What the Veronica Mars Kickstarter Can Teach YOU

 creativity, Nonprofit  No Responses »
Mar 252013
 

There has been a lot written about the Veronica Mars Kickstarter project and its implications for how movies are funded. Launched last week, the project reached its $2 million goal on the first of its 30 days. With 18 days to go, it has almost doubled its initial goal.

I’m excited on a personal level because I was a big fan of the show and am looking forward to watching another 90+ minutes of Mars-y goodness. But what really intrigued me is what the project can teach fundraisers.

If you’re not familiar with the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, check out their FAQ. In a nutshell, it’s a way for artists and other creative types to collectively fund their projects. Musician Amanda Palmer financed her successful album Theatre is Evil via a Kickstarter campaign, and two documentary short films funded by the platform went on to be nominated for Academy Awards.

Though there has been a lot of backlash against the Veronica Mars project – the money is going to fund a movie that the studio will profit from! There are so many worthier causes! These people are millionaires and should fund the movie themselves if they care so much! – there are some really powerful fundraising lessons embedded in this campaign.

  1. They asked. Lots of fans have been clamoring for a Veronica Mars movie for years. The stars of the show and the show’s creator wanted to do it, but it was stuck in development hell, languishing for lack of financial support. So creator Rob Thomas figured out what he needed, explained it to his supporters, and asked them to fund it.
  2. They have a well-articulated plan for the money. They set a campaign goal for the minimum amount they needed and then made a plan for what they’d do if they received more. Donors to the campaign were informed up front exactly how their money would be spent and what their contribution would make happen. They also told people what would happen if the Kickstarter goal wasn’t met and explained why this campaign was the best way for everyone to get what they wanted.
  3. They acknowledged their supporters. Sure, they offered plenty of swag – that’s part of the Kickstarter model. But they also immediately thanked all supporters as soon as the campaign achieved its goal. And they kept thanking them, offering new incentives and updates as the campaign continued.

People have a choice of how to spend their money – and that counts for charities too. The Veronica Mars Kickstarter shows how loyal your supporters can be. Years after the show went off the air, fans jumped at the chance to get one more story from the series.

But it also shows that when you have a loyal base of supporters and you treat them with respect, candor and gratitude, you can fund even your most audacious projects.

 

What Knitting Taught Me About Writing

 creativity  2 Responses »
Dec 062012
 

I started knitting when I was in my mid-20’s. My mother is an expert seamstress and had tried to teach me to sew, but it just never took. I couldn’t muster the patience or the exactitude necessary for sewing. (Really, I hated all the ironing. I still don’t iron, unless you count tossing things in the dryer for a few minutes.)

By a strange coincidence, I also started writing for a living in my mid-twenties, about four months after I cast on my first stitch.

For years, I didn’t think the two were related at all, except that when I am in a knitting phase, I’m not writing quite as much, and when I’m in a writing phase, I’m not knitting as much. If I thought of them together at all, they were competitors for my time.

But one day, one of my kids was looking at my latest project, and she said, “Wow, that sure is a mess. Are you sure you want to keep making it?”

Hold the mustard! That is something I say to myself in the middle of every single thing I write — fiction or fundraising or email to a friend.  And in that moment, I realized that all these years of knitting and writing have been far more inextricably linked than I ever knew.

The Beginning: Casting on

The first few stitches…

Every piece of knitting starts with that first cast-on stitch (Fancy expert knitters who know some fabulous technique for starting without casting on: Pipe down! I’m making a point here!), just as every piece you write starts with that first word.

Those first few rows of knitting – just like the first few sentences you write – are maddening. Full of promise of what’s to come, but messy and often confusing…and absolutely necessary to get to the good stuff. They’re never the prettiest stitches or the most beautiful prose. But they form the foundation for what is to come.

As you add row upon row, word upon word, you feel pretty good. You’re making progress! Your fingers are flying! This is AWESOME!

Until you look at your word (or row) count and realize how much further you have to go.

The Messy Middle

Which is when you get to the big slog, which looks like this:

Ugh! Must I keep going?

Can you even imagine wearing that? Can you imagine wanting to?

The same thing happens when I’m writing. I get to the middle and feel absolutely certain that everything I’ve done up to that point was a complete waste of time. There are stray thoughts everywhere, paragraphs that start strong, then peter out into nothing. Structure? What structure! It’s an amorphous blob that will never amount to anything.

