1st Make your original message
Just because Christmas commemorates the birth of Jesus does not mean that your letter must be on the residenceEvents that took place in around the crib. You do not point to donkeys. Instead, consider the other characters in the drama and find a way to present your case for support from them.

For example, sounds are Mary and Joseph in a country occupied by a foreign army (live familiar?). Joseph fiance has a child who is not his pregnant, but he stays with her and raises the child as his son anyway. Uncommon. The prevailing emotion around the birth of Jesus is the fear. TheShepherds tremble in the fields. Herod acts out of fear. Mary and Joseph to flee for their lives in Egypt.

2nd Include your Christmas appeal to current events or current topics
The key to your donors by paper and postage costs, the connection is relevant. Their presence is a necessity that they both understand and appreciate. One way to demonstrate the relevance of your cause is to make your case for support in your Christmas letter with the events that are uppermost in your tieDonors living in the moment.

For example, right now (October 2008), people in the United States must choose their next president and the people in Canada are the choice of their next Prime Minister. The people in Israel during the time that the first Christmas without a voice and no vote had lived, lives under a military dictatorship has it.

Also in your donors are living through a time of enormous financial volatility. The banks are going bankrupt. Millions lose their homes to foreclosure.And the stock markets crashing globally. Can you tie all these themes to the events that celebrate Christmas as "peace on earth," "all people of good will," and the world is obvious that for some divine intervention. I know you can.

So I suppose you can see that what I recommend you do at Christmas is something about the season that your readers will have never thought of before (the original), while showing how close Christmas, and your need for funds is more relevant andobvious today than ever before. The gifts will come.

This book helps. . .
Read Breakthrough Fundraising Letters. Master the proven techniques that professional direct mail fundraising copywriter Alan Sharpe letters used to craft breakthrough. You'll learn to avoid the error to immediately implement the best practices and tips, techniques and shortcuts that you use to come for years.

Visithttp://www.raisersharpe.com/books/Book002_Breakthrough.htm

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If your answer is "all of the above, here are some ways to increase are tested to the size of donor gifts fundraising letters.

Ask for specific amounts

In making the size of the gifts can specify that donors can help to overcome their inertia and prevents them from thinking that a gift amount (which can be too small) on theirown.

Increase the size of the smallest donation

If you ask for a feature string in your reply device, increase the size of the smallest proposed gift as this.

Before:
  $ 20 $ 45 $ 100   Other $______________

After:
  $ 25 $ 45 $ 100   Other $______________

This simple adjustment is likely to translate into larger average gifts, although your response ratecan easily shrink.

Tick the desired donation

In response, the donor unit back e-mail with their gift, the second circle, and the higher amount. Among your circle, hand-written: "Your gift of this amount will make a big difference."

On the basis of questions of each donor giving history

In the example above, you see, if you ask donors to donate $ 20, $ 45 or $ 100, they are likely to make a donation of $ 20, spend $ 45 or $ 100. But what about your donorswhich are capable of the higher levels? What about your donors that you receive more gifts than the proposed answer to your device?

One way to increase the size of average donations is to ask each donor to give a gift of the same size as their last. When Samantha's last gift was $ 150, $ 150 ask for that time. When Brad recently mailed you a gift of $ 75 (an amount in excess of $ 45 is less than the $ 100 to your questions about string) and ask for a gift of $ 75 on your next call BradLetter.

Customized queries such as these are expensive in time (database manipulation) and production (for each individual printing device response or letter), but the results can be spectacular. Again, this is time to test.

Mail special appeals to major donors

Donor or a member, you will receive gifts of £ 1,000 or more should never be told: "Your gift is from £ 25, £ 50 or even 100 pounds – whatever you can manage – are greatly appreciated, especially now." In the same way that youshould never ask a donor to £ 100 £ 1,000, you should not ask a £ 1,000 donor for £ 100. Asking major donors for large gifts amounts increased the average size of individual donations.

Upgrade donors each year to cover inflation

Another way to increase the size of donations, is to invite your donors, perhaps once a year to increase their gift amount by a certain percentage, to cover the cost of inflation. Example: "If you succeed, you will increase yourGift of 4% this year from $ 50 to $ 52, which help us to keep pace with the costs of inflation. "

Reduce costs

This step is no improvement in the gross revenue, but it will raise a net revenue. Reducing the cost of design, printing, letter shop, mailing and other tasks – even if only for a few cents per pack – You can net without much additional effort to improve. To be sure, not decrease the quality of your complaint letters and packages.

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Yes, your goal with offering a back-end premium to increase net sales. If your mailing is over and you have deducted the cost of the premium and the cost of fulfillment of your gross income, you will surely want the revenue would remain higher than it be without the premium.

Butwith a book or a DVD or other incentives affects more than just your short-term bottom line. So, before you drop that fund-raising letter in the mail, tempting offer, the "free" incentives in exchange for a gift, ask yourself these two questions.

Q1. If this premium to help me avoid my duty as a fundraiser?

