by Q: Why are the Oscars like business writing? A: Being the best candidate is not why you win. (Spoiler: your writing is – or could be.)
Reading time: 5 mins | By Lee Ellwood
As I write this, dozens of pretty Hollywood people are nervously walking the 2026 red carpet and braving the flashbulbs, hoping for a win. Yet, as most of us know, the Best Anything awards do not always go to the best anyone. (Remember Gwyneth Paltrow winning for Shakespeare in Love over Cate Blanchett for Elizabeth?)
That’s what happens in business writing, too – especially reports, grant applications and thought leadership pieces. It’s not the best organisation that wins the attention, the sign-off, the funding or the eyeballs: it’s the organisation with the best writing.
That might sound harsh, but it’s true. Good business writing conveys the value and impact of the great work you’re doing. Poor, bad or average writing doesn’t.
Why is good business writing important?
Businesses don’t write reports, blogs, applications and web copy just to look good on the internet’s red carpet. They write to win – whether it’s funding, program approval, engagement, buy-in or sales they’re competing for. And in the social good space, knowing how to write a good grant application or what makes a good impact report is critical for your organisation’s success.
In recent years I've assessed applications for government funding and student scholarships, and I've experienced the difference between well-written applications and badly written ones. When you have 50 applications for 10 scholarships, or 300 applications for 30 funding places, it’s good writing that will make you stand out and really showcase your strengths.
You can’t assume that your reputation will get you through or that what you do is enough to earn a win. Whether it’s a grant application or an impact report, your readers can only judge you on the writing you put before them.
What is ‘good’ business writing?
Yes, yes, grammar and spelling and commas and all that. The technicalities are definitely important, but first, look at the bigger picture. You’re writing to communicate something, and you’re communicating to achieve a result.
At EllWords, we think about good business writing in terms of what it does, rather than what it is. Effective written business communication is:
- clear: getting your message across, accurately and completely, without confusion
- effective: prompting the reader response that you want (buy-in to your activities, consideration of you as an expert, conviction about your value, donations, subscriptions)
- engaging: giving readers the sense that they know you, which builds trust and credibility
- strategic: highlighting your ideas, achievements, efforts and successes, not any vagueness and verbosity.
That’s why it matters so much that you and your teams develop good business writing skills. Evaluators, funders, stakeholder committees and awards judges rarely see the full scope of the work your organisation does. They can only experience it through your writing. And in a crowded sector or applicant pool, your writing may be the only thing that differentiates you from your competitors.
Let’s return to my funding applications. Presented with 300 applications for 30 opportunities from 300 service providers, it dawned on me how good writing gave certain applicants an edge.
Most of those applicants were probably as deserving of the funding as any other. But unstructured responses, formal expressions, generalised statements and passive sentences made it much harder to identify the claims for suitability. Or the evidence for those claims.
So it wasn’t the applicants’ long experience or prominent reputation in the sector that showed whether they met the evaluation criteria. It was clarity, conciseness and simple directness of responses, which successfully told a convincing story of their expertise and strategies.
Our principles of good business writing
Good writing makes it easier for readers to say ‘yes’ to you, whether your request is for funds, subscriptions, sign-off or buy-in.
Here are our top tips for good business writing, to help you write an effective impact report or a winning grant application.
1. Prepare
- Know why you’re writing and who you’re writing to. A media release for journalists calls for a different writing approach to a persuasive article calling for public attention.
- Have a strategy. Write for the reader, not for yourself. That means you need to know why they should care about your topic and be able to step across into their world as you write.
- Decide your narrative. Work out how your data can be used to tell a story: of need, success, changed lives. The old ‘problem, solution, outcome’ structure is the simplest storytelling format there is – and it works.
2. Craft
- Outline a … well, an outline. Sketch out your beginning, middle and end before you dive into the prose – bullet points are great for this planning stage. In most business writing forms, an introduction and a conclusion either side of your narrative work well. Then start expanding your outline into the full story of your report, research findings or application, bringing in evidence when appropriate.
- Write clearly and concisely. Everyone is busy and time-poor, so make it easy for them to dive in and grab your meaning. Use active voice, drop the industry jargon, and get right to the point. Mixing shorter and longer sentences can help keep readers engaged.
- Apply plain language. It’s not that readers are dumb or lazy; why make it hard for them to see your personality and get your point? See ‘busy and time-poor’, above. Evaluation teams are particularly so.
- Be accurate. Getting your facts right supports your organisation’s credibility and builds people’s trust. When there’s so much competition to be heard, not verifying your statistics and claims can send you straight to the bottom of the pile.
3. Refine
- Cut it back. Once you have a first draft, go back over it. Tighten the language, check whether each paragraph or section flows on to the next one, and take out any waffle or vague expressions.
- Avoid industry jargon, ‘corporate speak’ or internal language. You want readers to feel included, not excluded. Using language and terms they don’t know will send them elsewhere to read.
- Don’t assume knowledge. In many contexts, it’s far better to assume your reader doesn’t have background knowledge of the issue or topic. Gaps in the logic are easy doors through which readers can leave.
- Get someone else to review it. When you’ve worked hard on a lengthy piece of writing, it becomes hard to spot errors and omitted words. Ask a colleague to look your draft over closely for you to see what they pick up. Writing apps can be helpful, but they do make mistakes (such as US spelling and punctuation conventions), so don't accept all their suggestions without verifying.
- Top tip: call on your friendly professional editor. We’re often engaged to do a last check over documents such as impact reports, research articles and grant applications. We have a trained, objective eye to bring to your writing, and you might be surprised by the improvements we make.
May the best writing win – for you
Just like the Academy members, trying to decide 24 awards over some 150+ nominees, your business writing’s readers want to find the best organisations. The one to give their money to. The one making the most impact on the world. The one they can stand beside, ethically and values-wise.
You may have the most committed team, the most effective programs or the strongest client evidence – in short, you may well be the best organisation for the opportunity. But your readers don’t see your team, experience your programs or talk to your clients: they only meet your words. And often, they do so under time pressure, with many other candidates yelling in their ears.
When it’s red carpet time for your organisation, remember the power your writing can have. Make it easy for people to say ‘yes’ to you.
And if time is short or workloads are high, call EllWords. We can help your name be the one called out when the envelope’s opened.
Leave a Reply