3 Grammar Rules You Can’t Break in Fundraising Copy (and Some That You Can)

An appeal from a prominent conservation nonprofit begins with this paragraph:

“It’s so easy to forget that plants are quiet miracles. Often small, underfoot, and seemingly plentiful, we overlook their clever design and chemical superpowers.”

The appeal is about plant species going extinct, so this first paragraph seems right on target. It expresses a sentiment that donors would likely respond to. And it’s conversational in its tone. 

So what’s the problem? It’s that giant, glaring grammatical error. More about that in a moment. But first, there’s a definite tension in copywriting for direct response fundraising between being conversational and being grammatically correct.

Good copywriting is informal and conversational, no question. That’s what works to engage donors. That’s why you’ll see sentence fragments, contractions, sentences beginning with “and” and “but,” sentences ending with prepositions, and more. Those are all done to create a conversational tone. We’re writing like we talk.

Yet, people who review copy often balk at these, calling them grammatical errors, or at least errors in proper writing style. 

Copywriters say nonsense. Copy should be conversational. We shouldn’t be saddled with out-of-date, hidebound rules of grammar and style. That’s true, of course. 

Still, there are some grammatical rules that you can’t break, even in an attempt to create copy that’s conversational. That’s because a conversational tone doesn’t mean we’re trying to replicate ordinary speech on the page. After all, everyday talk is often rambling, and it’s usually peppered with ums, ahs, and ya knows. You don’t want that in copy. 

No, what we’re trying to do is approximate everyday speech, not imitate it. And even beyond that, breaking certain grammatical rules causes confusion, and above all, copy has to be crystal clear, with no vagueness or ambiguity.

So let’s take a look at three of those unbreakable rules.

1. The Dangling Modifier

This is the error in the paragraph mentioned earlier. In the second sentence in that paragraph, you’ll see that “Often small, underfoot, and seemingly plentiful” modifies “we,” but it should actually modify “plants.” You can see the confusion this creates. It’s not we who are small, underfoot and plentiful. It’s plants. So this sentence should read “Often small, underfoot, and seemingly plentiful, plants have clever designs and chemical superpowers that we often overlook.”

This is a really common mistake — so common, in fact, that it's often not apparent right away. Until you think for a second about what’s being said. Then you realize, “Hey, I’m not small, underfoot, or plentiful — what are they talking about?”

2. Subject-Verb Agreement

This rule says that the subject of the sentence and the verb must agree in number. So, you wouldn’t say “Children in Darfur is starving,” you’d say “Children in Darfur are starving.” That’s pretty obvious. 

The problem comes in when other phrases get in the way. Take this example: 

“A shipment of 500 pounds of lifesaving vaccines are being unloaded now in Africa.” 

That might seem OK because “vaccines,” a plural noun, and “are,” a plural verb, are right next to each other. Except in this sentence the subject is “shipment” not “vaccines.” The verb needs to agree with “shipment,” the actual subject of the sentence. So you would say, “A shipment of 500 pounds of lifesaving vaccines is being unloaded ….” 

Maintaining subject-verb agreement upholds the basic logic of keeping singulars with singulars and plurals with plurals. Mixing that up causes confusion.

3. Run-on Sentence

This error happens when two sentences are jammed together without the right punctuation. An example of this is the comma splice. This is when two sentences (two independent clauses, each with a subject and a verb) are linked with a comma. Like this: 

“Too many seniors are struggling with hunger and isolation, they need the help that your gift provides.” 

See the problem? That comma is joining two separate sentences when they should be separated by a stronger break as two independent ideas. You could replace that comma with a semicolon, but since this is informal writing, you wouldn’t want to do that. Instead you’d just make two separate sentences. “Too many seniors are struggling with hunger and isolation. They need the help that your gift provides.” Problem solved.

These are three big errors that you want to look out for. (Don’t get me started on “who” versus “whom.) Still, is a grammatical error in a fundraising appeal the end of the world, even if it’s one of the big three mentioned here? Of course not. But these kinds of errors can and do cause confusion for readers. And one of the tenets of effective copy is that it shouldn’t raise unintended questions or otherwise call attention to itself. 

We want donors to absorb the message without anything else getting in the way. Because when that happens, donors are far more likely to give and to feel good about giving.

The preceding post was provided by an individual unaffiliated with NonProfit PRO. The views expressed within do not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of NonProfit PRO.