A few days ago we helped a Better Fundraising For All friend improve her fall appeal letter. Here is a summary of what we shared with her after reviewing the rough draft.
The best appeal letters present a compelling problem and ask the donor to solve it. And that’s it. When there are too many other messages in the letter competing for attention you will achieve lower response rates and lower average gift. Successful appeal letters do only one thing and they ask for only one thing – a financial gift to help solve a problem.
In our response to this particular letter we also suggested using a larger font (don’t use small or script fonts), leverage the PS by restating the financial appeal, and using a pictures that shows the problem, not the solution.
What can we all learn from this review? Keep your letters simple and remember the purpose of the letter – to ask your donors to solve a problem by sending you a gift today!
