Donor and fundraising letters
Fundraising appeal letters
An appeal letter asks, which makes it the hardest letter in the fundraising set to write without manipulating. The difference between a good appeal and a bad one is almost never the emotion. It is whether the reader is told precisely what their money does and then left to decide.
Written by Autopen Australia · Updated
The opening, which decides whether the rest is read
One situation, in the first two sentences, with no preamble about the organisation.
Dear [FIRST NAME],
In [MONTH], a woman I will call [NAME] walked into our [LOCATION] service with [SITUATION]. She had been turned away twice that week already, which is the part of this that I cannot get past.
What we could do for her, we did. What we could not do was the thing she actually needed, because [CONSTRAINT].
The ask, with the arithmetic visible
[AMOUNT] covers [SPECIFIC THING] for one person for a month. That is not a slogan, it is the cost: [BREAKDOWN].
If [NUMBER] people reading this give [AMOUNT], we can keep [PROGRAMME] open through [PERIOD] rather than closing the waiting list in [MONTH]. If they do not, we close it. I would rather tell you that plainly than imply it.
The close, leaving the reader free to decline
Counter-intuitive and consistently effective. A reader who feels able to say no is a reader who reads to the end.
If this is not the year, that is genuinely fine and it changes nothing between us. Plenty of people who support us give nothing for years at a time and we are glad of them anyway.
If it is, the form is enclosed and it takes two minutes.
Thank you for reading this far.
[NAME], [ROLE]
An emergency appeal, where the urgency is real
Only when it is true. An organisation that sends three emergency appeals a year has none.
Dear [FIRST NAME],
This is not our usual appeal and I will be quick.
[EVENT] happened on [DATE]. We have [NUMBER] people in [LOCATION] now and funding for [PERIOD]. After that we are making it up.
Anything at all helps and it helps this week rather than next quarter. The form is enclosed.
[NAME], [ROLE]
Getting it right
- What to mention. One person or one situation rather than a population. A specific amount tied to a specific thing. A deadline only if there is a real one. A clear way to say no that does not cost them the relationship.
- What to leave out. Manufactured urgency. Photographs described in the text that the reader has not seen. Guilt, including the quiet kind that opens with a question the reader cannot answer comfortably. Round numbers with no working behind them.
- How long. 200 to 400 words. The appeal is the one letter in this library that is allowed to be long, because it has to carry a story and an ask.
- How personal. Direct and unhurried. A letter that sounds desperate transfers the anxiety to the reader, who puts it down.
- When not to send one. Within a month of thanking the same donor for a gift. A thank-you followed quickly by an ask retrospectively turns the thank-you into the opening move of the ask.
Personalising more than a handful
The fields that earn their place here: [FIRST NAME], [AMOUNT], [PROGRAMME], [MONTH], [NUMBER].
Ask amounts derived from a donor’s giving history are the most effective merge in fundraising and the most embarrassing when wrong. Asking a regular giver for less than they already give monthly reads as though nobody looked, and it is the error donors mention most often.
Before any run, read the piece with the longest value in your data, the shortest, and the empty one. If all three read as English the merge is sound. Personalising direct mail at scale covers the rest.
Sending these at volume
Appeals are the largest runs in the sector and the ones where the envelope decides everything: a windowed envelope from a charity is sorted with the bills, and the letter inside is never read however well it was written.
Autopen Australia writes each piece individually with a real ballpoint, personalises every piece from your list, written into the sentence rather than dropped into a gap, hand-addresses the envelopes, prints your supplied letter or artwork before it is written on, inserts, collates and seals and lodges the run with Australia Post, or sends it back to you to release in waves.
Planning an appeal where the envelope has to be opened? Appeal mailings
Keep reading
Donor thank-yous
Thank-you letters for first-time, regular and in-memory donors, why the receipt cannot do thi…
Major donor notes
What a chief executive should write after a major gift, why the call comes first, and how to …
Lapsed donors
Writing to supporters who stopped giving without using guilt, including the version for a lap…
Donor letters
Thanking donors and volunteers, writing to supporters who lapsed, and acknowledging a major g…
Charities
Donor thank-yous, lapsed-donor reactivation and appeal envelopes, written by hand - plus how …
Writing more of these than you have evenings
Tell us roughly how many and what they say. We will come back with an exact price and a production window.