Year-end giving season is here, and if you’re a fundraiser, your computer probably has many draft tabs going. Direct mail letters, social posts, email appeals, landing pages. Everything needs to be ready yesterday.
When deadlines are tight, the review step is usually the first thing to get squeezed. We skim, fix the typos, check the ask amount and send it to print. But the review is where good copy becomes great copy.
So I want to share one of my own process habits. When I review first-round drafts, I read everything twice, and each read happens from a very different seat.
Read One: Sit in the Donor’s Seat
On the first read, I put myself in the seat of the donor. Not a board member, not a staff member, and not someone who has been in every planning meeting. A person opening their mailbox or scrolling their phone, with a few seconds to decide whether this is worth their attention.
The hardest part is setting aside what I already know. By the time we’re reviewing a draft, my team and I know the story inside out. We know the person it’s about, the program behind it and why it matters. A donor doesn’t have any of that.
So I ask myself simple, honest questions. Does this make sense? Do I understand the story without the background I carry around? Do I understand what this organization does and why it needs me right now?
If I have to fill a gap with my own knowledge to make the piece work then it’s not going to work for the donor either.
Read Two: Pretend It’s Your Competitor’s Letter
Then I read it again, but this time I pretend the piece belongs to our client’s direct competitor. Another organization working on a similar cause, asking the same donors for the same year-end gift.
This small mental switch changes everything. When it’s “our” letter, we read it generously. We’re proud of it and we are optimistic that it’s going to work. When it’s someone else’s letter, we read it the way donors actually do: critically, and in comparison.
Suddenly the questions get sharper. Is this writing actually good? Does it hold together? Where are the gaps? If this letter landed on a donor’s kitchen table next to ours, where would it fall short?
That critical distance brings things to light I would have missed on the friendly read: a vague ask, an opening that takes too long to get going, a story that tells instead of shows. Fix those, and the piece becomes noticeably stronger.
Putting It Into Practice
You can use this method on almost anything: direct mail, email appeals, social posts, landing pages, even your impact report. Here are the questions I keep in front of me for each read.
| Read one: the donor’s seat | Read two: the competitor’s letter |
|---|---|
| Do I understand the story without any background? | Is the writing genuinely good, or just familiar? |
| Is it clear what the organization does? | Where does the argument go soft or skip a step? |
| Do I know what I’m being asked to do, and why now? | Would this stand out next to a similar appeal? |
| Does anything rely on insider language or jargon? | Is the ask specific, or easy to set aside? |
| Would I keep reading past the first line? | If I wanted to pick this apart, where would I start? |
A few tips to make it work:
- Separate the two reads. Do them at different times, even an hour apart. Trying to wear both hats at once blurs the lens.
- Take notes, then fix. Mark everything on both reads before you start editing, so you can see patterns.
- Hand it to someone outside the project. A colleague who wasn’t in the planning meetings is the closest thing you’ll get to a real donor.
- Read it out loud. Clunky sentences and missing transitions are much easier to hear than see.
If you’re drafting your year-end emails right now, our post on year-end fundraising email examples that actually get donations is a good companion to this review process.
Why It Works
Donors don’t read your appeal in isolation. During year-end and Giving Tuesday, they’re hearing from many causes at once, often in the same week. Your appeal is always being compared, whether you plan for it or not.
The two-read method builds that reality into your process. The first read makes sure your message is clear to someone outside your organization. The second makes sure it’s competitive once it’s out in the world.
In the last couple of years since I’ve built this habit into our review process, we’ve seen clients exceed their goals by up to double. Plenty goes into a successful campaign, from strategy and timing to the list itself, so I won’t claim this one step does it all. But it consistently helps us catch the weak spots before donors do.
Let’s Chart Your Course
The best fundraising copy isn’t written in one pass. It’s shaped by people willing to look at their own work with fresh, and sometimes tough, eyes. Reading it twice costs you an extra half hour. Skipping that read could cost you the gift.
So as you finalize your year-end pieces, try it: read once as your donor, then read again as if it were your competitor’s letter. I’d love to hear what you catch.
And if you’d like a second set of eyes on your year-end campaign, I offer a free 30-minute strategy session for nonprofits and charities. There’s no pitch and no pressure, just an honest conversation about where you are and where you want to go.
For more year-end planning, see our 2026 Canadian guide to year-end fundraising ideas and Giving Tuesday social media post ideas.
