Here’s A Real, Live “Donor-Centered” Appeal Letter
You’re probably working hard to create a donor-centered appeal letter for the fall fundraising season.
But what does “donor-centered” really mean?
What does it look like in action?
We all know how it is supposed to work:
We’re supposed to make it all about the donor and not about our organization.
It’s easy to pay lip service to this idea, but putting it into practice is much harder than it may seem.
I’m giving you a “before” and “after” version of an appeal letter.
Receive expert advice. Direct to your inbox. Subscribe
Here’s what happened. I was working with a hospital outside New York City to upgrade their overall fundraising program. The staff brought me their fall appeal letter to review.
The original unedited letter went like this:
Dear Mr. Donor:
Did you know that last year Smith Hospital:
- got this award expanded
- this center of medicine
- brought in xx number of new doctors
- did this, did that, etc.
This was a nice letter, written in the correct tone that I had been working with the staff on.
I liked that the word “you” showed up immediately in the first sentence.
But the letter seemed all about the hospital, and not about the donor.
So I sat down and, just brainstorming with the staff, came up with this revised letter instead.
Find out how we can help you achieve your fundraising goals with world-class consulting and custom training.
And I think this is a true sample of what people mean by “donor-centered.”
Here is a donor-centered appeal letter that’s friendly, casual, heart-felt and even a bit intimate.
Its tone is very personal. It has short sentences, action verbs, lots of white space.
And it talks about the donor and what he gets from the hospital.
This donor-centered appeal letter is all about the donor.
And we’d be pleased if you’d like to knock off any part of this letter.
If any words or phrases seem to ring true to your cause and for your donors, by all means USE THEM.
And this letter uses the word “you” 14 times. It uses the pronoun “your” 8 times.
Dear Name,
When you or a family member is ill or injured, where do you turn?
If you’re like most in our community, you go to Smith Hospital.
Why?
Because you know you will receive absolute top-notch medical care.
And you also know that you’ll be treated like a real person, by dedicated, compassionate health professionals in a warm, caring environment.
Your contributions have helped make Smith Hospital the leading regional health care provider that it is. We are so grateful to you for helping to create and support our committed team of caregivers.
You are helping our caregivers touch the lives of thousands – whether patients are facing an urgent need, a devastating disease or seeking to improve their quality of life.
Smith Hospital is your community hospital. We exist to serve you and your loved ones – to provide hope, healing and recovery.
Your gift is extremely important because it offers immediate resources that are directed to current needs and opportunities at the hospital.
Your gift of $500 will help make an immediate impact on urgently needed health services to our community.
Our doctors, nurses, therapists, pharmacists, dietitians, technicians, Emergency Department staff – every one here who works to serve you joins me in thanking you for your generous partnership and support.
If you’d like, you can specify your gift to a particular department or program – The Cancer Institute, Breast Center, Cardiology, Emergency Department, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Pediatrics, Community Health, Integrative Medicine – wherever you choose.
Please send your gift today. All of our caregivers are counting on your support.
As medical care advances, your hospital is committed to staying at the cutting edge – for you, for your loved ones, for every person in the community. Please help to make this possible with your contribution.
Your donation is helping to make our community healthier. Right here. Right now.
Thank you so much for your help.
Sincerely,
Xx
President and Chief Executive Officer
So what do you think? Yes, the appeal letter can be improved, probably in lots of ways! :)
But do you see:
- the personal tone?
- The use of the word “you?”
- The white space?
- The short paragraphs?
- How I tried to add urgency to a “general” appeal? (Not easy to do)
- How I tried to tie the donor’s gift directly to results?
- How I asked for a specific amount?
Thanks so much Gail and I especially appreciate your invitation to USE your letter and not reinvent the wheel. You give us real tools we can use in real time. Perfect.
Great letter! Gale – I so appreciate you throwing it out there as an option for anyone to use to further their good cause. I like that the signature is from the President/CEO…not the Development person, and that the letter doesn’t just ask, it thanks the donor by telling them what great things their contributions have already accomplished.
Thank you!
Thanks for making this available. I’m sorry I missed the webinars! Sounds like I would have learning something valuable. I took this letter, and rewrote our end of the year fundraising appeal. Thanks so much!
