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Why All Nonprofit Professionals Should Use Grammarly

It was 2016. I was the Director of Public Relations and Development at MRI. Mike with MW Made It and I collaborated on an awesome, branded poster for the first ever Decatur Craft Beer Festival.

The branding for the event was awesome. The logo was awesome (props, Mike!). The poster was awesome. We sent the poster to the printer and distributed matching flyers to 500 or so people. I was really proud of it.

Until I noticed after printing and sending everything out to a gazillion people that “souvenir” was spelled wrong.

Not my proudest moment.

I turned the spelling error around to a "find the error on the poster" contest for free tickets. So, win-win, learned my lesson. Or so I thought.

Sometime during the first 6 months after starting Grit HQ, I lost $1,429 due to typos. Altogether, that was a lesson in humility, getting my act together... and finding a tool to help me prevent that kind of mistake again.

So, I downloaded the free version of the app Grammarly.

What's Grammarly?

Many nonprofit professionals are spread much more thin than I am - putting out fires, helping clients, holding babies, planting seeds, and giving out food. You don’t have time to triple-check every email to see if you accidentally typed “the” twice while you were thinking about your 3:15 meeting.

Consider Grammarly your nonprofit's free writing assistant. You can install Grammarly on your computer or use it as a browser extension. From there, Grammarly automatically detects grammar, spelling, punctuation, and other writing mistakes that you make.

You can work smarter, not harder, by letting Grammarly do the spelling, grammar, and typo checking for you.

And, if you’re from Central Illinois (like I am), those darn past participles are the darndest.

Grammarly corrects those, too.

My Asus Chromebook - which I absolutely love - has a Chrome-based Grammarly extension. So, Grammarly checks my spelling errors, typos, and grammar errors on Facebook, Canva, Twitter, Pinterest, Squarespace, Outlook, Gmail, and more.

Otherwise, you can click here to install a free version of Grammarly.

How does Grammarly work?

Let's say you haven't nailed down the difference between 'affect' and 'effect.'

Well, Grammarly detects when your use of a word is improper!

Grammarly's free plan (kindly) informs you when what you are typing is incorrect. Grammarly's premium plan also tells you why something is incorrect.

With these reminders, you'll start learning WHY something is incorrect.

Either way, you can easily correct your mistakes using Grammarly. Grammarly highlights any grammar or spelling mistakes it detects.

How much does Grammarly cost?

Anyone can use Grammarly for free.

Alternatively, you might be interested in Grammarly's premium plan.

If you decide to upgrade to a premium plan, you'll get access to:

Vocabulary enhancement suggestions
100+ additional spelling and grammar checks
Plagiarism detector

If it's in your budget, use Grammarly's premium plan to proofread important documents like annual reports and grants. The monthly cost ($29.95) would be much, much more cost-effective than hiring a proofreader.

Save Time & Money

If I had been using Grammarly all along, I wouldn't have lost $1,429 due to typos. And I would have been able to pay for the 5-day vacation to Denver, Colorado I’ve been thinking about for the last two years.

Instead, I’m telling you to download Grammarly.

Even though its premium features are great, everyone can benefit from Grammarly's free plan. It literally doesn't cost a penny to try!

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