The Overlooked Secret to Fundraising Copywriting – Verbs  

Part 2: Fundraising Copywriting Smackdown: Verbs vs Adjectives

See Part 1:  4 Copywriting Tips on How to Lasso Your Reader’s Attention with Verbs

What language best engages readers and motivates them to give your cause

How do you tell fundraising stories well enough to evoke a response?

The secret is in the verbs.

Here in Part 2 we have a fundraising copywriting smackdown between verbs and adjectives. Okay, yes, that’s dumb. And I hate pro wrestling, so I’m not sure why I’m even using their imagery.

But the goal here is worth your time. We’re going to quickly examine the effect of great verbs compared to great adjectives on fundraising language and its impact on the reader.

Verbs vs Adjectives in Fundraising Copywriting

Consider this sentence:

“As the hurricane reached land, racing wind and torrential rain left houses and towns in splintered ruins.”

Not bad, right? It has some good imagery, mostly through adjectives. English majors love adjectives, and many famous books are filled with descriptive language of this sort. Often sentences like this can be further embellished with metaphors and similes.

“As the hurricane reached land like an angry sea monster preparing to devour its helpless victims, racing wind and torrential rain left houses and towns in splintered ruins.”

Fine… sounds cool. But whatever, right? What else is on TV?

This kind of language is more entertaining than emotionally engaging. It might grip our senses, but does it grip our hearts? Does it motivate us to do something? In fundraising copywriting, you’re not trying to win a writing contest. You’re trying to incite people to send money to help meet a need. The metaphor is distracting.

Here’s a much simpler version of this sentence, but with two targeted verbs:

“When the hurricane reached land, wind and rain clobbered houses and reduced whole towns and communities to rubble.”

In terms of fundraising, the third sentence is far better than the first two. Here’s why:

1. It Removes Unnecessary Excess (Tip #3 from Part 1)

You don’t need words like torrential, racing, and splintered. Yes, those sorts of words paint a picture. And that’s good – to a point. But it’s not good in excess because it begins to distract the reader from the real story.

And in fundraising, the real story must always be about the people (or the animals). The ones affected. The specific need you’re trying to meet. (Tip #1 from Part 1)

2. Verbs Focus the Imagery on the People

‘Clobbered’ is a good verb. It goes right in line with the adjectives that got cut. But by using that verb to describe what happened to the houses, now I as the reader am thinking about people losing their houses, rather than stormy wind and rain.

See the difference?

In the same way, ‘splintered’ might be a nice adjective to describe the visuals, but by changing that to ‘reduced whole towns to rubble,’ again my focus as the reader shifts from how this disaster looks and feels to who was affected.

Now I’m thinking, “Wow, a whole town got destroyed.” That’s what you want your readers thinking, not “Wow, that reminds me of the huge storm when I was a kid.”

3.  The New Focus Sets Up the Fundraising Ask

With the reader now thinking about the people and communities affected by the storm, you have set them up perfectly to now ask for help.

“With all their houses and towns destroyed, this community can’t put itself back together without your help.”

Pair this sentence with the others to see the combined effect.

Here it is with the literary version:

As the hurricane reached land like an angry sea monster preparing to devour its helpless victims, racing wind and torrential rain left houses and towns in splintered ruins. With all their houses and towns destroyed, this community can’t put itself back together without your help.

And here it is with the ‘verby’ version.

When the hurricane reached land, wind and rain clobbered houses and reduced whole towns and communities to rubble. With all their houses and towns destroyed, this community can’t put itself back together without your help.

Again, just a made-up example. But notice how uneven the first one is. The two sentences aren’t aligned. I have to switch my thinking from all this imagery and metaphorical excess to now think about the people affected. But in the second one, it just flows, because I’m thinking about the people the entire time.

The most effective fundraising copywriting uses simple language.

But simple language doesn’t mean bland or boring or non-colorful. It just means putting that color and visceral sense of urgency into the right places. In most cases, invest your time in the verbs, and your fundraising copywriting will engage more readers and provoke higher response rates.

(But behind all this is the linchpin of direct response copywriting: Test it!)

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