"You are NOT trying to get people to read. You are trying to get them to ACT."

It's easy for nonprofit staff and volunteers, impassioned about their cause, to believe that their work stands out from the rest of the pack. We just have to let donors and funders know we exist, right?

Wrong, according to Tom Ahern, an award-winning nonprofit communications consultant and magazine journalist who's in high demand for workshops and conferences.

In his new book, Ahern doesn't write about how to create individual types of PR materials such as annual reports, donor letters, Web sites, etc. And he doesn't provide whole examples, even though he refers to real examples for every instruction. What he does do is present a "donor-centric" outlook and method that should be at the core of any communications piece.

But first he walks the reader through a reality check in chapters one through ten, which bear titles like "Setting Your Expectations: Be Pessimistic" and "Why Your Fundraising Communications Fail to Get the Results You Want." Basically, Ahern explains how most people filter, ignore, or otherwise deal with information overload every time-strapped day. Then he reminds you, in Chapter 10, "You are an intrusion, too."

Ten chapters? Yes, but the book clocks in at only 176 pages, split into 40 chapters (including the afterword) that average 4-6 pages each. And Ahern uses a lot of bullets and headings to break up the already short chapters.

In other words, he walks the talk, fully aware that readers have short attention spans and even less time, just like the donors they hope to reach.

He also includes a primer on reader psychology and a collection of tips having to do with major components of many fundraising materials such as headlines, taglines, news angles, emotion, and readability. He likes using "you" but not "and." He also likes the Flesch-Kincaid scoring system that shows up after using Microsoft Word's spell check. (This review scored a 55 percent just so-so, according to the author.)

Novice and veteran writers will find this engaging book a fast and easy read, presumably like the materials Ahern produces for his clients. And his pithy guidance will enable you readers to move quickly from reading to acting which, after all, is the whole point.