The fundraising letters are among the most efficient ways to reach your potential donors and make them believe in your cause. They are as personal as they can be – you will not have to meet your potential donors face-to-face. Unlike the fundraising events, these letters can provide you with the genuine opportunity to have the one-to-one meeting. They can be reproduced; this appeal on paper can reach more than just one potential donor. Your efforts will be doubled or even tripled without having to waste your resources. They can also be tested – you can measure the direct mail results and test one package of fundraising letters against another in order to spend your money on the right package.
ROI is measurable as well; the only thing that you will have to do is to code each of your reply cards in order to count how many of them have returned to your inbox with a gift for your organization. Such direct mail numbers will never lie to you. The base of support can be built as well thanks to these letters. The average gift that is usually sent by every individual is up to 35$. Therefore, you will have to provide your organization with a broad base of donors in order to support your existence. Attracting gifts from government, foundations and businesses is difficult and you will have to focus more on the the individual donors who can provide your organization with small gifts on a regular basis. Therefore, you will need a well-thought, comprehensive and well-executed fundraising letter program.
Motivating strangers to donate money to your organization can become a daunting task unless you come up with the right fundraising letter. Just employ some of the following methods because they have already been tested by successful organizations all around the world.
Start by making your message relevant to your potential donors – the letter really needs to talk about things that are important to the potential donors. A donor will listen to things that interest him/her – he/she will be willing to read about such things.
The content of the letter must be relevant to every potential donor – this means that you will have to craft the fundraising letter and make it stand out amidst other letters that the donors have already received from other organizations.
The so-called “make-a-difference” language is another key element – keep in mind that each of your donors will act like an investor who gives his/her money away. This means that the donor will want to know that her/his money will produce the necessary return on the initial investment, even if this return is an intangible one. The “make-a-difference” language is all about showing why this world will become a better place once the donor gives money to your organization.
Another key element when crafting a fundraising letter is the power you give to your donors – they need to be empowered, they must be prevented from thinking that such small gifts cannot make a difference. The sense of futility must be avoided and you will have to write letters that can empower your potential donors and make them believe that they can succeed in their own mission and endeavors to make this world a better place.
The letters should also “talk” and show how the donations you have already received are at work. This is a quite powerful motivator because it demonstrates that the past donations have made a difference. Use real life stories in order to convince every individual that your cause can improve his/her fellows’ lives.
The “feel-good factor” is essential – the donor needs to feel this factor. The meaningful difference should be underlined – the donor must find out more about the way his/her gift have improved someone else’s life. So, you will have to appeal to the donor’s head and heart in order to be successful in your fundraising letters campaign. Raising funds by sending letters is not a genuine science. You do not have to become a rocket scientist in order to know how to write these letters – just put these tips to work in the campaigns you are planning! Here are some samples and the format you can use in order to write successful fundraising letters.
