“The Basics of Good Writing”

Anybody who writes for their job knows that the basics of good writing are sometimes elusive and hard
to grasp. Who hasn’t searched for synonyms for a word they’ve already used 4 times in the
organizational history?

What we’re out to do today is to adapt a (hilarious) 1950s essay, “How to Say Nothing in 500 Words” by
Paul McHenry Roberts, for the modern writer. Whether you’re a grant writer or someone who has to
write reports and marketing copy, this advice is going to clear up those questions you have about writing
that you might be too embarrassed to ask.

First, we’re going to cover the things you ought to avoid in your writing, and then we’re going to explore
things you should include in your writing.

Things to Avoid:

• Obvious content

• Padding (AKA fluff)

Things to Include:

• Concrete and fitting language

• Confidence in your position

Avoid obvious content

Roberts suggests that whenever it’s time to start writing, the writer should make a list of all the
arguments he or she has heard on the subject.

And then avoid those arguments.

You know that great feeling of watching a movie with an ending you never could have guessed? It feels
fresh and original. That’s what you’re going for when you make an argument in your writing.

Let’s say that you’re writing a grant for a community garden. What are some of the arguments about
community gardens that come to mind right away? Gardens are good because they teach people about
healthy living. Or maybe you’re thinking about how community gardens might encourage people to eat
in a sustainable way.

Once you come up with a list of the arguments that you hear all the time, try to think outside of the box
and make your argument from a new and fresh angle. Maybe having a community garden will inspire
young people to pursue careers in agriculture, and they might become advocates for reforming farming
policies.

Challenge yourself to explore a new side to the issue or cause that you are dealing with. Grantmakers
will really appreciate this, since they often have to read many grants in a row that all make the same
arguments.
Avoid padding AKA fluff

Have you ever gotten an email that took 5 minutes to read when everything that needed to be said
could have been in just about 1 minute of content? People have limited attention, and when you’re
writing for work, that is especially important to be aware of. One of the best ways to shorten your
writing to a length that people will actually read all the way through is to get rid of unnecessary words—
padding or fluff.

Roberts lists phrases like “in my opinion,” “in many respects,” “it is thought,” and many others as filler.
These phrases mean little, if anything at all. One of my favorite examples from the essay are these
variations on the same sentence:

Fast driving is dangerous.

In my opinion, fast driving is dangerous.

In my opinion, fast driving would seem to be rather dangerous.

In my humble opinion, though I do not claim to be an expert on this complicated subject, fast driving, in
most circumstances, would seem to be rather dangerous in many respects, or at least so it would seem
to me.

Does the fourth sentence say anything more than the first sentence? No, but it manages to take up 36
more words. In grants, there are often strict word or character counts, so writing like this would be
stealing room that you could be using to share all your other good ideas. Not only that, it is obvious to
expert readers that you’re trying to elevate your language and “sound smart,” when in fact, you’re doing
the opposite.

Include concrete and fitting language

When you’re writing for work, it’s easy to fall into a pattern of using abstract language. What I mean by
that is talking in terms on concepts instead of concretes. Business buzzwords are the perfect example of
this. People throw the word “collaboration” instead of saying, “Sally and JoAnne worked together in
person and via Skype to create our new program design.”

If you’ve been following our blog for some time, you’ve probably heard us talk about how important it is
to include examples in your grants. People love to connect with other people through writing, so
including humans in your grant narrative will instantly win you more empathy and interest.

Another thing to be aware of when you’re writing is that words come with associations and meanings
that are not always listed in their official dictionary definition. So, when you use a word, make sure that
you are aware of its connotations.

In “How to Say Nothing in 500 Words,” Roberts gives the examples of mother and mother-in-law.
Typically, people think of comfort and homes when they hear the word “mother,” but when they hear
“mother-in-law,” they might think of something completely opposite of what “mother” brings up. Now
you probably won’t be writing about mothers-in-law in a grant application, but this advice is particularly
important if you’re getting into the realm of politics and ideology. Make sure you have a pretty good
idea of what the grantmaker will think about the terms you use.
Finally, beware words that don’t really mean anything. For example, people use the word “nice” to
describe pleasant people and things all the time. But this word has been used so much that it doesn’t
have much meaning anymore. There are plenty of empty words that are used in business and
nonprofits, too. Instead of saying something is “impactful,” tell your reader exactly what impact is being
made.