But I keep plugging away. Because I’ve come this far, and because I’ve done this enough times to trust that it will somehow, some way, work out.

Done, But Not Done

And then you finish. You type that last word, cast off that last stitch. It feels great, and hey! It doesn’t look half bad.

I feel like I should be done!

Of course, it’s not ready for prime time yet. There are all those loose plot threads to tie up and those seams – and themes – to sew up.

And this is where I really start to lose heart. I’ve spent so much time with this project – during which I’ve thought of a dozen other projects (or received a dozen new assignments) I’d rather be working on. And I’ve kind of gotten sick of even looking at this one. Why did I pick out this ugly yarn anyway? No way am I ever going to wear this monstrosity!

I know a lot of knitters – and writers – who get to this stage and simply stop. They have completed but not finished sweaters taking up space in their knitting bags. Writers have finished but not polished novels. Fundraisers have letters that could have raised big money, but instead fall flat.

But this is what knitting – such a visual and tactile medium – has taught me about the more intellectual medium of writing: DON’T GIVE UP.

That extra little effort to finish and polish and press is so worth it.

Guess what I’m wearing right now?!?

 

Where Space Exploration and Fundraising Collide

 creativity, Direct Mail, Nonprofit, Uncategorized  2 Responses »
Aug 072012
 

Like many people the world over, I was thrilled to see that the Curiosity Rover landed successfully on Mars this week. I showed my kids the first pictures and answered their questions about space exploration. (I think my 5-year-old’s mind was officially blown by the news that a ROBOT took that picture!)

But even as my kids were getting more and more excited about space exploration, I saw the tweets racing by lamenting the money spent on sending a rover to Mars when there are so many problems here on Earth we need to solve.

I’m not going to write a comprehensive defense of space exploration. If you wonder what the value is, check out this interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson, or read his newest book. But I will say that many of the things you and I use every day — everything from our cell phones and computers, to athletic wear and tennis shoes — were originally developed for NASA.

Imagine what might be achievable if NASA had reliable funding and the freedom to aim for truly audacious goals. What alternative fuels or advances in solar power technology might be made? What cool new fabric might make sweaty summer runs like the one I took this morning even more comfortable?

A lot of fundraising departments I work with are just as starved for funding as NASA. In an effort to be efficient and streamlined — to put as many of those dollars they raise toward programs as possible — too many nonprofits are denying themselves a chance to innovate, evolve and, ultimately, do even more to further their missions.

Instead of aiming for the big and complex mission to Mars, they’re content to run the same near-Earth orbit mission over and over again.

It’s easy to play it safe. After all, nobody wants to be the one who bets big and loses. But your donors can tell the difference between an organization that’s hanging on to the status quo and one that’s charting a bold and energetic course for the future. Guess which one most of them prefer?

Investing in your fundraising efforts — whether it’s in increased time, money, energy or vision — can pay huge dividends.

Test boldly in your direct mail, and you can find out what appeals to your donors and target your fundraising more effectively. No more incremental nudges. Let’s find out what happens when you take an entirely different creative approach, or aim for a new universe, or aggressively go after lapsed donors.

Take the time to coordinate communications and fundraising department efforts, and you can pool talents and develop strong messaging that helps inform and enlighten people about your efforts. (Bonus: unless you have to bribe them with donuts to sit in a room together, this won’t cost you a cent!)

Spend a little more on personalization — in the mail, on the Web and in your face-to-face efforts — and you can foster better relationships with your donors…and reap the benefit of increased giving.

And another bonus of investing in your fundraising is that in doing so, you might just find other ways to cut costs that don’t stymie innovation.

I’m excited to see the pictures and read about the discoveries that Curiosity sends back to Earth. It’s a remarkable achievement.

But I also get really excited when I work with an organization that is committed to exploring all the ways they can improve their fundraising. Be bold. Be daring. Dream big. Show your donors how much passion you have for your mission, and watch as they reward you with their loyal support.

Is That Really True? Storytelling Ethics Part 2

 creativity, Direct Mail, Nonprofit  1 Response »
Jul 302012
 

Well vacation and a mountain of work came between two pieces I had hoped to post a little closer together, but I do want to follow up on my earlier post on storytelling ethics, with a set of basic rules to follow for nonprofits.

