Fundraising is complicated.

There’s a lot we need to do right.

And a lot of things that can go wrong.

But there’s one thing that is super common that’s chasing away donors and their donations. A lot of nonprofits are making this one mistake:

They are making fundraising messages hard to read.

There are two distinct ways fundraisers make their message difficult for readers. Both of these mistakes have fanatical supporters who insist (against all evidence) that these are not problems.

The first readability mistake: design.

If you want people to respond to your fundraising, you need to make it easy to read. That puts some real limitations on design “creativity.” I put that in quotation marks, because in fundraising, true creativity is about connecting and communicating. Not looking super cool.

Remember: on average, donors are older. Most files have an average age in the 70s or up. And with age comes visual acuity issues.

Here are some design guidelines

Font size: If you want people to read your copy, don’t make it any smaller than 12 point. Better yet: 13 or 14 point. And for websites make sure it’s at least 16px (or 1rem)

Font choice: While there are some very readable sans-serif fonts (Verdana is one), it’s generally better to use serif fonts in print. They are dependably more readable.

Text styling: Black text over a white background. That’s pretty much what it all should be. Don’t put light text over a dark background. That’s basically unreadable. And really don’t put any text over a photo. Also, don’t choose a font color other than black (unless it’s very large and ten words or less). Don’t ever put a tint behind your black text, unless the tint is 5% or less.

For online fundraising, contrast is especially important. Web accessibility standards require a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 between text and background — use a free tool like the WebAIM Contrast Checker to make sure your online fundraising passes the test.

White space: Wide margins. Space between paragraphs. Indented paragraphs. It’s a big mistake to fill the paper with a wall of type. It encourages readers not to read.

If you follow these guidelines, your message will be readable. And text that gets read gets more responses. Dependably. Proven through repeated testing.

This is going to sound like a grumpy old man talking, but, well, it is just that. Unreadable design is often a by-product of young designers. Young people tend to have two qualities that lead them to that:

• Most have really excellent eye-sight. They have no trouble reading text that is a major barrier to older readers. Most of them will feel the icy wind of older eyes sometime after age 40. Before that, their own internal sense of what’s readable is not realistic.
• They like to push the visual envelope. In some professions, that may be an advantage. Not in fundraising.

There’s another factor for digital: designers often work on large, high-end monitors, while your donors may be viewing your site on a smaller, older, or lower-quality screen. What looks crisp in the studio can be a struggle on your donor’s device

The second readability mistake: writing.

Easy-to-read copy is a product of two features:

1. Easy vocabulary, usually meaning short words.
2. Sentence length. It should vary, but on average sentences need to be short.

Readability is measured by the Flesch Reading Ease score, a number between 0 and 100 where higher means more readable. There’s also the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, which maps roughly to US school grades. Both measure the same thing.

I recommend the Reading Ease score for fundraising. We don’t care about donors’ education level. We only care about ease of reading.

Your writing should score 80 or higher, which roughly corresponds to grade 6 or lower on the grade scale.

When writing is less easy than that, you are creating barriers. It’s possible for almost any reader to read very low-readability (high grade-level) text. But it’s more labor to do so. No matter how educated you are.

Reading ease corresponds with better response.

Difficult writing is often a feature of professional discourse. Scientists, academics, and other high-level professionals just write that way. They often think that’s the “proper” way to write for everyone, and they find simpler, clearer writing to be jarring and just not right.

These professionals are often the founders, leaders, and experts within our organizations. They want to sound “professional.” What they don’t realize is that kind discourse means less engagement and less revenue.

Add to that this fact: most writers’ only writing training came from professors – who taught us to write for academia. Most didn’t allow easy-to-read writing. These habits run deep.

But think about it: Hard-to-read writing is a form of exclusionary gate-keeping. It’s a form of “keeping the riff-raff – people different from you – out,” which I’m pretty sure is at odds with your values!

And your fundraising will do a lot better if you keep it easy to read.

It’s worth fighting for.

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Related Blog Posts:

• Donors Are Not You: A Guide to the Differences 
• Get Me Some Young Donors Right NOW!
• Discover the Power of Inclusive Fundraising for ALL Donors