Help donors read your fundraising materials

How to make your fundraising materials more inviting and easier to read, so more people can join you in your life-changing mission. 

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Kay Helm  00:00

Your work is important. But that doesn't mean people will read your emails, your blog posts and your newsletters. Sorry. It's the truth. I'm Kay Helm. And on this episode of The Life and mission podcast, I'll tell you how to make your content more inviting and easier to read. So, more people can join you in your life changing mission.

Kay Helm  00:30

I know every one of you is doing important work, and people need to know about it. I also know because I've been there, how demoralizing it is to send out a newsletter or an email or a blog post or report, whatever you're sending out, and you get hits. Not everyone who reads what you wrote is going to respond. So don't feel bad about that. That's just how it is. So don't let the crickets get you down. But you would be wise to consider that there are other reasons people don't respond. There are real reasons that people don't respond, one of them being that they didn't read what you wrote in the first place. Yeah, that's smart. So why don't people read all that wonderful content your organization puts out? All right, a few reasons. And we're tired. We don't think there's something of value for us in that content. It's boring. You hear me talk about telling stories instead of writing reports. Another reason is it's too long, or too difficult to read. And today, I want to tackle the too difficult problem. How can you make it easy for readers to consume your content? Now when I say content, that's anything that you produce? That's emails that's newsletters that appeal letters, blog posts, Facebook, whatever you put out, especially in written form? That is what I mean when I say content. So, when I say how can you make it easy for readers to consume your content? 

Kay Helm  02:13

Today, I'm going to talk about that written content, whether it's online or in print, everything applies here. Now, according to the literacy project, about half of Americans read at an eighth-grade level or lower. How many of us really think about, you know, what grade level am I writing at when we're writing content, if your writing is above an eighth grade reading level, or some would even say, a grade six or seven Max, you are not communicating with your audience as well as you could added bonus, if you write at a lower grade level, and your work needs to be translated, that translation project is likely to go much better if you're writing at a lower grade level. Now, understand me a lower grade level writing does not mean that you're dumbing down your content. A lot of times we confuse that, you know, simplify, or to use plain English in English. To use plain English is, you know, we go oh, that's we're going to insult our readers. No, no, no, no, no, no, I had one of my mission writers recently said, Well, I was trying to, I was trying to make this article appeal to the corporate donors, you know what your corporate donors, they're going to appreciate a good sixth grade article too. So don't worry about making it so easy to read that your higher-level readers are not going to like what you write or that they're going to think it's too simple. Now, maybe you need to use some certain terms. Maybe you need to show that you know, some expertise. But if you're really an expert in something, you can explain it in really simple terms. And you're very tired, educated readers are going to appreciate when you make it easy for them to let's look at some examples here. 

Kay Helm  04:09

You may have heard of some of these books. Now. There's Shane snow of contently website, he did some research, he checked out the grade level that some well-known authors tend to write at. Okay, so my favorite the old man in the sea, by Ernest Hemingway, that is written at a grade four level. And if you're trying to learn how to write and you haven't read this book, I would say go get it and read it. Another book you might have heard of To Kill a Mockingbird. grade five. Harry Potter the first book was written at a grade five level and the other books generally between grade seven and 8k, The Great Gatsby, grade six, any Hobbit fans and the Lord of the ring fans out there. Yes. Okay, J R. R Tolkien and Stephen King both their books come in between grade six and seven. All right, JK Rowling, who I mentioned Tom Clancy John Grisham books. They land between grade seven and eight and most popular nonfiction books. They hit around grade eight or nine. Leo Tolstoy, grade eight.

Kay Helm  05:29

Okay, I know it takes like 60 hours to read War and Peace, but you can still understand it and make your way through it. It's not about how long is it? It's about? are you confusing me? Do I have to stop and reread a paragraph over and over again? Do I have to look up words? Am I confused? Because you wrote a sentence that went on for half a page, those kinds of things. Your donors are giving you their time and their attention. So, let's not make them spend that time wading through this complex prose. Don't make it hard for them. Don't make it complicated. Your writing can be beautiful, and easy to read. So how do you think about reading level? I can when you're writing. How do you know? 

