First sentence of your appeal: THINK BUNNY SLOPE > BLACK DIAMOND. 💎

If you're writing Giving Tuesday or Year-End Appeals... I recorded this with you mind. I KNOW you're staring at a blank screen wondering how to start.

Your FIRST sentence should make your donor want to read the SECOND sentence (Tom Ahern). Your first sentence acts like an on-ramp (Julie Cooper). Your first sentence, per Steven Screen, could alternatively summarize the entire letter.

BOTTOM LINE: A winning first sentence helps your donor QUICKLY CONCLUDE she would like to donate.

I mention your "value proposition" in this video. This is a concept I've pulled from NextAfter. NextAfter has an archive of almost 6,000 digital fundraising studies. Many of these tests show how an improved value proposition lifts conversion rate and gift size.

There are a few tools you can use to "grade" your writing. While you want the entire letter to read at around a 6th grade level, you want you FIRST SENTENCE to be even easier to read. It tend to aim for grade 3 or 4.

Tools I love:

1️⃣ CopyOptimizer from DonorVoice (Kevin Schulman has an incredible blog btw https://lnkd.in/gixSeFY9; that's where I discovered this tool)
2️⃣ Hemmingway (the OG)
3️⃣ The Flesch Kincaid Tool (sounds like a disease; I hope I don't get in trouble for saying this).

I would love your feedback. Hope this helps! 😚

PS: Julie Cooper's Fundraising Writing "Win It in a Minute" is the YouTube series I mention! https://lnkd.in/gnRm7XZH