The Language of Philanthropy

I’m a self taught writer. I never wrote anything of note before launching this blog. I’d like to think that I’ve improved and I’m pleased that my brother, an award winning journalist for many years, grudgingly thinks I’ve learned a thing or two.

I’m always appalled at the number of typos that end up in my posts. I know that I often write in circles and it is always humbling when I occasionally ask my brother to edit something I’ve written and he manages to cut my word count in half while making my point more clear.

So this video, about exploding the heterodoxy of “official” writing rules really makes me smile. We don’t “dress up” our language here at Tactical Philanthropy. It is more like casual Friday every day. While this post might be a bit off topic, I think that philanthropy as a sector tends to suffer from an overly “proper” approach to communication. If you believe, as I do, that a core goal of philanthropy should be to spread good ideas, then this video is a useful (and fun) look at the language we use.

Click here to view the video if you are reading this post via email.

One Comment

  1. Thanks for the post. I feel the same way. I never wrote a lot and certainly not every day as I do on my blog. Thank you for sharing the video – it’s very well done and creative. Thank you for reminding me of all the obscurity of the English language!