Kay Helm  06:19

How do you make something easy to read, there are a few things that are really going to affect how easy your content is to read. Number one length of sentences, this does not mean that you need to make every sentence just five or six words. Okay? Don't you're not trying to just make it a you know, see Spot Run type of primer reading thing, you want to vary the length of your sentences, you will have some long ones and that's okay. So have a variety of syntax sentence length. But often, if you look at your and I'll show you, I'll tell you how to do this in a little bit. But if you get a reading level score when you check your writing, and it says it's at a grade 10 or 11, one of the fastest ways to lower that grade level is to break up some of your longer sentences into shorter sentences. And it will just make it a lot easier to read. 

Kay Helm  07:21

Another big factor is word choice. Some of this has to do with how many syllables are in the words that you use? Are you using big, long complicated words? Or are you using short simple words. So if you choose simple words, over these longer complicated ones, or rare words, or really flowery language, or you use a lot of words to say something, so for example, instead of saying utilize, you can say use instead of saying a sufficient number of to say enough, instead of on a monthly basis, say give monthly can say now, instead of at this point in time or two instead of in order to you see what I'm saying? These are really simple, simple things. And a lot of times these longer phrases make their way into our writing, because it might be the way we talk, it's just habit. But it's easy enough to cut those out. Just go ahead and write when you do your first draft, just do it really free flowing, and then go back and you look for these phrases where you can say, Oh, can I use a more simple word can I use maybe a one syllable word instead of a three syllable word like you use instead of utilize. So that's one way that you can really make your content easier to read. And, and also it will make your writing more clear and more powerful grammar is another thing. So, I'm going to leave that to later to really hit on grammar because that's it's kind of its own game. But you have if you're using Microsoft Word, or you put your writing through something like Grammarly or pro writing aid, and just have it check your grammar, have an editor look at your work, lots of ways to check your grammar and you should check your spelling and your punctuation all of that before anything goes out to the public. The other thing that gets overlooked and this comes later in the process often, but you need to think about it when you're first writing is your content structure.

Kay Helm  09:35

Is it organized in a logical order is your content is easy to follow? Is your story easy to follow? That does not mean that it has to be in chronological order. We talked about this when storytelling, you don't always have to stay with chronological order, but you do have to have a logical order. Another thing that will affect readability active voice for uses passive voice active voice is the boy ate the banana. Passive voice would be the banana was eaten by the boy use a good grammar checker tool like Grammarly or pro writing aid either one of those, they're going to flag all that passive voice. Also, Hemingway app, which I'll talk about a little bit, there's lots of tools that can help you find these. Don't let this constipate your first draft, okay, just write just get it out of here, just write it down, and then go back and fix these things. Next is wordiness. Using too many extra unneeded words that complicate the thing you want to say, such as filler words that don't add meaning or run on sentences like the one, I was? Using all these extra words, it's just, it's like you're creating a maze for the reader to get through. And that's a lot of work. And frankly, if I just got home, and I picked up my mail, and I opened your letter, because I really liked you, and I want to support you, but then you made me work too hard. I'm going to sit that down. I may intend to get to it later. But it was a lot of work. And I'm busy. And I might never come back around to it. But just make it really easy for me to read what you write. Okay. 

Kay Helm  11:25

Another thing you want to do, as simplifying your writing is to watch out for modifiers like absolutely, actually completely, really, quite totally, and very, almost every instance of these words can be deleted, these words don't really add any meaning to what you're saying. If you're using these modifiers, then there's probably a more accurate word that you can use instead. For example, instead of saying it rained really hard, you can say it poured. On a similar note, when you use a thesaurus, don't try to go find the fanciest word, find the most accurate word that people will know it's the combination, it's not just the most accurate word, it's the most accurate word to describe what you're trying to describe to show. Remember, we're trying to show rather than tell. But one that people will know. Pick one that's familiar to pick one that you would use in conversation. Also, adverbs, not always bad to use them. But if you can remove them, sometimes they're good, but just sprinkle them don't use them a lot. Again, your grammar checkers will flag those. So, let's go back to reading level. 

