There is a fascinating and excellent publication making the rounds in the blogosphere that is likely to cause a stir among the folks who work in fund raising (sometimes known as “Development”). It is written by Frank C. Dickerson, Ph.D. and is based on doctoral research he conducted while attending Claremont Graduate University’s Peter F. Drucker School of Management. Mr. Dickerson has an extensive resume and decades of experience working in fund raising, so we would do well to heed his warning.
What is he saying exactly? Well, the title says it all when it comes to the direct appeal (also known as an “ask” or solicitation letter): “The Way We Write is All Wrong“.
As a measure of his commitment to public service, Mr. Dickerson has made several important documents available for free on his website.
Here is a taste of the process that guided his research and the startling discoveries he made:
Like a linguistic MRI, my computer-based corpus analysis revealed surprising linguistic and rhetorical patterns in fund-raising texts. These underlying patterns profiled a discourse focused more on transferring information than creating interpersonal involvement . Fundraising texts sounded cold and detached like doctoral dissertations rather than warm and friendly like personal conversations.
Rather than gaining reader attention with emotionally rich human-interest stories, these texts contained less narrative than academic prose. They contained even less narrative than official documents!
To encourage you to read this and take it seriously, I’ve provided you with links to the three page Executive Summary and the full paper. You might also want to check out what the venerable Andrew Taylor, Director of the MBA in Arts Administration program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business, has to say about it here.
If you care about reaching out to donors in a way that is effective and will get you a return on your investment in the form of actual currency, I suggest you make a date with these materials.
And a big thank you to Frank Dickerson for sharing this important research!
