A simple tool that helps your copywriting

Hemingwayapp… in action Part One

A six word short story from Ernest Hemingway that will make you sad. 

For sale. Baby shoes. Never used.

Now, a short article about Hemingway that will make you happy.

It is not often that a truly amazing simple piece of software comes along that can really improve your fundraising dramatically.

Hemingway, flagged recently in Jeff Brooks’ Future Fundraising Now blog will change my writing – for the good.

Hemingwayapp doesn’t turn a bad copy into a good copy, but it makes good copy better.   If you write for fundraising, then you already know that you should be writing at a reading level of around grade eight (13 year olds).  Generally lower is better. 

This has nothing to do with perceived intelligence or sophistication of donors, it is purely down to making it easy for them.

Again, if you write regularly for fundraising, you should be familiar with Fleisch-Kincaid and how to use readability statistics that come built in to Microsoft Word.  (If not I would have said search Flesch Kincaid in YouTube but don’t bother – Hemingwayapp will make that action redundant).

If you have used Word’s readability statistics, you already know they are a bit of a pain, reflecting that your copy is not good enough but not telling you why.

Well, Hemingway tells you why.  If you write, use Hemingwayapp. It truly is genius.

Want to see the impact of Hemingwayapp?

I took the article above, pasted it into Hemingway (instead of getting my partner to edit it) and this is what it did for me... see if you can spot the differences.

Hemingwayapp… in action Part Two

A six word short story from Ernest Hemingway that will make you sad. 

For sale. Baby shoes. Never used.

Now, a short article about Hemingway that will make you happy.

It is rare that an amazing simple piece of software comes along that can improve your fundraising dramatically.

Hemingwayapp, flagged recently in Jeff Brooks’ Future Fundraising Now blog will change my writing – for the good.

Hemingwayapp doesn’t turn a bad copy into a good copy, but it makes good copy better.   If you write for fundraising, then you already know that you should be writing at a reading level of around grade eight (13 year olds).  Generally lower is better. 

This has nothing to do with perceived intelligence or sophistication of donors, it is down to making it easy for them.

If you write frequently for fundraising, you will be familiar with readability statistics.  These are  built in to Microsoft Word. 

If not I would have said search Flesch Kincaid in YouTube but don’t bother – Hemingwayapp will make that action redundant.

If you have used Word’s readability statistics, you already know they are a bit of a pain.  Unfortunately they inform you that your copy is not good enough but don't tell you why.

Well, Hemingwayapp tells you why.  If you write, use Hemingwayapp. It is genius.

If you write for fundraising, or blogs(!) I recommend putting everything through Hemingwayapp. 

Not all brand people are the comms devil...*

The role of a communications or branding department within a charity sometimes seems to be:

"To make fundraising as challenging and difficult as possible for the fundraisers".

Whilst all us fundraisers will have hilariously tragic tales of this occurring, it is definitely not always the case.

Probably one of the least subtle but educational bloggers, Jeff Brooks, has released a new book to accompany his excellent The Fundraiser's Guide to Irresistible Communications.

The Money-Raising Non Profit Brand includes some amazing U Turns from Jeff.  He describes meeting brand-y type comms people who have helped charities raise more money.

But Brooks' fans don't despair.  He doesn't disappoint and takes time to explain why most 'brand' strategies harm fundraising efforts.

And then he goes on to explain some key techniques for branding work that boosts income.

I was lucky enough to get an advanced copy and I have to say you should buy a copy if you are a charity bod working in brand, comms or fundraising.

* See I am the Comms Devil

His book is available on Amazon etc of course.

The future of fundraising in Australia?

A recent post by Louise Williams on the Fundraising Institute Australia LinkedIn group recently asked the oft repeated question.  What will fundraising look like in ten years?

What do you think?

My thoughts....

Looking at the data, it really depends on the size of the charity.  Nearly all donations, statistically speaking, go to a couple of hundred charities, and the top 50 of them get the majority of that.

So, looking at those guys and ignoring government and sales of services, we see that by far and away the bulk of that money comes from direct mail, face to face, bequests and major donors.

Things like affinity deals (book a hotel and 3% goes to charity), fashion parades, fundraising events, fundraising offers and auctions can be very important fundraisers for smaller charities but despite a few outliers (eg Cancer Council NSW superb events program, Movember and Inspired Adventures trips abroad across several top charities) they don't add up to a massive slice of total fundraising.  Of course, if your charity makes all of its money from such events you may feel different, but it doesn't change the fact that the bulk of income comes from individuals giving through regular gifts and direct donations, and this is dominated by the biggies.

I don't see this shifting enormously in the next ten years - though I do see one area that will almost certainly give face to face a bit of competition:

Regular givers acquired by telephone, following lead generation techniques.  This is already huge in Australia, and is growing near exponentially.  Charities run surveys, campaigns, online and offline to generate leads and then they are called for regular giving.

A group convened by Pareto Fundraising, now run by the FIA and consisting of lots of charities, is working to encourage the telecommunication companies  to help include SMS lead generation in the mix.  This is massive in UK and Spain, leading to the London Underground building in a quota system to stop all ads on the Tube being charity 'please SMS this number to donate...' ads.  Note that the point of these ads is not the donation but the number to call to get a monthly donation.

Also, sensible charities are investing much more in bequest marketing these days; although the bulk of the income from that area won't be in the next ten years, enough will come in towards the end of the next decade to make significant impact.

Back in 2004, face to face began to provide more than half of all new regular givers, whilst direct mail plodded along.  By 2014, face to face provided nearly 90%(!) of all new regular givers and direct mail was providing twice as many 'classic' donors as it was in 2010 when it's recent growth spurt began.  I see continued growth for these two, despite the competition, for at least another half decade.

'Direct digital' donations - ie acquiring donors through online ads to online forms - currently provide a smidgen of donors (except for disasters) but this will definitely change.  How much in the next decade is hard to tell.

My thoughts... Anyone else?