Those rules are a great start, but I don’t think that’s the end of the discussion at all. Because when I was asked the question, it brought up a lot of other, related ideas about storytelling, ethics and the nature of truth and fiction that I think are valuable to explore.

What is truth?

If you work for a nonprofit of any size, you probably see hundreds of stories coming through your organization each year. And I’m willing to bet that many, many of these stories have a commonality to them that can, sometimes, make them seem indistinguishable from each other.

It’s probably easy for you to generalize about the people you serve: “Our clients are predominantly [insert three adjectives that describe the typical constituent here].”

So is that generalization true?

What if you put the generalization into story form by creating an amalgam? Could you give it a name, a set of circumstances and a story arc and still call it “true”?

I’ve worked for organizations that had no problem with this definition of the truth, believing that slavish adherence to the details of the stories in their organizations undermined the true spirit of their work. I’ve also worked for organizations that would never, ever consider using an amalgam, certain that it was lying to their donors.

Truth in Fiction

It may be because I am a fiction writer as well as a copywriter that I fall more into the first camp than the second.

Think about memoir for a second. Memoir is generally considered to be a form of nonfiction. But memoirists also take liberties with dates, places, names and timelines in order to create a more cohesive story, while staying true to the overarching themes of their work. Looking at it another way, memoirists lie to preserve the truth.

And some of the “truest” writing I’ve read is fiction. Sure, the facts may not be there, but truths of what it means to be human are often found in fiction, and can serve to inspire as well as — or sometimes better than — nonfiction.

But…

But we’re talking about nonprofit storytelling here, not memoir, not fiction. Making up stories whole cloth and pretending they actually happened in your organization will not serve your purpose well.

Lying is a crummy thing to do to your donors. It betrays their trust and is an extremely poor way to repay their generosity.

Still, it is extremely easy to turn a compelling story into a boring collection of facts. And while your donors never deserve to be lied to, you certainly don’t want to put them to sleep.

So as I mentioned earlier, use the constraints of the truth to up your creative game. Remember to hit as many of the five senses as you can. If you’re interviewing someone, really listen to what they’re saying about how they felt so you can convey that to your donors.

Your organization’s storytelling ethics deserve careful thought and consideration. Make sure you can justify your stance — to your board, to your employees, and above all, to your donors.

And, as always, be creative about how you tow that line. Nonprofit storytelling should be about taking your donors on a journey with you, not just about telling a story and asking for money.

Is That Really True? Storytelling Ethics Part 1

 creativity, Direct Mail  3 Responses »
Jul 022012
 

I’ve been quiet recently — a combination of end-of-the-school-year craziness and looming deadlines. Now, summer seems on the verge of appearing here in the Pacific Northwest, and in between sunny runs by the reservoir and neighborhood cookouts, I’m going to try to put in a few more appearances here at the blog.

During the non-stop action of the last month, I’ve been spending a lot of time mulling over a few really interesting questions someone recently asked me about storytelling ethics.

How true does a story we use in fundraising have to be? Can we change names? Can we fudge details or timelines? Do people ever make up stories entirely?

I gave a fairly evasive answer: how literally truthful you are in your organizational storytelling is up to each organization to decide.

But I was curious how others might answer that same question. As I began researching the issue, I started contemplating ideas of truth and fiction and where we draw the line between the two.

Let me say up front that I still don’t have a better answer to the original question. I do think it’s a discussion each organization needs to have internally and then convey to any consultants or writers they bring on board.

But I did find some helpful basic guidelines to follow as you have these internal conversations.

A Basic Ethical Stance

In my initial burst of research, I came across this article by Joanne Fritz on the ethics of changing details in stories. She interviews two noted experts — Lisa Sargent of Sargent Communications and Pamela Grow of Simple Development Systems. Both take a firm stance on changing details, agreeing that it is sometimes necessary to protect the identities, particularly of young people, of those whose stories you want to share.

They urge nonprofits to take three key steps: get written permission, alter or hide key personal details, and be transparent with your donors.

This is great advice, particularly for nonprofits working directly with clients, such as a nonprofit helping clothe foster children, or a drug addiction support organization, for two examples. Activist groups and other large-scale groups may be gathering stories that are of a less personal nature, so they may not have to worry about protecting identities as much.

But from what I see in the mail that comes across my desk, the toughest thing about these standards is the transparency portion. Sure, you can simply add a disclaimer into your letter. But please be clever and creative about how you do that.