Be confident in your position

Above all, you need to keep top of mind that writing in the business or nonprofit world is about making
an argument and convincing your reader of something. That means you have to demonstrate confidence
in your position.

One of the best ways to do this is to avoid language that softens your argument. Let’s imagine your
organization is trying to get people to donate to a program that cleans up the wetlands. Would it be
better to write, “We think that it is probably good to clean the wetlands because it will make the
animals safer,” or “We must clean the wetlands and save the animals”? The second choice is naturally
the more convincing choice. Don’t tell people you think something—tell them real things.

We hope you’ve found this crash course in writing basics helpful!

Ready to take the next step?

“Nonprofit Newsletters: The Art of Subject Lines”

There’s no getting around it. It won’t matter how great your newsletters are if no one ever opens them.

We’ve been taking you through some of the basics of nonprofit newsletters the past two weeks (read
more here and here), but this post might be the most important so far. The key to getting people to
open your newsletter is to have a great subject line, and that’s what we’re focusing on today.

Let’s get started!

• Keep Them Short and Sweet

• Ditch Volume/Issue Number

• Avoid Spam Words

• Write 15 Subject Lines

• Use A/B Testing

• Make It Relevant and Reflective

Keep Them Short and Sweet

There’s no hard and fast rule for how long your email subject lines should be, but the general rule of
thumb is to keep them as short as you can. If you go over 50 characters, you may be getting past the
viewable length for many Internet browsers. If you know that most of your subscribers read your
newsletter on their smartphones, keep it even shorter. Some Androids cannot display more than 30
characters, and iPhones can only display about 40.

Ditch Volume/Issue Number

It used to be common practice to send nonprofit newsletters with subject lines that read something like
this: “ABC Organization Newsletter Issue 41.” But these days, people’s inboxes are filling up faster than
ever, so it’s becoming more and more important to have an interesting subject line. You’re competing
with invitations and promises of 40% off already low prices that show up in everyone’s email. You have
to step up your game if you want people to pick your email out of the crowd.

Avoid Spam Words

This is something a lot of nonprofits might not think about, but there are actually some words that will
get you sent right into the spam folder if they show up in your recipient’s subject line. Check out this list
of over 400 common spam words. There are also a number of spam word testers that you can find with
a simple Google search. Try running your subject lines through one of these before you hit send.

Another way to get around the spam issue is to ask your subscribers to add you to their contacts list.
This will keep your emails from going to their spam folder, which is the last place you want them to end
up, of course.

Write 15 Subject Lines

When you’re writing email subject lines, don’t feel like you have to send the first one that comes to
mind. Like most types of writing, it will take you some time for your brain to warm up to the task. Do a
quick brainstorm of 15 subject lines. The best ones you write will probably come after the tenth one.
And don’t be afraid to ask people in the office for their input. Have them read the email draft and title it
themselves. Getting plenty of options will help you make sure that the one that shows up in people’s
inboxes is the absolute most creative possibility that exists.

Another fun exercise is to go through your own inbox and try writing better subject lines for the emails
that you receive. Large companies hire experts to write these, so if you can come up with something
better, you’re going to totally master the subject lines for your nonprofit newsletter!

Use A/B Testing

If you’ve been following the Write Good blog for a while, then you’ve probably heard us recommend
before that you keep stats on your success. Numbers just don’t lie. We wrote a post on Facebook
Insights a while back. Check it out for more info on how statistics can help you improve your social
media game.

Considering our obsession with numbers, it should be no surprise that we’re going to recommend using
a test to determine what types of subject lines work best for your audience. For a few weeks, send out
identical emails to two halves of your subscriber list, but have different subject lines for each half. There
are a number of things that you could test for, including the open rate of emails with subject lines that
have numbers in them. You could also test for the ideal subject line length. Try testing the open rate
difference between similar words, like donate and fundraiser, or help and volunteer. Get creative with
your tests!
Make it Relevant and Reflective

One of the best ways to improve your open rate is to make your subject lines relevant and timely. So, if
you have a campaign going on around Thanksgiving, mention the holiday in your subject lines. Subject
lines with holidays in them do really well. You can also make your subject lines relevant and timely by
creating a sense of urgency in them. You could write a subject line like this one: “Time is running
out…only 1 day left to make a difference.” Nobody wants to miss out on their chance to change the
world, so that email would probably have a pretty impressive open rate.

