Motivating strangers to give their money away is one of thehardest jobs around. It’s difficult to do face to face. And it’seven tougher to do in a letter. But it can be done. And yourchances of receiving gifts in the mail increase once you employsome of the tested methods that are used by leading non-profitorganizations around the world.Make your message relevant Your appealletter needs to talk about what’s important to your donor. Likeyou, donors listen to what interests them. They watch whatinterests them. And they read what interests them. There is noreason that what is important to you and what is important toyour donor cannot be the same thing.Let me give you an example of an organization who got it wrong.A national association raises awareness, provides services andsupports individuals affected by diabetes. Research shows thatjust about every one of their donors either has diabetes orknows someone close to them (father, wife, brother, c easy guitar songs ousin) whodoes.And yet this national organization continues to mail appealletters to its donors describing diabetes in the most basicterms. “Over two million people in our country have diabetes,”said a recent letter. “Approximately 10 % of people withdiabetes have type 1 diabetes,” said another.”If you lived with diabetes and donated to this organization,these appeal letters would be irrelevant to you, wouldn’t they?First of all, you already know about diabetes. And secondly, youdon’t care that “Approximately 10 % of people with diabetes havetype 1 diabetes” as much as you care that you have it. What thisorganization needs to do is start writing fundraising lettersthat speak to their donors where they are now. That means crafting letters that help their donors live fulllives even though they have diabetes. That means positioningthemselves in donor’s minds as the single best source ofinformation for people who have or are affected by diabetes.