Because as soon as you say, “some of this story isn’t 100% true” your donor is going to stop reading your pitch and start examining your story to see what details sound made up.

And once you lose ‘em, you lose the chance of a gift.

If you need to use a disclaimer, weave it into your story. Instead of a an asterisk next to a message saying “Details have been changed to protect identities” try appealing to your donor’s sense of empathy:

“Joanie was really nervous about people learning her secrets. But she knows how important it is to get her story out there, so she’s agreed to let me share it with you, as long as I protect her privacy.”

Adhering to strict ethical rules does not have to kill your creativity, nor should it. Always try to push yourself to find the most organic and natural way to adhere to your standards, and your nonprofit copywriting will shine that much brighter.

The rules I mention above are a great starting point. But I think storytelling ethics deserve more thoughtful consideration. So please check in later this week for more thoughts on storytelling, ethics and where (and how!) to draw the line in your own organization.

All Aboard! Use storytelling to unite and inspire

 creativity, Nonprofit  Comments Off
May 222012
 

I had the good fortune to present at the Willamette Valley Development Officers fundraising conference in Portland, OR earlier this month. My friend and business partner Amy Blake and I debuted Super Storytelling, our comprehensive how-to on storytelling and story-collecting for nonprofits. (If you attended that session, thank you so much!)

You can see the slides from our presentation here, and we hope to offer the presentation again live and on the web soon. (Stay tuned here and at the ARC Communications website for details!)

In the course of preparing for the presentation, I did a lot of research about the power of story to get the word out, educate and inspire. And since there wasn’t time in the presentation to talk about all the exciting things I discovered, I thought I’d do a little brain dump here.

One of my favorite resources was Story Proof: the science behind the startling power of story by Kendall Haven. In the first couple of pages, I learned that people have been sharing stories for 100,000 years. (Not being up on my pre-history, I was pretty impressed humans had been around that long!) All that storytelling has left our brains hardwired to learn through stories and to think about life in story terms.

Haven spends a lot of time in the book going through actual neuroscience studies that clearly show that we learn better, engage more and remember details through stories. Psych studies back this up, too. And if that isn’t enough for you, he includes dozens of anecdotes showing just how well it works. From schools, to corporations, to the World Bank, people have discovered — by accident and by painstaking work — the power of storytelling.

For nonprofits, one passage in particular stuck out to me:

“Want to develop a sense of belonging and buy-in in your organization? Collect and refine the stories of your group members that best embody the attitudes and outlook you want to promote. Actively tell these stories and encourage others to create and share their own.”

If you want to get your donors to remember you, if you want them to understand and appreciate the importance of your work, and above all, if you want them to give, all the statistics in the world aren’t going to work for you as well as one good story.

Make stories a key part of your fundraising strategy. Engage everyone — fundraising folks, program people, volunteers, board members, execs, constituents and even donors — in collecting and sharing stories. Value all contributions and share stories wherever and whenever you can.

Once you do, you’ll find — as Haven reports in anecdote after anecdote — that the effort pays off in remarkable ways. People love stories, and when you foster a culture of storytelling, it builds on itself. People become more engaged and committed to your mission, and they pass on that engagement and commitment to newcomers.

Bottom line: Create a community of storytellers in and around your organization, and you’ll inspire your staff to greater heights, lead your donors to greater giving, and ultimately, enhance the effectiveness of the critical work your organization performs.

Fighting the Formula

 creativity  3 Responses »
Jan 122012
 

The other day, one of my Twitter pals — Kevin Monroe from X Factor Consulting – asked me what copywriting tips I like to share with fellow consultants. It wasn’t something I’d actually considered much before he asked, since a) I work in my kitchen and b) I’m usually on the receiving end of writing advice.

But his question did touch on something that I have been thinking about off and on over the last couple of years. During the course of my 14-year copywriting career, I’ve dabbled in other kinds of writing, including publishing several feature articles and neighborhood profiles in The Oregonian and having a short story appear in VoiceCatcher.

During times when multiple deadlines were looming, I wondered if that moonlighting was hurting my main money-making endeavor, and I have downplayed my extracurricular writing in my professional life.  But I now think all that second-guessing was a mistake.

In fact, I think one of the reasons I have been so successful in my copywriting is because I have a richer web of writing experience to pull from.

Fight the formula

I have written hundreds of direct mail letters, and there is definitely a formula for the successful ones. But in following a formula you should never become formulaic. The minute you do, the letters you pen become stale, lacking the passion and verve that are absolutely necessary to convince people to give their money to your cause.

