This is the 195th Fundraising Writing Newsletter. If you find value here, please tell a fundraising friend. (Your fundraising friend can subscribe here for free.) Wednesday, April 29, 2026 Hi Reader, Remember 2023? Right now it feels like a long time ago. You too? Just me? In December of 2023, Brett and I gathered some of our newsletters, organized and formatted them, wrote a few new chapters, added a title page and a table of contents, and, voila, we had a book. It's free. It's called...
16 days ago • 4 min read
This is the 194th Fundraising Writing Newsletter. If you find value here, please tell a fundraising friend. (Your fundraising friend can subscribe here for free.) Wednesday, April 15, 2026 Hi Reader, Once in a while, I feel like Pam from The Office. I want to stand up and shout, "NO MORE MEETINGS!" But once in a rarer while, I walk out of a meeting GLOWING. Like this. Which is what happened to me the other day. And it got me thinking: Fundraising thoughts: gifts, dreams, and concerns "We keep...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
This is the 193rd Fundraising Writing Newsletter. If you find value here, please tell a fundraising friend. (Your fundraising friend can subscribe here for free.) Wednesday, April 1, 2026 Hi Reader, Did anyone ever accuse you of being "Pollyanna-ish"? It happened to me maybe a dozen times, and I have mixed feelings. Here's what Wikipedia says about the Disney film that put a face and a name to the archetype of a person who's always ready with an-over-the-top smile: Pollyanna is a 1960...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
This is the 192nd Fundraising Writing Newsletter. If you find value here, please tell a fundraising friend. (Your fundraising friend can subscribe here for free.) Wednesday, March 25, 2026 Hi Reader, Slop. It's everywhere. Some of it is AI slop. Some of it is good-old-fashioned human slop. Either way, it starts off harmless enough. The first time you read "I hope this email finds you well" you probably think nothing of it. It sounds pretty okay. (Thanks for your concern!) The 10th time you...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
This is the 191st Fundraising Writing Newsletter. If you find value here, please tell a fundraising friend. (Your fundraising friend can subscribe here for free.) Wednesday, March 11, 2026 Hi Reader, Brett here: There's a 1991 Jim Jarmusch movie Julie and I love called Night on Earth. It's not well known. You probably haven't seen it. But Julie and I quote a certain line from it fairly often. The movie is split into 5 stories featuring 5 taxis (in LA, NY, Paris, Rome, and Helsinki), their...
2 months ago • 3 min read
This is the 190th Fundraising Writing Newsletter. If you find value here, please tell a fundraising friend. (Your fundraising friend can subscribe here for free.) Wednesday, February 25, 2026 Hi Reader, When I was a girl, Madonna was all that. She was Like a Virgin. She was Like a Prayer. Now Madonna Louise Ciccone, aka "the Queen of Pop" is 67 and wears glasses. Really? Huh. So the question now becomes: Can Madonna read your fundraising appeal? I often recommend thinking of an senior donor...
3 months ago • 1 min read
This is the 189th Fundraising Writing Newsletter. If you find value here, please tell a fundraising friend. (Your fundraising friend can subscribe here for free.) One quick note: Time is running out to sign up for the FREE 2026 Kickstart video series by Moceanic. Three very short videos every week for 4 weeks — and you can catch up on them right now. If you feel stretched too thin in fundraising, this free series will help you focus on what matters most. (I'm in a few of the videos, too! 🥰)...
3 months ago • 3 min read
This is the 188th Fundraising Writing Newsletter. If you find value here, please tell a fundraising friend. (Your fundraising friend can subscribe here for free.) Wednesday, January 28, 2026 Hi Reader, Brett here: When I was a middle school English teacher, I struggled for years. At first I tried to do everything the way my peers did. Eventually I took inspiration from my 6th grade art teacher, Mr. Brown. Mr. Brown was known for doing things differently. For example, if you wanted to use a...
4 months ago • 4 min read
This is the 187th Fundraising Writing Newsletter. If you find value here, please tell a fundraising friend. (Your fundraising friend can subscribe here for free.) Wednesday, January 14, 2026 Hi Reader, Do you know the picture book Millions of Cats by Wanda Gág? I love it! Which is why I bought it for a friend expecting a baby. But Brett said, "I've never read this book." What? How? So I forced Brett to read it. (Just kidding. He volunteered.) The first thing he said is, "I love the...
4 months ago • 2 min read
