Writing
Candid tells it like it is. We don’t hide behind jargon. We keep asking questions about the world, let you know what we find out—and help you know what you can do about it.
Our voice
We’re friendly. We want to help, not hype. Our voice sounds like how you might talk to a friend—direct and honest.
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Just filed your 990? Don’t wait on the IRS. Upload it to your Nonprofit Profile today!
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The GuideStar Philanthropic Partners Program enables foundations to bring greater efficiency and effectiveness to their grantmaking.
Yes
The IRS has your 990. Now let’s get it in front of everyone who wants to see it.
Yes
Our Philanthropic Partners Program helps foundations get better at giving grants.
We’re active. We get things done and help others do the same. We don’t use the passive voice.
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Knowledge results when information is combined with experience, and transformed into actionable insight.
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A managed data set from GuideStar can be designed to your criteria to deliver the specific intelligence you need to increase your market share.
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When we combine information with experience, we transform it into actionable insight. That’s what we call knowledge.
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We can design your managed data set to give you the insight you need to increase your market share.
We want answers.
We want to find out more about the world. So we don’t ask rhetorical questions—we ask real ones.
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Are you serious about getting your next grant? Foundation Center’s proposal writing training is for you.
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What if you had to build your own data set from scratch?
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What do funders want from you? Our proposal writing training will help you find out.
Yes
What are the data points and insights you need to move forward?
We get to the point.
Our audience is busy.Use clear, simple words—and as few of them as possible.
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Claim and update your FREE GuideStar Nonprofit Profile to amplify your voice and demonstrate your commitment to results.
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FDO makes it easy to turn foundations into funders. It’s the only resource you need to search for the foundations most likely to give you grants and manage your prospects through to funding.
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If you want to reach more people, claim and update your GuideStar Nonprofit Profile. It’s free.
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FDO can help you find the right foundations, manage your prospects, and get funded.
Wordplay
To speak in our voice, always focus on your message—not fun or clever ways to say it. Wordplay, especially with our name, is at best silly and at worst confusing or evasive. This applies to communicating with customers as well as in private, internal communications.
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Can you believe it? You did it!
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We’re close with many funders who candidly tell us what they’re looking for today.
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Dear Sarah,
To be candid, I don’t think it’s working yet. Do you have some time today to meet?
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Matt:
May I be candid with you? I think we will need additional assistance with this project.
What about our tote bags?
A number of materials we developed for our launch had some wordplay to help our audience learn and remember our name. But keep wordplay to a minimum in other situations. Consult the communications team if in doubt.
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Congratulations!
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We’re close with many funders who tell us what they’re looking for today.
Yes
Dear Sarah,
Truthfully, I don’t think it’s working yet. Do you have some time today to meet?
Yes
Matt:
I honestly think we will need additional assistance with this project.
Using our name
Our name is simply Candid—with no period. Our logo makes a one-word sentence out of our name; it has a period for added visual impact. But when writing our name in text, you should punctuate normally. Follow ordinary rules for proper nouns: capitalize the first letter, except in urls and email addresses.
Headlines and titles
Titles and headlines should be capitalized like an ordinary sentence: with a capital letter at the start and for all proper nouns. (For rules on capitalizing our name, see Using our name.)