7 Simple Spacing Tips for Your Fundraising Copy

Give your donors room to breathe. Here are 7 simple spacing tips for your fundraising copy.

Your donors are drowning in words.​

Be there for them by giving them something that breathes. Something with plenty of space to settle into. Otherwise, they might soon jump ship.

Here are 7 simple tidbits for you to try:

1) Custom line and paragraph spacing

Simply put, play around with the custom spacing options until you get an overall document look that does not feel claustrophobic.

In Google Docs, you can access this by choosing custom spacing from this pull-down menu:

We often set our custom spacing to something like this:

Of course, the final design — when we do it for our clients — is not done in Google Docs. It's usually done in InDesign, and the spacing is often further tweaked there. But it's important to establish the spacing during drafting.

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2) Double spacing after periods

In high school, I learned to type by adding two spaces after every period. That's a holdover from typewriter days. It's seldom done anymore these days, except in fundraising writing. It stands out. It breathes.

Every "extra breath" matters!

Try it!

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3) Shorter, one-line sentences

Like this (sparingly):

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4) Custom indentation

Like this (also sparingly; see last paragraph below):

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5) Spaced ellipses (in print; usually not in digital, to avoid line wrap problems)

Like this:
. . .

Not like this:

...

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6) Ample margins

Like this:

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7) Johnson Box

The Johnson Box (the text above the salutation) has many important benefits. It's prime real estate. It can also add some nice extra space.

Like this:

Bottom line:

Don't let your words crowd your donors. Give them room to breathe.

Let your every page be a safe space! :)