As much a proponent as I am of face-to-face asking, much of my work involves writing letters for our direct mail program. Being a small office (one person), we don’t have professional copywriters built into our budget. So I do the writing myself.

Since my Fundraising Secret #21 on “is this about me or about you?”, I’ve gotten some emails asking for a more specific example of what I mean. Apparently Jeff Brook’s fundraising letter template was a bit too general.

So, at the risk of a very long blog post, I’m going to insert two letters I drafted for selling ads in our annual gala program. The first is from 2006; the latter is from last month. I then offer some analysis.

Here’s the letter from 2006.

September 18, 2006

Name
Company
Street
City, ST ZIP

Dear ,

The String Ensemble and Acadia Brass from the Bangor Symphony Orchestra will present a special evening of musical entertainment as the Inland Foundation hosts a Fall Pops Concert at the Waterville Opera House on Friday, November 10, 2006. Proceeds from the event will go toward the modernization and expansion of the Emergency Department at Inland Hospital and I am writing to ask you to support this effort by advertising in our commemorative program.

The Emergency Department at Inland is a vital community resource – we care for more than 14,000 emergency patients a year in space that was originally designed for only 10,000 annual visits. The project will involve renovation of existing space and new construction of 2300 square feet that will provide up-to-date, private treatment rooms, new waiting, triage and registration areas and expanded support space for physicians, nurses and other providers. The main goal is to offer emergency care in a more timely manner, while respecting and protecting the privacy and dignity of patients and their families.

Please help make a difference in our community by contributing to the success of this superb cultural event. Your advertisement will be seen by every guest at the concert and your support will be acknowledged in the Morning Sentinel.

For your convenience, I have enclosed the details about program advertising. If you have questions, or would like to make arrangements for your ad, please call the Inland Foundation Office at 861-3377.

Thank you for considering this opportunity.

Sincerely,

John Doe, Chair
Inland Foundation Board

P.S. Thank you for considering an ad. We’ll call you in a few days to follow up.

Enclosure: advertisement information

Notice how dense the first two paragraphs are? Yikes. At least I told them I was asking for their money in the first paragraph! But it’s us, us, us, we, we, we.

Not really good.

Here’s the one we sent this year:

July 7, 2008

Name
Company
Street
City, St ZIP

Dear Name,

I’m pleased to announce that the third annual Fall Pops benefit concert will be held on Saturday, October 25. Since this event can offer great exposure for your business, I wanted to give you an early opportunity for your organization to get involved.

Fall Pops is the Inland Foundation’s biggest fundraising event. This year the concert’s proceeds will benefit Inland’s cardiac rehabilitation program. Participating in a cardiac rehab program after a heart attack or stroke is the proven to be the single most important health prevention tool available. Your involvement will help the program be open to even more people that need it.

This year’s Fall Pops will feature some of the top musicians from the Bangor Symphony Orchestra. Once again, we’re honored to have the BSO’s Music Director, Xiao-Lu Li, conducting these musicians as well as performing on the violin. We’ll follow the concert up with the very popular “Meet the Musicians,” gourmet dessert reception!

The two main ways to get involved are:
• by joining more than a dozen of us as a sponsor, or
• by advertising in the Fall Pops program.

Both options allow you to get your company in front of hundreds of people the night of the concert. And all sponsorship levels give you two complimentary tickets both to the concert and the “Meet the Musicians” gourmet dessert reception. Some levels also give your organization exposure before the event.

Please call Marc Pitman if you’d like to participate. His direct line is 861-3377 and his email is mpitman@emh.org.

Thank you for considering supporting this year’s event,

John Doe, Chair
Inland Foundation Board of Trustees

P.S. Act soon, a few of these opportunities are on a first-come first-served basis.

Morphing the 2006 letter to something that answered the reader’s legitimate “what’s in it for me?” was very challenging. I’m basically unlearning over a decade of bad letter writing habits.

This year, I tried put their values right up front. There are still some dense paragraphs, but I did include a couple bullet points to make it easier to read. (And to catch their attention as they skim the letter).

Here’s an interesting breakdown of the uses of “you” and “your”:

• 2006 – 9 uses
• 2008 – 10 uses

I didn’t really add more “you’s” in the newer letter. But look at how they’re used. In the first letter, they’re concentrated in the bottom half of the letter and used regarding “logistics.” And any of you that did sentence diagrams in fourth grade will notice that most glaringly, “I” and “we” are still the subject of most of the sentences with “you” in them.

In 2008, four of the “you’s” are right up at the top of the letter. And more often, “you” are the subject of the sentence, not “I”.

I offer these not as the end-all-and-be-all of direct mail copy. I offer them simply as trail markers on my journey of trying to connect donors with what they value most.

Let’s make this a conversation. Use the “comments” option to tell me what you think is good here and what could be made better.

Other Possibly Related posts:

1. Fundraising Secret #43: Fundraising takes guts
2. Fundraising Secret #41: Round with your donors