Another important quality for your nonprofit newsletter subject lines is to make them reflective of
what’s inside the email. So, if you promise a cute dog photo in the subject line, there better be a really
cute dog staring back at your reader when they open the email. In a more serious and realistic example,
if your subject line reads, “Urgent: Disaster relief funds needed after major flooding,” your email needs
to focus on that, and not on something unrelated, like a dog adoption program. By keeping your subject
lines reflective of what’s on the inside, you will seem more honest to your subscribers, and they will
trust you more.

What’s the best nonprofit newsletter subject line you’ve ever read or written yourself? Share it with us
on Twitter (@writegoodco)!

Good luck writing good subject lines!

“Goal Setting for Nonprofits”

Happy New Year! Welcome to the year of achieving your goals. One thing that I love about goals is that
they evolve, which means that there’s never a bad time to be thinking about them. But, the first couple
of weeks of the new year are especially well-suited to a discussion about goals.

Goal setting for nonprofits is a little different from personal goal setting. Today, I want to talk to you
about the important steps you need to take to set good goals and put yourself on the path toward
achieving them.

Maybe this is the year you want to finally start a new program you’ve been dreaming of. Maybe you
want to win more in grants than you ever have before. Or maybe you want to launch a new and
improved website in 2019.

Whatever your nonprofit goals are, I want to help you achieve them!

So what do you say? Ready to get started?

• Why goals matter

• Define the goal

• Determine what you need to achieve the goal

• Build in systems for assessing your progress

Why goals matter

I could go on and on about why goals matter. (And so can other people on the Internet. Just Google
“why goals matter,” and you’ll get so many hits you won’t know what to do with yourself!)

Forbes narrows the reasons that goals matter down to five. And they all have to do with the power of
goals to help us focus on the things that matter.

Goal setting for nonprofits is particularly important. Here’s why: there’s a lot that can be improved in
the world, but the nonprofits with clearly defined missions fare a lot better than those with vague or ill-
defined plans to change the world. Part of the reason for this is that donors and grantmakers are more
likely to support nonprofits that demonstrate they have a solid plan and the tools to make that plan a
reality.

Just think about it. Which of these organizations would you be more likely to support?

• Organization A’s mission is “To end world hunger.”

• Organization B’s mission is “To reduce rates of childhood hunger and improve health in
Baltimore through a series of educational cooking programs and a community garden.”

I’m going to bet you’d support Organization B because you know exactly what your money will support

Not only will having clearly defined goals help your fundraising and grant-seeking efforts, but your goals
will also ensure the stability and progress of your organization’s work.

Whenever you’re faced with a choice to dedicate your time to one of many tasks, you can look back to
your goals and decide which task is the most important to the achievement of your goals.

Define the goal

Now that I’ve made the case that goals matter, let’s talk a bit about how to define your goals

If you’ve been following the Write Good blog for a while, then you’ve probably heard me talk about the
importance of SMART goals before. Here’s what makes a goal SMART:

• Specific: your goals must be clearly defined

• Measurable: you must be able to tell whether you’ve achieved the goal

• Achievable: ask yourself if you have a good chance of achieving the goal

• Relevant: your goal should matter to the success of your nonprofit

• Time-bound: setting a date that you’d like to achieve your goal by will keep you working hard
toward it

I want to talk a bit more about how to make sure your goals are relevant. This is the part of SMART goal-
setting that I see nonprofits struggle with the most.

One of the best ways to make sure you set relevant goals for your nonprofit is to look to the past to
create your vision for the future. Take a couple of hours to reflect on the previous year or two.
Determine what you did well and what could have gone better. I recommend making an actual list and
getting your whole team involved in this process.
Once you have a list of what went well and what didn’t, think about some of the ways you’d like 2019 to
be different from the past. As you think about this, also keep in mind that while some of your goals
should be about the difference your nonprofit makes in the community, some of your goals also need to
be internal goals. Review your finances and standard operating procedures. Have a discussion with your
team about the culture and work style of your organization. These are important things to think about.

If the financial goals are stumping you, and you know that you need to work on your nonprofit’s budget,
then the newest video inside Grant Writing Made Easy is for you. I teamed up with a fractional nonprofit
CFO, and we talked about the most important things nonprofit professionals need to know about
budgets. If you want to check it out, sign up for GWME today for 50% off! You can also sign up for just
the logic model and budget module here.

