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What to Do When You Know You’re Right – But You Can’t Prove It

April 7, 2025
Jeff Brooks
Workplace, Writing
I once had a fundraising client with one team member who really hated ellipses in their messages. You know, those little rows of periods that mean: Formally: “something has been edited out here.” Informally: “the speaker here is pausing.” Even…
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2025 02 Feb Blog 2 1024x768 1

How You Can Learn about Fundraising from the Golden Age of Advertising

February 10, 2025
Jeff Brooks
Branding, Creativity, Writing
One of the truly cool things about our private members-only community, The Fundraisingology Lab, is the conversations that come up, and where they can lead. Here’s a recent example: A Lab member—who, for reasons you’ll quickly understand, wanted to be…
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December week 3 1024x768 1

Two Books That Will Help You Write Like a Pro

December 9, 2024
Jeff Brooks
Books, Writing
Every fundraiser I know is obsessed with learning. (The ones who think they can do it all with their innate talent never last very long.) The great ones read every fundraising book they can get their hands on. They follow…
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September week 4 1024x768 1

3 Ways to Amp up the Motivating Power of Your Fundraising Stories

September 23, 2024
Jeff Brooks
Storytelling, Writing
I have some bad news for you: Stories are not magic. Telling a story doesn’t automatically make your fundraising powerful. You have to tell the right story. In the right way. That’s when the magic happens, and your fundraising goes…
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August week 3 1024x768 1

Two Things That Turn Your Fundraising into “Crap” – and How to Avoid Them

August 19, 2024
Jeff Brooks
Writing
“The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock­proof, crap detector.” That’s what Ernest Hemingway said. A super-helpful corollary to that is from author and cultural critic Neil Postman: “At any given time, the chief source of…
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Week 4 Differences

Donors Are Not You: A Guide to the Differences

July 22, 2024
Jeff Brooks
Donor Love, Writing
A long-ago mentor once told me that the entire problem with human relationships is this:  We judge others by their actions, but we expect them to judge us by our intentions. “He did that hurtful thing because he’s a bad…
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How to Tell the Donors Story in Your Fundraising

How to Tell the Donor’s Story in Your Fundraising

June 17, 2024
Jeff Brooks
Storytelling, Writing
You already know that storytelling is the gasoline, the petrol, of the fundraising car. We tell stories instead of merely stating facts because stories move people to action. You raise a lot more money with stories. Maybe you’ve heard the…
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Pop Art Robot The Thinker

How AI Writing Can Defeat Your Best Projects … or Not

May 22, 2023
Jeff Brooks
Writing
Artificial Intelligence invaded the members-only community of The Fundraisingology Lab on Facebook recently. Sean Triner posted a letter thanking members of our special community of fundraising professionals for their involvement and their work. What he didn’t say, at least at…
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Pop Are Love 1

Worried about “donor as hero” fundraising? Here’s another way to think about it

May 1, 2023
June Steward
Writing
Trigger Warning: this post contains examples of fundraising that address child sex trafficking. Imagine this. As a smart fundraiser, you’ve put together a compelling appeal. It has an emotional story. A tangible offer. And direct asks in all the key…
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Pop Art typewriter

Fundraiser: Disobey Your English Teachers to Improve Your Writing

February 20, 2023
Jeff Brooks
Writing
Before I found fundraising, I taught English. Mostly to first-year college students, usually some version of that English 101 course that you remember with either fondness or revulsion. We called it “writing,” but what we were teaching was “academic writing.”…
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Jeff Brooks’ Webinar: Your Roadmap to Record-Smashing Direct Mail This Year End

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Jeff Brooks’ Webinar: Your Roadmap to Record-Smashing Direct Mail This Year End

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