Kay Helm  12:40

How do you know what reading level you're writing at? A couple of tools and Word has it built in. If you go to your editor and document stats, it will give you something called the flesh Kincaid reading level. And you'll get something like say 5.6, or 6.8, or 9.3. And that's basically the number of the grade level 9.3, ninth grade reading level 5.6, fifth grade reading level. So pretty simple. And again, you can adjust your sentences and do all those things that I talked about, you're trying to get that reading level, again, up down to about an eighth grade. But if it's below six or seven, that's even better word, we'll do that or we'll give you the reading level. But I like to use an app called the Hemingway app. And it's free to use online. So, you would copy and paste your content into the app. But you can also purchase it it's like $20 or something like that it's really easy to use, you open it up, you drop your content, and, and it highlights hard to read sentences. And so, it ranks them, so they'll say oh, five of your 20 sentences are hard to read, and three of your 20 sentences are very hard to read. And you'll look at them and like the hard to read sentences will be highlighted in yellow. And the very hard to read sentences will be highlighted in red. And your adverbs will be highlighted in another color and your passive voice is highlighted in another color. So, it just flags those that kind of the big problems. And it's not checking your spelling or doing anything else. But if you really want to simplify your writing and hit that lower reading level, and it gives you a grade off on the right margin, it will tell you what grade level you have written that and as you make changes to the text, you can watch that grade level drop down. So, if you open Hemingway up, and you drop your content and you see a red highlighted sentence, you can go straight to that sentence. You know if I fix that sentence, that's going to help my article and it's going to make it easier to read. And you might break that sentence into two smaller parts are simplify some of the language in that sentence, and it'll turn from red to yellow, and then maybe go to no highlight. And you'll watch your reading level drop down as your content becomes easier to read. So, it's a really cool tool,

Kay Helm  15:14

and it speeds up your work. Yeah, I'm not an affiliate, I don't get anything for recommending it, just so you know. But I just love that app, because the highlighting action really lets you go straight to the problem areas, it shows you where they're at. And it shows you in real time, how your changes are affecting the readability of that article. Now, that would not be your final edit. So, after if Hemingway, what I would do is read what you've written out loud. You can also get word to read to you there's an accessibility feature in Word that does that. And I'll post on my website, kay helm.com, I will post some little helper videos there that show you how to use some of these tools, just really quick videos, that word will read to you. Or you can read to yourself or have somebody else read to you. But reading aloud, you notice things that you wouldn't notice when you're just reading to yourself when you're reading silently because you know what you meant to say. But when it's kind of coming at you audibly, then you'll notice awkward wording, you'll notice things that just don't quite flow. And then you just kind of stop it right there, go back and fix that thing, then go, you know, roll it back a little bit and have it read again. And it's just a great way to make those mistakes pop out. The other thing is, as you simplify your writing, you might make your sentences too choppy. So, if you've made your sentences too, too short and too shot, too choppy, that'll show up in the read back. So, as you're reading aloud, that they'll come across as monotonous or it'll kind of turn into this droning kind of cadence. So, you want some variety in your sentences. And so that will, reading it aloud will help those things kind of pop out. And you'll be able to find them and fix them. All right. 

Kay Helm  17:16

Once you have all that done, you go through it once more for spelling, punctuation. And now you are on your way to communicating clearly with your audience. And you're writing things that they're much more likely to read and enjoy, and they're going to get it and that helps you create some momentum as you're doing that. And that is going to help you raise the funds that you need, which is what I'm trying to help you do. So, I do I hope that you find these tips helpful. If so, please share this episode with someone and tell me about it. Did it help? Let me know. And if you have a tip that I didn't mention, share it with us send it to connect at life and mission.com Until next time, I'm Kay helm and this is the life and mission podcast. Find your voice tell your story. Change the World