After you’ve finished reflecting with your team on how you’d like 2019 to be different from 2018, then
it’s time to fully formulate and write down your SMART goals. Download this goal setting mini-workbook
that our students in Grant Writing Made Easy use.

Congratulations, you’re becoming a pro at goal setting for nonprofits!

Determine what you need to achieve the goal

One of the most important things to realize about goals is that often if you haven’t achieved something
in the past that you wish you had, it’s likely because your nonprofit didn’t have the time or resources to
make it happen. I know that goal setting can sometimes be discouraging because it requires us to think
about the ways we haven’t accomplished everything that we wish we had.

But it’s important to think about why your nonprofit hasn’t been able to do something, whatever it is
that you’re setting the goal for.

If you are unhappy with your nonprofit’s financials, maybe your staff doesn’t have the accounting
expertise or budgeting skills that you need to create a solid budget. In that case, you could sign up for
the GWME module on budgets and logic models or hire a nonprofit accounting consultant.

If you want to attract more donors in 2019, think about what you need to make a successful fundraising
campaign. Do you need a new website with online donation capabilities? Do you need to expand your
email and mailing lists to reach new people? Are you having a hard time retaining donors? In that case
you may need to devote more time to developing relationships with first-time donors through hand-
written thank-you cards or personal phone calls.

Or, if one of your main goals for 2019 is to win more grant funding, think about what makes grant
writing challenging for your organization. Are you having a hard time finding good opportunities? Do you
feel like you don’t have the time to write grants? Is your staff too small? Does grant writing just inspire a
feeling of dread because you aren’t sure how to start?

If any of these sound like you, then you’re in great luck because we have a variety of services and
educational opportunities for you. Email us at support@writegoodco.com if you’d like more information
about our grant writing services and sign up for Grant Writing Made Easy if you’re ready to take the next
steps in learning to write winning grants.
Make a list of everything you need to achieve your goals, and then begin gathering the tools, learning
the skills, and setting aside the time you need to make your 2019 goals a reality.

Build in systems for assessing your progress

I want to circle back and talk about the M in SMART goals: Measurable. You have to be able to tell
whether or not you’ve achieved your goals, and even before that, whether you’re on track to achieve
them. Like I said earlier, goals can evolve, but you’ll be more successful if you change with your goals.
Instead of allowing your goals to change in any direction without your attention, you want to be in
charge of your goals and your progress toward them.

That’s the biggest reason that you need to be able to assess your progress toward your goals. Look back
at the SMART goals you just created (we’ll call these big goals) and the list you made of things you need
to achieve these goals (we’ll call these intermediate goals). If you wrote your intermediate goals down,
cut each step into its own slip of paper. If you typed them up, print the page and cut each out. Then
organize them into a chronological list. If one of your intermediate tasks can only be achieved after
another one, put them in this order. Then assign dates to each of them. You might find it useful to add
each of these steps to your calendar (either paper or online) at this point. (If you’re searching for an
online calendar and task management system, we recommend Asana.)

Once you’ve mapped out your plan of action and copied it onto your calendar, you have a system for
tracking your progress toward the big goal. Of course, if your goals require that the whole team works
together and you’ve delegated tasks to others, then you’ll need to have ongoing team conversations
about the overall progress. I recommend having weekly or bi-weekly meetings to talk about this.

Thank you for reading, and I hope that you found this useful. If you have any questions about our
courses or grant writing services, please email me at support@writegoodco.com. I want to do
everything I can to help you achieve your 2019 nonprofit and grant writing goals!

See you back here next week!

“Your Grant Strategy & the State of Grantseeking”

Do you have a grant strategy?

Here’s what I mean: Do you have a plan for how many grants you’ll apply for in a year, the types of
support you’re seeking, and the types of grantmakers you’ll apply to?

Having a grant strategy matters. . . a lot.

Without one, nonprofits can get unfocused in their grantseeking efforts. They might start the year with
good intentions—hoping that they’ll be able to put together at least one grant application that year.

But considering how busy nonprofit professionals can get, it’s no wonder that starting the grant search
and writing process gets pushed further and further down the list of to-do’s.

So that’s why having a grant strategy matters. Having goals keeps people focused on the things that
matter.

The best strategies don’t emerge out of thin air, though.

When it comes to grant strategies, this means that it’s based on trends in grantmaking.

Which leads us to the topic of today’s post: The State of Grantseeking.

You can either get the inside scoop by listening to our podcast episode, or you can scroll down and read
about the state of grantseeking.

