grade Health class, and it turned out to be weird good fun.

You hard boil an egg, decorate it baby-style, name it, make it a little arts-and-crafts carrier for safe toting, and watch it like a hawk for 1-2 weeks, documenting your "parenting" journey — and you darn well better not crack your baby! (Was that a failing grade??)

I wish I had a picture of my egg baby. The details are lost in the mists of decades past. I'm guessing I named it after my Cabbage Patch Doll, Christopher.

The project made quite an impression on me. Ever since, I've been paranoid about dropping my actual children.

When we adopted our first son, Will, I kept saying to myself, "Don't drop him, don't drop him!"

Dropping a baby is, of course, very much not good ever, but especially not for an adoptive mom handed a precious baby from his birth mom. (We have an open adoption with Will's birth family. His mother literally handed him to me when he was 8 days old. 👶🏾)

Over time, it's occurred to me that:

A fundraising story is like a baby ... or an egg

Because every story is precious.

Every story is unique.

Each needs care.

Don't drop it!

That's the gist of what Brett and I wrote to a client in response to a few questions regarding how we go about writing fundraising stories.

Implied, perhaps: "You won't drop our baby, will you?"

Absolutely not!

Here's how we responded to our client...

"Regarding your questions:

• how long your pieces aim to be — The direct mail appeal letters we write are always two to four pages, approximately 500 or 1,000 words. (If we ever encountered an unusually detailed, powerful story or a client asked us to do so, we could conceivably write an appeal of 6 pages or longer, but that's essentially a hypothetical.) Some of the appeal letter is around the offer, the ask, and fundraising language around the potential impact... so the actual story usually constitutes I'd guess 50-60% of the total length.
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• what types of information you need — This is difficult to say. We tend to prefer having as much relevant information as we can get, then paring back from there to what will resonate with the donor to illustrate the need, the urgency, and the good the donor's kindness can do. It really varies by story. The most important things are the essentials (who, what, where, when, why, how) and the details that make you really feel something, as if you were there... which could be almost anything that feels unique to the person's experience. We definitely want to be able to have details around what life was like before and after. In this case, details around Sage's predicament before she was taken in by her foster mom ... and details around how being with her foster mom has been wonderful. Ideally, you share as much as you can, we write what we think would work best, and then anyone with relevant experience reviews the draft we provide you to say whether anything needs to be changed for privacy reasons or any other reason. One specific question here: How old was Sage when she was taken in by her foster mom? Any siblings? How old is Sage today? Is there a representative anecdote about that, showing Sage's wellbeing (something with visuals, if possible, and maybe even dialogue)? All details can be altered to protect privacy, including names and ages. But it's helpful to get the original specifics to work from so that we get a sense of the feel of everything, the shape of the story, and then we tweak around all that as necessary/appropriate.
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• any themes you hope to write toward — other than need, urgency, and the ability for the donor to make an impact, plus the humanity and dignity of everyone involved, the themes suggest themselves based on the story so we don't really need anything from you on this unless there's something you think is important to what you're trying to accomplish with this appeal. The goal is not "education" but simply demonstrating (again) need, urgency, and how the donor can help. This is what motivates donors and therefore leads to best results to do the most good for your good cause."

The point is, every fundraising story needs lots of nurturing and tender care, like a baby. And every story is fragile, like an egg. You'll never do it exactly right, like parenting, but it's crucial to try your best!

Hmm, I should look up Miss Brenner and thank her.

Randomly yours

For your brain, heart, and funny bone...

• Fundraisingly Informative — 21 Discovery Questions to Ask Now by Rachel Muir (a handy "cheat sheet" featuring a list of questions for the next time you're interviewing donors, and how to frame it all to set them and you both up for success)​
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• Reasonably Organized — Replace the filters by Seth Godin (a short blog post of excellent life hacks such as "If you paint a room in your home, write the type of paint you used on the back of the switchplates.")
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• Awesomely Nerdy — Back in 1987, before you could Google it, Nintendo had a hotline you could call if you were stuck on a level via lolita (an Instagram reel that's so '80s you might explode)

Until next time: May you find great reward in every story you raise from infancy to flown-the-nest!

Grateful,

Julie Cooper & Brett Cooper
(and dog Charlie)
Fundraising Copywriters​
​FundraisingWriting.com​
​Fundraising Copywriting & Design​​
​100% human, thank you very much.

P.S. Reader, write your year-end appeal so you sound fully human and get the results you need!​
​
Good appeals are surprisingly tricky.

One thing about learning what successful year-end appeals are really made of ... the language, the tone, the quirks, how soon to make your ask, etc. ...

You have to sound fully human!

Your donors are!

That's why I hope you'll join me for Tom Ahern’s “Writing In-House Direct Mail Appeals (E-appeals Too!) That Work” Webinar with Special All-You Can-Eat Q&A Guest Jeff Brooks.

This instructional webinar lasts 1.5 hours ... followed by our trademark "all you can eat" Q&A (in 2026 featuring the omniscient Jeff Brooks).

Q&A keeps going until the audience runs out of questions (97 questions and 3.5 hours are the records so far).

September will be here before you know it.

Plan ahead, maybe . . . ?

​Learn more and register now, maybe?