The Golden Thread – The Week in Review
April 24–30, 2005

Welcome to The Golden Thread Online, your free e-letter from American Writers & Artists Inc. Every Saturday, you will receive this recap of all the strategies, insights and opportunities we send to you and your fellow AWAIers each week. Whether it’s a message from a fellow writer about how he landed a new client … a technique from a Master copywriter for writing a control … an insight into how to succeed in a new market … news of a brand new writing job or business opportunity for you … you’ll find it here in this easy-to-access and always available “Week in Review.”

In This Issue:

• Success in the Fundraising Market
  Learn how an AWAI member has found success in the fundraising market.
• Quick Tip: Two Easy Ways to Stay Current in the Health Market
  Discover resources that will help you stay current in the health market.
• From The Golden Thread Mailbag … Ready, Fire, Aim
  Scott Rempe shares Michael Masterson's philosophy: Ready, Fire, Aim.

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Success in the Fundraising Market By AWAI Member Lisa Sargent

AWAI member Kathy Widenhouse is living a copywriter’s dream. Some of you may remember Kathy from past issues of The Golden Thread. She’s a musician, a mom … and now a professional copywriter, specializing in the fundraising market.

Here’s what Kathy recently shared with us about her dream job:

"I’ve been working with nonprofit organizations for 6 months now, and I have more work than I can handle. More importantly, my copywriting skills are helping organizations help other people. And THAT’S a great feeling."

Kathy noted that nonprofits need writers for more than just fundraising campaigns. "They need newsletters, short radio scripts, phone scripts, brochures, biographical summaries, editing, grant letters, articles – you name it."

In other words, there’s plenty of opportunity for you in fundraising – one of the fastest-growing and top-paying markets for copywriters and designers.

In Issue #167 of The Golden Thread [April 11], fundraising expert Mal Warwick delivered powerful advice on honing your writing skills specifically for the fundraising market. He revealed to me that he pays his best writers some of the highest fees in the industry … $100 per hour or more.

If you work just 20 hours each week at $100 per hour, you’d easily hit that lofty mark of $100,000 every year – working parttime.

Today, I’m going to tell you about two incredible resources to help you start your campaign to find a match between your interests and the thousands of nonprofit organizations that could hire you: www.charitynavigator.org and www.guidestar.org.

Charity Navigator provides a free ranking of the nation’s 3,900 largest charities. (Read that as 3,900 opportunities to work for nonprofit organizations with multimillion-dollar expense budgets to pay writers and designers.)

And the site is incredibly easy to use. Once you get on their homepage, you can zero in on your choice of fundraising organizations three different ways.

• Interested in working for a specific type of nonprofit (environmental groups, for example)? Simply click "Browse by Category." You’ll find 219 organizations that fit your interests.
• Perhaps you’d like to stay close to home. If so, click on "Search by Region." A search on the Pacific West turned up 641 organizations.
• Or, you can do a keyword search if you already know the name of the group you’d like to target … or if your interests aren’t covered in the other two search categories.

Charity Navigator dedicates a page to each of the organizations they evaluate. You’ll find all the contact information you need to send your personal self-promo package – including the organization’s website, address, and phone number. (Use the phone number to get the name of the organization’s campaign manager.) And it gives additional information to help you figure out if this is a group you want to work for (its rating among peers, organizational efficiency, etc.).

Guidestar.org is another incredible resource – a database of over 1 million nonprofits. You’ll find information on organizations that are considerably smaller than those rated by Charity Navigator … and smaller often means a more accessible way to build your all-important portfolio.

To locate Guidestar’s search function, click on "More Search Options" just under the "Search for Nonprofits" box on the home page. (Or, you can register for Guidestar EZ. It’s also free.) You’ll find that you can target charities by zip code, category, or a number of other methods. For example, a category browse for "Youth Development" turned up nearly 23,000 entries.

That’s all there is to getting all the information you need about the many potential clients in this very rewarding market.

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Quick Tip: Two Easy Ways to Stay Current in the Health Market

Nothing will sink a package for the alternative health market faster than old, stale information. The prospects are well informed – and many consider themselves experts in the field.

Staying current in this market is not difficult, however. Here are two outstanding resources:

HSI free e-alert from the Health Science Institute
(http://www.hsiealert.com/freecopy.html)

This informative newsletter is delivered directly to your email inbox. In addition to learning some of the latest advances in alternative health, you also get the opportunity to read excellent marketing copy.

New Scientist magazine
(http://www.newscientist.com/)

This weekly British magazine, mailed all over the world, is a delight to read. It keeps you up to date on developments in health and science that could be the basis for attention-grabbing copy.

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From The Golden Thread Mailbag … Ready, Fire, Aim By Scott Rempe

Elizabeth found a job she’s interested in – and asked us for advice on how to go after it…

"Scott, I’m halfway through the Six Figure Program, and I got a great score on my first assignment. I’ve been slow to finish the program, because I let life and fear get in my way – but I’m ready to jump in and get started on my new career. I’ve started looking at jobs on www.directresponsejobs.com, but I don’t have much experience. What experience I do have is writing copy for marketing flyers at my job with a weekly newspaper. I particularly like this listing for a Copywriter:

‘Technology website is looking for an individual to work on a project basis to create copy for a site redesign. Person should have ability to understand technology categories, but not be a tech writer. The focus of the project is to position and explain our content to a more general audience. Project will last between one and three months and will start immediately.’

"How do I approach them about this job?"

Elizabeth, I’m going to steal a play from Michael Masterson’s playbook and tell you this: Ready, Fire, Aim. In other words, if you are ready to "jump in" and start your new career, that’s exactly what you need to do.

There has to be something about this listing that caught your eye. Some reason you think you would be the perfect copywriter to write this promotion. Translate that reason into a major benefit for the client. Then make that benefit the focus of a 1- or 2-page query letter – making sure your headline is Unique, Useful, Ultra-specific, and Urgent.

Just take that all-important first step and apply. Worry about the particulars later. For your very first assignment, your goal should be to get your foot in the door and write the best promotion you can. Good Luck!

A quick email from Tracy R. about a little something extra her copywriting skills have gotten for her. You may remember from the basic program that we call this "Glicken"…

"My daughter just got accepted into the top private girls’ school in the nation, which was all due to her being an amazingly smart girl. But I managed to wrangle a huge financial aid package for her by writing a letter and using the copywriting skills that I learned from this program and from other websites. So, learning copywriting isn’t just applicable to getting rich clients or making tons of bucks. It can also help enrich your life or those around you in other ways, if you are so inclined.

Finally, here’s a note from Bob R. – just one of the growing number of members who came away from Bootcamp 2004 with a paid assignment…

"Hi Scott. Just wanted to let you know that due to Bootcamp 2004 … I received a paid assignment from Agora’s Financial Division earlier this year. Of course … I was thrilled to be offered the copywriting project. I’m also curious to see how many other 2004 Bootcamp attendees received paid work.

"Thanks for the opportunity to bring ‘up-and-coming’ copywriters together with the Big League direct-response marketers!"

That’s great, Bob! I hope your copy does very well. Agora Financial is a very big client to have.

To answer your query, the Job Fair at last year’s Bootcamp was hugely successful. To date, 22 attendees have received paying assignments as a result … and that number is still growing. I’ve talked to several members in the past month who are still diligently working on their spec assignments – and are fully expecting to turn their hard work into a job opportunity.

At this year’s Bootcamp, we expect even more members to leave with paying assignment. The number of companies at the Job Fair will be increased by at least 50%. I hope to see you there again, Bob!

Thanks to one and all. Keep those emails coming!

Scott