Thanks for making this available. I’m sorry I missed the webinars! Sounds like I would have learning something valuable. I took this letter, and rewrote our end of the year fundraising appeal. Thanks so much!
Terrific! Glad it was helpful!
Hi Wendy, typically I like for a well-known board member or volunteer to sign to add credibility. But in this situation it seemed nice for the President to sign it.
Hi Carol, hope you take it and use it for my favorite organization!
(Disclosure, I’m on the board!)
Great letter, Gail! And very “swipe-able”! I might suggest indenting each paragraph, and if possible using a specific ask, instead of a string.
Thanks for doing this – real, actionable information is a great, great thing in our field. You’re the best!
GREAT example. It’s the picture in the dictionary of what a solicitation letter should look like. So generous of you, Gail, to make it available for all to see since people often overlook what real “donor-centered” is all about.
Thanks Lorri, I was happy to share it. And we all need better fundraising models and examples that work for today’s donors, don’t you think?
Hi Mary, Yes, I’d like to see a specific ask too – would make the letter a bit stronger.
Hi, Gail: this is a dynamite donor-centered appeal letter. Thanks so much for sharing and encouraging us all to focus on our donors! Katie
Thanks Katie!
I love that you gave what I call “a menu of options” – you can donate to this department, that department, in this amount or that amount – in my experience donors really like to have options and presenting them with a sliding scale increases the chances that they will better be able to visualize how they can give in a way that’s meaningful to them and the organization. I’m gonna save this one! Thanks.
Yes Lori, I agree that offering donors a chance to designate their gifts increases the likelihood that they’ll give – and give bigger!
As a small shop that writes and prints our own letters, I’m interested to learn what others’ thoughts are about keeping to one page or running over to 2.
Can you show is how this would be adapted for a legacy appeal?
Gail — Thanks for much for sharing this letter. What are your thoughts about adding a P.S. ?Everything that I have read suggests the P.S. is often the second thing readers will look for.
Tina, PS is absolutely the first thing a reader will actually read Totally important!
Peggy – studies show that longer letter draw better returns than shorter letters. Interesting, huh?
I went back and checked the letter that is going out next week and was pleased to see I had written you/your 13 times. Your suggestions remind me of what I need to do to be a better fundraiser. Thanks
Love, love, love the simple layout. Very to the point, but heartfelt. Thank you for helping a newbie like myself get off to a great start in my first ask. You are the best, Gail Perry!
Angelia, so glad I could be helpful! Bet you knock it out of the park!
Thanks Gail for the sample! What are your recommendations for sending an appeal letter to those who aren’t previous donors? Any thoughts on how to focus the letter for an education foundation?
Hi, we wrote a similar letter to nondonors. We just said that it was the contributions of community members that helped make the hospital what it was today.
And if you are writing for an educational foundation, you can say that the whole community wants to be proud of a terrific school for the young people of your area. You can reference that the donor/reader is probably proud of the school, and wants to invest in his/her community. But I think a cold letter to people who are not affiliated with the school in any way might be a tough sell. Better to send to vendors, parents, grandparents, those who are affiliated.
Dear Mam, This is a grate sample letter to communicate further more in the future. Hence we communicated with many of donators and other but they also guiding to us that, registration and asking money. We are running 13 welfare home for disaster affected children and caring their education. We are a Catholic Church and Diocese. which is the way can you contribute your gift to this disaster affected children’s education. Please find some of benefactors for our children.
This is wonderful! Thank you for not only providing a specific example, but being so willing to allow others to imitate/copy your letter. I work for a domestic violence center that does not currently have a development director so this is enormously helpful to me. Thank you!
Hi Jessica, glad this letter is helpful to you. My goal is to help you do your job better! :)
Thank you so much for this, really brought insight as I sit and write my own solicitation letter. I appreciate you letting us use it and also for using pronoun “you.”
Emilie, thanks and hope you can use the word “you” tons and tons of times in your letter! Gail
Oh this is a great letter. Very helpful. Thanks!
A excellent example! Thank you for sharing.
Hi Gail, love the letter and thank you for sharing. How can one create a donor centered letter for organizations that are just starting out, say a church for example?
Ada – who’s your audience; what is on their minds; what do they want to hear?
start there! Gail
How would you word it for a homeless shelter or a transitional center since relatively few donors would likely find themselves in need of such services? Thanks!
