A little goes a long way. This is the 158th Fundraising Writing Newsletter. If you find value here, please tell a fundraising friend. (Your fundraising friend can ​subscribe here for free.)​

In this issue:

✅ Please don't "over spice" your fundraising stories

✅ In 2 weeks: Tom Ahern's bequest webinar

✅ Randomly yours: to inspire and recharge you

Wednesday, January 15, 2025
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Hi Reader,

Brett here:

When I was an English teacher, I taught budding writers to use sensory details — of sight, sound, touch, taste, hearing — to bring a scene to life. Such details can help the reader really feel the narrative, as if they're right there in the story.

It seems I went too far. (😂)

I should have told my students: Sensory details are "story spice." Use them, but sparingly. A little goes a long way.

Julie and I are seeing what appears to be a trend of truly fabulous, talented fundraisers who are overusing sensory details in their fundraising storytelling.

Which is why I say—

Please don't "over spice" your fundraising stories

It's a balancing act.

No spice = bland.

Too much spice = inedible.

Sensory details can be very impactful, in the right spot.

What's the right spot?

A moment of climactic tension.

A turning point you want to stress.

Where you want the reader to s-l-o-w-w-w down.

When I was doing trail running races, from time to time I'd find myself on a steep decline that would turn my mediocre gait into a daredevil sprint. The downhill slope lengthened my strides and gravity did the rest.

It was dangerous.

A few times, I tripped on a stone or root and fell hard.

In the moment between tripping and tumbling, time seemed to slow. As my feet left the earth and my hands flew forward in anticipation of a rough landing, the wind and birds chirping receded as if someone had pressed mute. I could see myself as if from outside and just behind my body, and I had time to think a few thoughts like "Oops" and "Oh no" while positioning my arms to brace my fall without breaking a wrist or worse.

The landing would happen in a flurry, slow motion ceasing, mute button unpressed.

Did you notice what I did there?

I used sensory details:

Sensory details work here because the moment is pivotal. Bringing it to life with sensory details is more likely to make you, dear reader, feel it.

Your fundraising storytelling is not fiction. It's not narrative nonfiction either. It's its own genre with its own "rules" for what works.

Your donors are typically BUSY. (Picture them reading with your appeal or newsletter poised over a waste bin, ready to drop.)

Too much sensory detail and you'll lose your donors.

Just enough, in the right spot, and your donors will feel it.

Donors who feel more care more and give more.

Here's a recent example of a newsletter impact piece we wrote for a client. Again, I've noted the sensory details in red:

Do you see how the "story spice" of sensory details above highlight a moment by helping you see, hear, and feel it more clearly?

Do you see how very little story spice was needed here?

Do you see how too much spice might be off-putting?

Just remember, your lovely English teachers taught you useful skills... but different modes of writing call for different skills... and sometimes less is more!

In 2 weeks: Tom Ahern's bequest webinar

Could bequests transform your 2025? Absolutely.

And that's more likely if you register for this webinar...

(Highly recommend!!)

​HOW TO MARKET BEQUESTS: The Delicate (tho Highly Lucrative) Art of Asking for that Final Gift​

Wednesday, January 29, 2025
10:00 am PST/ 12:00 pm CST/ 1:00 pm EST

(Replay is available for all registrants. And CFRE credit is available!)

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Randomly yours: to inspire and recharge you

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

• Fundraisingly Informative — Are You There for Your Donors in Crisis, Or Just Their Donations? by Roger Craver (a blog post in which Craver suggests that in times of crisis, such as the LA wildfires, fundraisers should be reaching out to their donors to see how they're doing, to be there for them in their time of need)
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• Spatially Malleable — Learning to become a London taxi drivers changes your brain via Joseph Devlin (a LinkedIn post honoring a neuroscientist after her passing, and explaining some of the things she discovered about how taxi drivers who learn "The Knowledge" of all the streets in London grow their hippocampus in the process)​
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• Historically Funny — Washington's Dream 2 via SNL (a 5-minute Saturday Night Live YouTube video in which Nate Bargatze plays George Washington inspiring his men to fight for American freedoms including the right to change the English language for no understandable reasons)

Until next time: May you use just the right amount of sensory detail "story spice" — with all the flair of a fundraising Salt Bae! ✨

With gratitude,
Julie Cooper & Brett Cooper

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