Understanding and Improving the Language of

The language of fundraising is laden with combative and unsavory terms-suspects, prospects, acquisition, campaign, target. This volume of New Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising challenges fundraisers to be more aware of language and its effect both on the users and the audience. Fundraisers and linguists offer practical analyses of how language is used in fundraising appeals. Chapters provide case studies of writing grant proposals, illuminating how writers shape their language to fit their audience; content analyses of fundraising letters, considering what persuades donors to give; and guidelines for developing successful visual rhetoric for both print and on-line formats.This is the 22nd issue of the quarterly journal New Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising.

TIMOTHY L. SEILER is director of public service and The Fund Raising School at the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy.

Editor's Notes

1

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Timothy L. Seiler

Green giving: Engagement, values, activism, and community life

7

(16)

Charles Bazerman

Fundraising can increase the psychic and identity rewards of giving and reach beyond the limited budget people usually allocate to psychic goods if it establishes charitable gifts as part of the costs of one's way of life. An examination of fundraising for environmental causes in Santa Barbara, California, explores these ideas

Content analysis of fundraising letters

23

(14)

Donald N. Ritzenhein

Much advice about writing fundraising letters tends to be anecdotal, based largely on someone's experience as a fundraiser and his or her best sense of what works and what does not work. To address these limitations, Ritzenhein studied what his colleagues in fundraising are actually writing in their direct mail letters

Conceptual metaphor and the discourse of philanthropy

37

(12)

Peter McCagg

Metaphors have been shown to be powerful tools for accessing memory and emotion in readers and listeners. The functions of orientational, structural, ontological, and moral accounting metaphors are explored in sample texts

How writers in nonprofit organizations develop grant proposals

49

(10)

Molly Flaherty Haas

Effective grant proposal writers write differently depending on their organization's relationship with the grant-making organization-whether a familiar local funding source or a more distant source. However, because every organization is unique, every grant proposal is unique, and the examples in this chapter are not models for imitation but rather suggest interesting things about the practices by which they were made

Language use in grant proposals by nonprofits: Spanish and English

59

(16)

Ulla Connor

Lilya Wagner

This study used text analysis and discourse-based interviews with Latino writers of grant proposals and discovered that the process is complex, that writers have a good understanding of founders' expectations and write accordingly, and that their Latino identity is masked at times

Into print, into Webs: The consideration of visual rhetoric for print and on-line philanthropic documents

75

(20)

Patricia Sullivan

The author analyzes goals and strategies for printed texts and challenges fundraisers to develope a keen awareness of how visual rhetoric operates both in print and in on-line settings

Generic patterns in fundraising discourse

95

(16)

Vijay K. Bhatia

The author observes that many of our discursive activities, whether business, academic, or even personal, now incorporate elements of promotion. He analyzes a range of fundraising genres in an attempt to determine the influence of present-day corporate advertising and marketing strategies on the development of philanthropic discourse

Epilogue

111

(4)

Ulla Connor

Index

115

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Understanding and Improving the Language of Fundraising New Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising, Number 22

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials