It’s autumn. The leaves are changing. Kids are going back to school.
Time to start working on your year-end appeals letter.
Individuals give most of their donations in December. Nonprofits can get 50%-80% of their income at the end of the year.
What does that mean for your organization? The competition for donor dollars is fierce. Start working on your letters now!
Go Old School
Let’s get something straight right now. An appeal letter is just that. A letter. Not an email or text message. Not a lame Kickstarter campaign. It’s an old-fashioned letter. Stuffed into a paper envelope. With a nice first-class stamp.
Why a letter? Who sends letters anymore?
That’s the point. No one sends letters. That means that your appeal will stand out. It won’t get lost in a spam folder or deleted by mistake.
Take a minute and think about how you collect your mail. Most people immediately sort it. Junk mail goes on the bottom of the pile, then bulk mail, then bills. And on the top of the pile are letters. We open them first. People love to get letters.
That’s where you want your letter to be: on top of the pile.
Later, we will talk about the 6 parts of a great letter.
- Intro Paragraph
- Mission Statement
- Summary of recent activity
- Upcoming activities
- The Appeal
- The PS
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