GrantStation recently released their newest State of Grantseeking Report. This report is based on data
from 4,970 survey respondents. It outlines some of the most important trends in grantseeking and
grantmaking.

We know that not everyone has time to read all 56 pages of the report, so we’re summarizing some of
the key points here.

(If you’re interested in reading the full report, you can find it here.)

The report found that there is a strong correlation between the number of grants an organization
applies for and the chances that they win at least one.

Organizations that submitted one or two applications a year had much lower rates of grant success than
organizations that submitted three proposals in the same year. Only 11% of organizations that
submitted between three and five applications in a year won none of them, which means 89% won at
least one grant.

And the trend continues.

GrantStation found that only 4% of nonprofits that submitted six or more grants in a year won none. So,
the major takeaway is that your chances of success increase the more you try. That means 96% won at
least one grant.

Especially when it comes to sources of funding. For most of the survey respondents, grants were not
their main source of funding.

For 60% of the respondents, grant funding made up 25% or less of their total annual budget. They also
relied on donations and earned revenue.

The takeaway here is that even though it’s important to spend time searching for and writing grants,
you can’t expect them to provide all of your funding. More and more nonprofits are realizing that they
need to increase their earned income and donations.

The report also addresses the challenges of finding funding to support administrative and indirect costs.

Individual donations made up 41% of administrative funding, while foundation grants made up only 11%
of this category. Once again, it’s important to know that the best grant strategy is one that realizes that
grants are just a part of a great overall nonprofit financial strategy.

One of the most helpful sections of the report broke down the data on award amounts by type of
grantmaker.

Although the best way to decide how much money to ask for is to research the grantmaker’s giving
history, there are some general trends that will point you in the right direction.
Here’s what the report found:

• Awards from government funders are generally much larger than awards from non-government
funders. The median largest award from non-government funders was $25,000, while the
median largest award from government funders was $125,000. Government grants are
generally longer and more complicated to put together, but the report indicates that the effort
often pays off big time.

• For organizations that reported that their largest grant award was from a government source,
40% reported that grants were more than half of their annual budget. This is compared to
organizations whose larges grant award was from a non-government source. Only 21% of this
group reported that grants comprised more than half of their annual budget.

These findings suggest that government grants are generally more lucrative than non-
government/foundation grants. However, large, well-established organizations are usually more capable
of applying for and carrying out the work of government grants.

Another section of the report deals with collaborative grantseeking. Although this is highly favored by
funders, most nonprofits surveyed did not participate in collaborative grantseeking—72% of the
respondents reported they didn’t.

Despite being relatively rare, collaborative grantseeking did improve the odds of winning a grant, with
25% of respondents who submitted a collaborative grant winning funding. Generally, though, larger
organizations submitted more collaborative proposals than smaller organizations, with budgets below
$100,000 a year.

That’s probably because collaborative grantseeking can be costly and logistically difficult, especially for
smaller organizations. But, if your nonprofit has the resources to attempt it, these collaborative
proposals have large payoffs.

The report also includes a sampling of statements from respondents who participated in collaborative
grantseeking and those who didn’t. Respondents who didn’t participate in collaborative grantseeking
explained that the bookkeeping and administrative requirements proved too costly and challenging.

Some respondents indicated that even though they did not write a collaborative grant, they did
participate in collaborative projects, while keeping the applications and bookkeeping separate. This is a
good option for many smaller organizations that cannot afford the overhead and administrative costs
that collaborative grantseeking often entails.

The final section of the State of Grantseeking report addressed the challenges that respondent reported
in their grantseeking efforts. They found that lack of time and staff, difficulty finding suitable grant
opportunities, and challenges adhering to different funding practices and requirements were the three
most commonly reported challenges to grantseeking.

We encourage you to take the time this year to apply to more grants and to diversify your funding
sources. More applications does mean more time, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. We
recommend creating a standard grant narrative that you can adapt to different funding opportunities.
That’s what we teach in GWME. Definitely check out our course if you’re interested in improving your
grant success.
If your nonprofit has the resources, you might also consider searching for a government grant
opportunity and remember that government grants don’t just mean federal grants. The report indicates
that state government grants are the most common type of government grants (above federal and local
government grants).

And always remember that a strong and healthy grant strategy is just part of a strong and healthy
overall nonprofit financial strategy. Keep up your fundraising efforts and find ways to increase your
earned income.

Thanks for reading!