Please don't "over spice" your fundraising stories

Want donors to feel your story? Learn when to add details — and when to hold back.

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Brett here:

When I was an English teacher, I taught budding writers to use sensory details — of sight, sound, touch, taste, hearing — to bring a scene to life. Such details can help the reader really feel the narrative, as if they're right there in the story.

It seems I went too far. (😂)

I should have told my students: Sensory details are "story spice." Use them, but sparingly. A little goes a long way.

Julie and I are seeing what appears to be a trend of truly fabulous, talented fundraisers who are overusing sensory details in their fundraising storytelling.

Which is why I say—

Please don't "over spice" your fundraising stories

It's a balancing act.

No spice = bland.

Too much spice = inedible.

Sensory details can be very impactful, in the right spot.

What's the right spot?

A moment of climactic tension.

A turning point you want to stress.

Where you want the reader to s-l-o-w-w-w down.

When I was doing trail running races, from time to time I'd find myself on a steep decline that would turn my mediocre gait into a daredevil sprint. The downhill slope lengthened my strides and gravity did the rest.

It was dangerous.

A few times, I tripped on a stone or root and fell hard.

In the moment between tripping and tumbling, time seemed to slow. As my feet left the earth and my hands flew forward in anticipation of a rough landing, the wind and birds chirping receded as if someone had pressed mute. I could see myself as if from outside and just behind my body, and I had time to think a few thoughts like "Oops" and "Oh no" while positioning my arms to brace my fall without breaking a wrist or worse.

The landing would happen in a flurry, slow motion ceasing, mute button unpressed.

Did you notice what I did there?

I used sensory details:

Sensory details work here because the moment is pivotal. Bringing it to life with sensory details is more likely to make you, dear reader, feel it.

Your fundraising storytelling is not fiction. It's not narrative nonfiction either. It's its own genre with its own "rules" for what works.

Your donors are typically BUSY. (Picture them reading with your appeal or newsletter poised over a waste bin, ready to drop.)

Too much sensory detail and you'll lose your donors.

Just enough, in the right spot, and your donors will feel it.

Donors who feel more care more and give more.

Here's a recent example of a newsletter impact piece we wrote for a client. Again, I've noted the sensory details in red:

Do you see how the "story spice" of sensory details above highlight a moment by helping you see, hear, and feel it more clearly?

Do you see how very little story spice was needed here?

Do you see how too much spice might be off-putting?

Just remember, your lovely English teachers taught you useful skills... but different modes of writing call for different skills... and sometimes less is more!