Seven steps to a compelling appeal - with examples

Seven steps to a compelling appeal letter

1. Address your potential donor by name. This is a relationship. Avoid words like Friend, Fellow Whatever Lover. That just screams that you don't know who they are.

2. An appeal must tell a brief but compelling story. (A compelling image is a huge help!)

3. Tell about someone who delivers your mission. This is especially important if the appeal is an annual fund appeal, where a portion of the funds will go towards operating costs. You can’t meet the need without staff, and your donors are often highly appreciative of the people who are on the front line making things better.

4. Tell about someone (maybe an animal or a thing –depending on your mission)who benefits from your mission.

5. Connect the need to the two entities, who are now real for your reader. Make sure the need is clearly worthy of support.

6. Tell the donor the difference they can make.

7. Have a hand-written signature and a hand-written note on EACH appeal. (Yes, people check to see if it was hand-written. Just do it.)

Below are two examples:

Dear <First_Name>, (I use first names to avoid using the wrong title.)

Your support is about shoulders. That is what Jeff Hutchins, the smart, savvy, tender-hearted CEO of Penick Village told me. I’m beginning to understand.

Penick Village is about people: people who entered the workforce before there were laws about age or hours, people who worked all their lives caring for families; people who worked to achieve degrees and professions that allowed them to serve their communities, provide for their families and plan their futures, people who now find their years have exceeded their dollars – for whatever reason – an economy that stumbled and knocked down investments; companies that made decisions that decimated pensions, or illnesses that evaporated savings.

So what does this have to do with shoulders?

You may have been in Jeff’s office. Pleasantly cluttered, its focal point is a large oval table surrounded by comfortable chairs. That table brings people together. They come as couples, or they come alone. They come on their own behalf or on behalf of someone they love, but for this visit – the one about Benevolent Assistance – they always come with tense shoulders, worried eyes, tight jaws, and wet palms. Jeff, with his tender heart, listens. He hears worry.

“Where will I go? How will I live?”

He hears fear.

“I don’t know what to do.”

And with every fiber of that tender heart, Jeff wants Penick Village to be able to help As long as there are dollars in the Benevolent Assistance Fund, Bishop Penick’s dream, that no one will ever be turned away from Penick Village due to lack of funds, will be true. Last year alone, Penick Village invested $770,000 in people’s lives – making them safe in their final years. Every one of those dollars meant Jeff could say, “Don’t worry. This is your home. You are safe here.” And he could watch shoulders relax, eyes fill with tears of relief, smiles spread, and hands reach out for hugs or handshakes.

Now I understand. Giving IS about shoulders. The Benevolent Assistance Fund lifts burdens off of shoulders – shoulders of folks who have done their part, served, contributed, cared for us, and now these people need us and our help. Write a check. Give on-line. Put Penick Village in your Will. Join me in making it possible for Jeff to say, “You’re safe here. This is your home.”

Kindest regards,

Sample 2:

Q.: What does it take to win the heart of one cynical scientist – trained at Columbia and Harvard, recruited by Duke University to head research at the Duke Lemur Center?

A.: One frighteningly underweight sifaka infant fighting for his life.

Dear <First_Name>,

Extremely low birth weight. Failure to thrive. Loss of a parent. Attack by an intestinal parasite. Little Rupert has beaten them all, but he didn’t do it alone. In fact, the team effort that would save Rupert’s life began before he was born. Dr. Sarah Zehr, Duke Lemur Center’s Research Manager was working with Antonia, who would give birth to Rupert, in the Lemur Center’s training program. The training, based on positive reinforcement, built a bond of trust between PhD and prosimian. That trust would be key to Rupert’s ultimate survival.

Born one of the smallest sifaka infants on record, Rupert needed help. He needed to be removed from his mother repeatedly to be weighed and examined. At first, he seemed small, but okay. Then Rupert took a turn for the worse. Failing to thrive, he was given supplementary feedings. This meant removing him from his mother even more often. Removing an infant from its mother is stressful in any species, especially for a first time mom like Antonia. But Antonia trusted Sarah, so Antonia stayed calm. Since mom stayed calm, so did Rupert. Calm is essential for a gravely ill infant.

Sarah wasn’t alone in caring for Rupert. Seven days a week, dedicated Primate Technicians kept a careful eye on mother and infant: watching interactions, maintaining a clean and comfortable environment, keeping an eye on coat health, alertness, muscle tone and development, monitoring everything that went into and came out of both Antonia and Rupert. The whole DLC veterinary team, the best lemur vets in the world, focused on saving this tiny lemur (while carefully maintaining the health of more than 200 additional lemurs.) Test were done, antibiotics administered, consultations made, exploratory surgery completed. Still, the scrawny sifaka with the spunky spirit struggled. When Rupert’s father, Otho, died suddenly from a bacterial infection, it was a blow to Rupert’s team. Still, Rupert hung on. Antonia excelled as a first-time mother – attentive, calm, and caring. All the humans fighting for Rupert soldiered on.

Bit by agonizing bit, the battle was won. Gram by gram, Rupert grew. A step-dad, Gordian, was introduced into the family group to help Rupert learn behavior appropriate to a growing sifaka male. Today, the whole family is thriving.

Gifts to the Duke Lemur Center helped make this happy ending possible. When you give to the Lemur Center, you help provide the training program; you help pay technician’s salaries; you help pay for medications and help outfit our tiny surgical suite. Your support of the Duke Lemur Center makes life possible for little fighters, like Rupert, good mothers, like Antonia, and willing step-dads, like Gordian, and you support the work of caring and dedicated scientists, like Dr. Zehr and the team that worked together and saved Rupert.

Sincerely,