How To Writre A Fundraising Letter

Fundraising is such a huge industry nowadays that it is really hard to stand out from the crowd. You need to target people's heartstrings but they are awfully used to having people target their heartstrings. So, you do need to stand out and as I said, it's difficult but it's not impossible.

The first essential is to grab their interest that may be obvious but there is a way of doing that and that is by making it relate to them as closely as you possibly can. Now, if you are writing to Leeds residents about the problems of the homeless in Leeds, that is quite easy. They are on their doorstep, they can visualize them, they probably see them, they know them.

They will relate easily to them. If you are trying to interest people in western countries, in the plight of orphans in Mongolia, it's more difficult, more difficult but not impossible. Don't start by describing the situation in Mongolia, people may not be that interested.

But if you go straight into describing how one orphan girl goes to school, how she helps her mother at home, how she cops with daily life, that is something almost all of us can identify with. Okay, the next thing to do is to show the reader how they can make a difference. Be specific in your requests.

Ask for a certain sum, a sum of money that will perhaps buy a girls schooling for a month, that will pay for her meals. Ask for whatever it is, 5 pounds a month, 10 pounds, whatever you think the people you are writing to might be able to bear. And then you want to try and show them how they can make sure that they are getting value for their money, because when we give to charity, we still want to know that our money is being well used.

And nowadays, fundraisers appreciate that and they invite you to sponsor a child, sponsor an animal, sponsor the recipient of your charity. And that is very engaging, you, if you can correspond with the person to whom you have sent money, you can really feel that you are making a difference. So that is the second crucial ingredient.

Now, the last and equally crucial ingredient in a fundraising letter is to make it as easy as possible for the person on the other end to do what you want them to do, you want them to send you money. Okay, so don't forget to give them, in old days, it was a stamped addressed envelop. In this case, if it's a letter, give them a tear off slip, something they can easily fill in so they just answer some simple questions, give you the information you need and post it or give them an email address, give them a phone number, so they can text their willingness.

Whatever, whatever makes put yourself in their shoes and think what would make it easiest for them to give us this money. And those are really the three only important ingredients in a fundraising letter. It is, it's a difficult task, but it's essentially a simple one, get people's interest, show them how they can make a difference, and make it easy for them. .