When I feel myself treading an all-too-familiar path in my copywriting, I know it’s time to fight the formula. So I take another look with my fiction-writer’s glasses on. Are there themes I can weave through this letter more effectively? Is there a character begging to leap off the page?

Then I put on my features-writer glasses. How can I make my descriptions more vivid? Are there sights, sounds, tastes and smells that would make the issues in this letter come alive for the reader? Perhaps I’m rambling and need to tighten everything up with a journalist’s editing eye.

Let’s face it, there is a LOT of writing advice out there, and good writing is good writing, whether you’re penning a direct mail letter, a slick advertisement, or the Great American Novel. Sure, there are degrees, but the rules are the same: use action verbs, aim for clarity, be as specific as you can, tickle all the senses…

But knowing the rules and using them well are two different things.

Tap into a different part of your brain!

Try writing poetry to hone your ability to use imagery to make a point. Write a short story to put yourself in a different person’s shoes and sharpen your storytelling. Become a blogger to learn how to encapsulate big ideas and personal feelings in 500 words. Try your hand at literary criticism or movie reviews to learn how to identify weak spots in your writing and in others’.

Above all, love writing, all writing. Play with language, revel in how words get put together, rejoice in how they can connect, inspire, educate, and move.

And don’t just write. Read! Starting with this article about the business benefits — it’s scientific, people! — of reading fiction.

Testing in a Tight Market

 Direct Mail, Nonprofit  Comments Off
Jan 032012
 

One of the joys of working with a large nonprofit is the ability to test — from how you visually present your message, to who you choose to mail to, and what special offers you make, when you’re mailing for the big guys, you have the chance to really hone in on what works best for your audience.

But what if you’re a small shop with a small list and a smaller pool of resources to devote to direct mail? How can you test and refine your mailings until you know you’re getting the most bang for your buck?

You may not be able to do a split test on any one mailing, but if you’re clever and creative, there are still ways you can tell what’s working and what’s not in your direct mail.

Use Your Swipes

Those of us who work in direct mail are obsessive about checking our own mailboxes because that is one of the best places you can go to get ideas about what’s working in today’s direct mail.

And I’m not just talking about keeping an eye on the nonprofit organizations you give to. For profit companies — from banks and financial institutions, to magazines and catalogs — mail millions of pieces of direct mail each year and have budgets for testing that most nonprofits only dream about. And sure, you might not be able to include a handful of inserts, but can you crib a few ideas about what works from them and apply them to your own packages?

Bonus tip: if you’re not on the lists of other organizations in your sector, sign up! A small donation gets you a fine sample of renewals, special appeals and cultivation mailings that can give you a really great picture of what’s hot in your niche.

Cheap and Easy Tests

If you can divide your list but don’t have a lot of money to spend, there are a few things you can test with little-to-no up front investment.

  • Try a lasered upgrade message test on the reply form. You’re already lasering donors’ names and addresses (and if you’re a very small shop, you might be printing everything on your desktop printer!) so it shouldn’t cost you much, if anything, to test two different lasered messages.
  • Play with color. Too many organizations get stuck in a color rut, which can be great for sending a strong branding message…but might get you ignored in direct mail. Try substituting a different color for black — dark blue or dark green, maybe. If you absolutely have to limit yourself to approved logo colors, try using them in unique ways — a graphic band at the top of a page, highlight specific words in the text with color, or use screens to create a layered look.
  • Along those same lines, use graphic elements to call attention to your pieces. Give your designer freer reign within the same cost parameters. Bands of color (or black), reversed out headlines, handwriting and other specialty fonts, and color screens don’t generally cost any more than more straightforward design, as long as you’re not bleeding off the edges or adding colors.

The Long Haul

If you’ve got a small list but a little money for testing, try testing the same thing over several mailings. That way you can get a more statistically significant pool of results than you can on one small mailing that might include a surprisingly large gift, or have its results impacted by things outside your control.

Bonus tip: if you’re testing something on a component that doesn’t need to change from one mailing to the next — say, a colored stock reply envelope — you can print ahead for the second mailing, which will save you money due to economies of scale.

Bottom line: money’s tight for everyone. Even the big organizations are cutting back. But you can still find ways to be innovative and creative and continue testing, even on the most constrained budget.

