Professional bios are meant to impress the reader with your expertise, experience and, yes, your personality. What it’s not is your resume. Your bio is basically a short story about yourself, meant to convince the reader that you’re the person they want to hire, accept into a program, listen to at a conference, or even accept advice from. There are several ways to effectively write your bio without sabotaging your efforts. Here are just a few. #1  Keep it simple and to the point. In other...

We all know what an elevator pitch is, but I suspect not everyone knows how to craft one that really works for you – one that will be remembered long after the elevator ride is over.      We tend to craft elevator pitches by reciting a quick statement about who we are and what we do.      Example: “ Housing For The Homeless provides transitional housing for homeless people in the Puget Sound area .”      Here’s another one: “ I’m with Washington bank. We’re the largest commercial lender in...

Nonprofit professionals produce a lot of written copy in the form of newsletter articles, fundraising appeals, grant applications, annual reports, press releases, campaign documents, and website copy. Their overarching goal is to influence people’s perception of their organization in the hopes they will ultimately do something to support them: make a financial gift, join their board, volunteer, or come to an event. What they don’t realize is that there are many reasons why someone might not...