When a world-renowned historian discovered there wasn't a single school in his hometown, he decided to raise money to build one. Here are the opening sentences of the letter he wrote to launch his capital campaign:

When I was in my native town recently, a young lad, the son of one of my fellow townsmen, came to pay his respects to me.

"Do you go to school?" I asked. "Certainly," he replied. "Where?" "At Milan." "Why not here?" "Because," rejoined his father, who was with him and had in fact brought the boy, "we have no teachers here."

Given the stilted language, you've probably guessed this wasn't written yesterday. In fact, it was composed by the Roman historian Pliny the Younger nearly two thousand years ago, but it's still off to a livelier start than most fundraising letters sent today.
 
In just a few sentences, Pliny creates a scene and lets the narrative draw you in. The same appeal updated for a contemporary audience would probably read:

Studies show that children who travel more than 20 miles each day to school score lower on standardized tests than children who attend schools within their own city limits. Due to a severe shortage of teachers, our city closed its last operating public school earlier this year, meaning that 100% of our school-age children must now commute to neighboring cities.

If you think this dry, fact-heavy version is an exaggeration, talk to Frank Dickerson. Earlier this year, Dickerson, who has worked in fundraising for forty years, completed his doctoral dissertation on the language of philanthropy. His report, "The Way We Write Is All Wrong," is a blistering sector-wide critique and a must-read for fundraisers everywhere.

First Signs of a Problem: The Indy 100

Dickerson's study was spurred by a 2003 analysis of direct mail letters sent by approximately 100 nonprofits in and around Indianapolis. Two researchers, Thomas Upton and Ulla Connor, used a computer model developed by Douglas Biber that analyzes individual words and groups of words, and then classifies them as involving, emotional and likely to be part of a narrative (i.e., very desirable qualities) or strictly informational, unemotional, and devoid of storytelling (less desirable qualities).

In short, Biber's model acts like a sorting machine into which Upton and Connor poured thousands of words from fundraising letters. When the sorting was done, Upton and Connor pored over the data and discovered that the fundraising letters were "more informational than even academic prose," and lacked virtually any emotional appeal. The letters didn't tell stories - they presented cases with all the warmth of a hospital chart. The report prompted Dickerson to determine if the Indianapolis results were indicators of a wider problem.

Working under the auspices of The Drucker School at Claremont Graduate University, Dickerson launched a nationwide study in 2004. He collected fundraising appeals from 880 nonprofits, almost all US-based. Over 700 of these organizations raised at least $20 million annually, a reasonable assurance that the appeals were coming from accomplished fundraisers. In all, Dickerson collected 2,412 documents (evenly divided between direct mail and online solicitations) and loaded 1.5-million words into Biber's sorter.

The Grades Are In (And They're Not Pretty)

Dickerson evaluated the documents primarily along two dimensions. First, he looked at their language to determine whether it was "highly involving" or "highly informational." A document that was as engaging as a face-to-face conversation would receive the highest possible score: 35. A document that was as information-choked as a page full of government regulations would receive the lowest possible score: -20.

The average score on this dimension across all 2,412 documents was 12.8. (As a letter grade, this would translate roughly to a D.) "Fundraising discourse," Dickerson concludes, "reads like the academic prose found in journal articles and doctoral dissertations."

The second dimension of analysis determined whether the appeal was primarily narrative or non-narrative in nature. For this dimension, the highest score was 7 and the lowest was -4. The average score across all documents was -3 (the equivalent of an F). Dickerson concluded that fundraising appeals, both in direct mail and online, "contain less narrative than official documents like government regulations and legal briefs."

Why Do Good Causes Write Bad Letters?

Dickerson offers three possible explanations for the low scores. First, there's the too-smart-for-our-own-good theory. According to a 2001 study, 58% of nonprofit executive directors hold Masters' degrees or doctorates. Little wonder, Dickerson suggests, that they approach writing as if they were still in graduate school.

Then there's the monkey-see, monkey-do theory. As much as Americans may claim to be rugged individualists, we still like to look over our shoulders to see what the other guy is doing. And when all the other guys (and gals) are writing fundraising appeals in a certain way, we tend to follow suit.

And finally, Dickerson adds, we're in denial. "We all can write," he states in his report, "and we all think we can write well." In truth, writing is hard, and most people are simply not very good writers.

While the report is subtitled, "A Profile of and Prescription for Fixing the Broken Discourse of Fundraising," it's longer on criticism than guidelines for improvement.  Good causes that want to write more compelling appeals will find some good advice here, but they will need to look elsewhere for support or training. This shouldn't diminish the value of Dickerson's contribution, though. "The Way We Write is All Wrong" is a wake-up call based on solid evidence, and it couldn't come at a better time.

(To download a free copy of "The Way We Write is All Wrong, visit http://www.thewrittenvoice.org/)

About Andy Goodman
Andy Goodman is a nationally recognized author, speaker and consultant in the field of public interest communications. Along with Storytelling as Best Practice, he is author of Why Bad Ads Happen to Good Causes and Why Bad Presentations Happen to Good Causes. He also publishes a monthly journal, free-range thinking, to share best practices in the field.

Andy is best known for his speeches and workshops on storytelling, presenting, design and strategic communications, and has been invited to speak at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs at Princeton, as well as at major foundation and nonprofit conferences. He currently serves on the faculty of the Communications Leadership Institute, which trains nonprofit executive directors and grantmakers.

In 2007, Al Gore selected Andy to train one thousand volunteers who are currently helping the former Vice President engage more Americans in the fight against global warming. In 2008, Andy co-founded The Goodman Center to offer online versions of his workshops and additional communications and marketing classes to nonprofits, foundations, government agencies and educational institutions across the U.S. and worldwide. When not teaching, traveling, or recovering from teaching and traveling, Andy also serves as a Senior Fellow for Civic Ventures and is on the advisory boards of VolunteerMatch and Great Nonprofits.

For more information, visit: http://www.agoodmanonline.com/