The Benefits of Giving Up

 creativity  Comments Off
Jul 062011
 

Get a new perspective when you walk away from work.

Why yes, I did recently write quite a nice post about perseverance and finding that one-legged-biker inspiration to keep you going in dark and frustrating times. But today, I want to write about giving up.

We’re taught to never give up. A host of voices from our childhood, our adolescence, and right on up into adulthood all exhort us to keep climbing that mountain, keep reaching for those stars, don’t give up. You can do it.

But sometimes, giving up is good. Especially when you’re writing.

In most projects, there comes a point at which you can’t figure out what’s not working. You might know what’s wrong or you might not. But clearly, something needs to change.

You can spend hours beating your head against the keyboard, forcing word after word onto the page. Or, you can try these four “I give up!” techniques:

Take a Walk

There’s a reason this is a tried-and-true suggestion for dealing with writer’s block — or any other kind of block, for that matter. A ten minute walk around the block can clear your head and get blood flowing to those parts of your body that can go a little numb after hours and hours hunched over the screen of your laptop.

Try a Change of Scenery

Speaking of laptops, if you don’t have one, get one! Then you can take it on the road — coffee shop, bar, extra desk at your buddy’s office…giving yourself the gift of unfamiliar surroundings can boost creativity and help you solve problems that seemed insurmountable when you’re staring at your same old scene.

Bake Something

Or learn to knit or build a birdhouse or play the piano. Doesn’t really matter what you do, as long as you funnel that creative energy into something totally different. Open new pathways, and you’ll be surprised where those new roads will take you in your writing.

Take a Nap

If it’s good enough for Einstein, it’s good enough for you! (Seriously, Google “famous nappers” — lots of powerful, creative people liked a good nap!) A ten minute power-nap can do wonders for recharging your mid-day batteries. Plus, I often find that while I’m sleeping, my brain keeps on working on those stubborn problems. And when I open my eyes, the solution is right in front of me.

Alright, I admit it. This post isn’t actually about giving up. At least not permanently. But it is about knowing when to walk away from a creative project and let it simmer for a while. Get some distance, find a new perspective, and enjoy the view for a while. Work will still be there when you get back.

 

Three Ways to Keep Copy Fresh

 creativity, Nonprofit  Comments Off
Jun 272011
 

The other day, my 8-year-old asked me what I did at work. Patiently, I explained (again) that I write letters asking for money for organizations that help people. She rolled her eyes and said, “I know that! I meant what did you do today?” I told her that I worked on a letter for one of my clients. She heaved a big, 8-year-old sigh and said, “Yeah…but, well, do you just write the same letter over and over?”

Nearly every time I sit down at the computer and stare at the blank screen, it feels like a brand new mountain to climb. There are new facts to learn, new victories to share, new programs to ask for money for. Most of the time, I feel energized by the work that I do. Each letter is a new opportunity to delve deeper into an organization’s mission and to find new ways of telling their story.

But everyone has days where work feels like, well, work.

And one of the most important parts of my work is making sure I don’t write the same letter over and over. Believe me, donors can tell when you’re phoning it in. They know when your copy is less-than-inspired, and they respond by NOT responding.

So how do I keep it fresh each and every time?

  1. Micro-editing. Like all writers, I have words and phrases I favor. Organizations have those too. I combat all that boilerplate with aggressive line-by-line editing. A stronger word or a more active phrase can liven up even the most lifeless copy.
  2. Read it aloud. A direct mail letter is a personal letter from one individual at your organization to one donor. It should sound like that person talking to a friend. When you read it aloud, you can hear those boring recitations of facts for what they are: turn-offs. Bonus — you can also spot the complicated turns-of-phrase, the too-long sentences and the just-plain-awkward asks.
  3. Turn it on its head. Say something unexpected. Use a metaphor or simile that no one would anticipate. Ask a question that cuts to the heart of your issue (and leads the donor right to where you want them to go). Take advantage of literary techniques like assonance and alliteration. Make a pun. Unleash your creativity and see where it takes your letter. (You can always cut those bits that don’t work out, but taking the risk is bound to pay off now and then!)

I told my daughter a few more details about the letter I was working on that day — for an environmental organization — and it led to a great dinner-table discussion about conservation and natural resources. The next day, I heard her telling one of her friends, “My mom writes a lot of letters, but they’re not all the same, even though it kind of sounds like they could be.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

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