The following excerpt is from Making More Money with Donor Newsletters, publishing March 2025.

I was looking at an issue of The Wall Street Journal. About half the front-page features that day started with a quick anecdote:

• “Elizabeth Grubesich was cooking in her bright yellow and white kitchen ... when she got a call from her doctor. He told her the cancer drug she believed was keeping her alive would no longer be available.” [The article explains how a change in marketing strategy at a large pharmaceutical company can have fatal consequences.]
• “SAVANNAH RIVER SITE, S.C. — Eight years ago, scientists using a metal rod here to probe the radioactive depths of a nuclear-waste tank saw something that shocked them: a slimy, transparent substance growing on the end of the rod.” [The goop scoop? “Extremophiles,” microbes that survive in super-hostile environments.]
• “In late May, a white Gulfstream IV jet with a blue stripe along its side touched down at a small airfield outside Seattle.” [We’re watching the first few frames of huge bribery scandal start to unfold.]

Why do anecdotes work so well to launch a story? I can think of a few good reasons:

• We like to meet new people (at least in print) and see how they behave in a situation. Anecdotes are intimate, too: we’re right at the person’s shoulder.
• A good anecdote dumps us into the middle of the action, at a pivotal moment in the drama.
• Anecdotes are fast and efficient. They require no translation. We understand what’s going on instantly because it’s all show, no tell. We watch one person or a few people do something. And in the process, we learn a lot just by observing.

Take a second look at The Wall Street Journal anecdotes. Note the use of concrete details to paint a picture in your mind: “cooking in her bright yellow and white kitchen,” “metal rod,” “a slimy, transparent substance,” “a white Gulfstream IV jet with a blue stripe along its side.” These details don’t necessarily have news value. They don’t always contribute important facts. But they do set the scene, so you can easily imagine it.

Rudolf Flesch, “the man who taught AP how to write” I’ve heard him called; the man behind the common English-language readability scales, was quite clear in his revolutionary 1949 book, The Art of Readable Writing. “Your facts may be complete and convincing, but your reader won’t remember them ten minutes afterward if you haven’t bothered to [provide] specific illustrations ... like anecdotes. Not that he will necessarily remember the illustration or anecdote itself; but it will help him remember the main idea.”

What makes a successful anecdote

A good anecdote for a donor newsletter has some or all of the following characteristics. It …

• ... is rich in concrete detail. At a minimum a specific time, place, and problem. Remember: details are reassuring to the reader. Details (“... a warm white bed in an apple green room that still smelled of fresh paint....”) make an anecdote easy for the reader to “see” in their heads. In other words: “You are there!”
• ... focuses intimately on a single person or a couple.
• ... shows impact (i.e., how the donors’ gifts made a direct difference in lives).
• ... is emotional. Talks about feelings: fear, anger, loss, despair, triumph, pride, relief, hope.
• ... is surprising, shocking. “Tell me something I don’t know,” all human brains beg.
• ... is fast. Brief is fine. When the donor newsletter from an adult literacy agency, for instance, mentions that Eddie Tomasso “finally admitted to his wife that he couldn’t read when he was 56 years old,” that one small but dazzling anecdotal detail is all I need (combined with the knowledge that Eddie now reads just fine) to know that this organization helps people in profound ways.

Due to a marital encounter with Simone Joyaux, ACFRE—a happy encounter that spanned 37 years of hikes where nonprofits were the foremost topic—Tom Ahern took up donor communications as a hobby and side hustle. Tom loves writing books, including the soon-to be-released, Making More Money with Donor Newsletters.