PowerPoint slides are not enough if you're lazy

Do you want to wow donors at your next presentation? Do you want to show the donor whales that you're up on the latest with all the technological bells and whistles?

If you do, just remember, less is more, and more is more.

That means less text on your PowerPoint slides, and more attention by to the audience.

In a book titled "Guide to PowerPoint," expert Dave Paradi offered the results of polls he has taken among people who have been in the audience for slide presentations. His findings show that people do not like a presentation in which the speaker leaves all the work to the slide show and none to him or herself. Remember, an audience does not see all the work a speaker has put into a PowerPoint presentation. It only sees the results.

Among the points to remember with a talk featuring a presentation such as PowerPoint:

• People do not like too much text (that is, too many words) on each slide.
• Speakers should not read off a slide. People do not like being told words they can read for themselves.
• Visuals should be used to make a point and help hold a conversation with the audience. Think of visuals as material to be commented on.
• People want bullets points rather than large groupings of words.
• People want text that is big enough to see from the back of the room.