You’d write a story about the poor homeless people and talk to the donor in these terms and use the word “you”:
“You know how awful it is to be cold and hungry. It’s not something you’d wish for anyone you know. You and I both don’t want these awful things to happen in our community. What can you do? . . . “
This is super helpful. Thank you! How much and how do you change this for different seasons? BTW, I noticed some typos – wherever and everyone. I used this as a starting point. One thing I felt I had to change was the stuff at the end. It felt like too much. Thank you for sharing this. I’d love to see a collection of these that could serve as inspiration as it does not yet come naturally to me.
Thank you so much for sharing this. As I embark on writing my first ever year-end appeal, it came in so handy and helped me craft a really great letter!
This is great! Thanks for sharing. How would you word it for a program for the developmentally disabled?
Great article! As a charitable fundraiser I get asked a lot about what works best, especially now with crowdfunding. So I created a guide for folks writing their own donation pitch, as one of my gigs over on Fiver. https://www.fiverr.com/entrep2013
Gail, this is awesome. Thanks so much for sharing. We are working to incorporate more donor-centric language in our communications and this is a terrific example.
Welcome Darryl! It’s so hard to get this right!
The click for your next webinar on sept 10 is broken! I want to attend :)
Oh I see it was from several years ago..
This is great! Do you have any suggestions for a new nonprofit that supports Firewives with successful marriages? The Firewives also supply personal items to victims after fire and traumatic events. Do you have any upcoming webinars? Thanks!
Caiti, we are having a Donor-Centered Appeal Letter workshop tomorrow! Here is the link: http://www.gailperry.com/webinars/how-to-create-a-donor-centered-appeal-letter/
do you have suggesstion for getting support from international churches, NGO for persecuted christian asylum seekers
Shop for every day services and help charity by purchasing at Immaculate Distributors. Part of your purchase proceeds to NGOs around the world that intended to help striving women and children.
For more information be sure to visit http://www.immaculatedistributors.com
How would I focus on the donor in the situation of a nonprofit that’s a sober bar/lounge for young adults – primarily young adults recovering or having recovered from alcoholism/addiction?
Hi Danielle, talk in the letter about the young adult issue and say that the donor probably understands this issue deeply. Ask the donor to take action to help the situation – make it the donor’s initiative not yours.
Gail this letter is a life saver! I am the new “touch feely” President of a non profit and my job is to write a letter to be included in our evening program for our annual fundraising gala to benefit a local children’s cancer treatment unit. Our existing letter is meaty, filled with facts and data…I’d like to make this letter more like what you’ve done here. However, my question is, how do I promote the clinic, staff, world class care while also drawing attention to the 3rd party (our nonprofit) who raises money for them all the while making the letter about the donor? And I only get 1 page. A bit convoluted…would appreciate your insight.
HI Naz! terrific question! you can’t spend all your verbiage bragging about your organization. So mention these things like world-class care in the context of serving the donor or serving “you.”
Such as : “We bring you world-class care . . .
or a much better way to say it is this:
“You get world-class care . . . “
perfect matter, I was delighted!
Adriano Santos, Apaixonado por e profissional na área de Impressão UV, São Paulo – SP
how do i write a great appeal for an animal shelter when the shelter may not directly impact them?
You talk to the donor about the donor’s love for animals. And how the donor’s gift can save the lives of animals. Your donors really CARE about animals. So it works.
Lovely! Thank you for sharing this terrific example! I have added it to my swipe file for reference.
Hi Gail,
This is a great example. I work for an organization that helps children and adults with developmental disabilities. How would you structure an appeal letter for this? It is often hard to get people to connect to our mission if they don’t know someone with a disability. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you so much,
Kristen
That seems simple enough…..however, what do you do when your community is no longer economically stable and the majority will only donate to children’s events or medical causes? I work with an animal shelter and it has been increasingly tough to get local businesses to support animal shelters
I loved it. It was so heartwarming. I felt like a close friend was talking to me. I also like the way you thanked the donor. Thanking people is SO important.
It seemed to have a direct ask. What type of ask (example) are you saying would make it even stronger?
I really like this letter – especially the tone. How could I craft something like this for a performing arts center and also acknowledge all the recent tragedies and many in need?
I think the direct ask would be, “Will you show your support of XXX with a gift of $500?” I believe a direct ask is one where you ask it in question format.