Premiums work because they are attractive to donors. The donors want them, and how they will receive at no cost to (other than the "cost" of a donation). If you have a danglingsufficiently attractive gift before the donor, they react. But you are in the voluntary sector, not in retail. They are a fundraiser, not a used car dealer. Sorry, sellers. Your duty as a direct-mail fund-raising campaign is to attract charitable purposes, not to hawk trinkets.

Q2. If this premium is strengthening the connection of the donor with my love?

Books by your founder, DVDs, showcase your success and good that your calendarDonors actually hanging in their kitchens are effective in improving your donor's affinity with your organization. These and other back-end bonuses strengthen the bond you with your donors. Return address labels, stickers and other gimmicks I do not approve.

Stephen Hitchcock and his colleagues at times Warwick & Associates discovered long ago that back-end bonuses usually work best gifts from current donors, upgrading, especially if the premiums are tied to donor recognition (aPlaque, perhaps).

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Test # 1: Are you also aware that many people?
The average return rate for a direct-mail donors
Acquisition mailing is 1%. Which means you must
mail to purchase 100 units of envelopes 1 donation. And e-mail 10,000
Letters to acquire 100 donors. 100,000 letters and e-mail
1000 to acquire donors. ThisMathematics is the inevitable
Direct-mail fundraising.

So direct mail is not the best instrument for the acquisition of donor
You when you are in a small town, has a small
Pool of potential donors, or if your organization
unknown. To be successful at direct mail donor acquisition,
Your company needs to have a broad name
Recognition, or if you are new, with one of the founders
wide popularity.

Test # 2: What do you meet a pressing need?

To attract new donors with fundraising letters, your
Organization needs to make a convincing argument for the
support. Many non-profit organizations serving
Constituency who are either too small or too dark
Appeal to many donors.

The Moose Jaw Amateur Radio Club, for example, is a
Fine organization, I'm sure. But they did not arrive
urgent necessity. Heart disease is an urgent need.
Global warming is an urgent need. And drunk driving.
And diabetes. To be successful in direct-mail donors
Acquisition, your company must meet a simple,
urgent human need.

Test # 3: You will pass a search on Google?

If you have no track record, no annual report, no
Examination of the statements and no way to prove that you
financially responsible, ethical and trustworthy, is now
not the right time to try to acquire donors through direct
Mail. To be successful at direct mail donor acquisition, your
Organization needs public proof that you are credible,
Preferably, many years back.

Test # 4: Are easy to find potential donors to costs —
effective?

Occasionally, I have helped a small, evangelical
Adoption agency to raise funds. They work great
Find loving homes for babies who otherwise
be canceled. My wife and I have two boys through
this agency. As you can imagine, the majority of their
Donors have been affected byAdoption in one way or
another. Most Canadians do not. Which is why the
Organization does not use direct mail as a way to
Acquiring new donors. You do not have a pool of
potential donors that easy to find.

And they rely instead on word of mouth, special events
and building relationships. To be successful in direct mail
Donor acquisition, your company's requirements, which
Lautman & Company, calls "a natural
Constituency. "

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Moses: You look like you're Mennonites.

David: I am. My name is David Martin.

Moses: Hello. [Shake hands.] I am Moses Yoder. Where are you from, David?

David: Goshen, Indiana. How about you?

Moses: Steinbach,Manitoba.

David: Oh, Steinbach. You know, John and Mary Hostetler?

Moses: No, I do not, I think. Where do they get the fellowship?

David: Bethel Mennonite Church. He is one of the deacons. He is a carpenter.

Moses: "If he works for Yoder Construction?

David: Yes.

Moses: I know Cliff Yoder, the owner. His son and my son was in Belize, together with voluntary service.

David: You need to know John and Sarah Statler, then.

Moses: Yes, Ido. We are second cousins.

David: "We had John and Sarah in our congregation just this past week for revival meetings.
Moses: "Imagine!

And so it goes, the Mennonite game, played by complete strangers around the world to build a relationship and find out what and who-in
common.

Their goal is similar to when writing a fundraising letter to an unknown donor. You want to be friendly and personal, to create a relationship between the two of you. But as you canPersonally impersonal with a letter, a mailing that you are someone, you do not know personally, and will probably never meet?

The answer is personalization, personalization, especially database. Your database is a treasure trove of information about each donor. You can just about every single fact about each donor in a creative way in a relationship, conversational tone, really build up and strengthen your relationships.

Here are a few ideas:

Personalize by first name: DearBill,
Personalize by last name: Dear Mr. Phillips,
Personalize by Prefix: As a doctor who appreciate you know that. .
Customize by state / province: Child abuse is a problem in every State of the Union, including Ohio.
Personalize by the date of the first gift: When you first supported us in 1991 we were struggling a little operation, as I'm sure you all remember. Not today!
Personalize by donor interests: Here is the update on East Timor, that you asked me to send you.

TheseTips are taken from 53 Creative Ways to make your fundraising letters, Guide 23 in the popular Hands-On Fundraising Series by Andrew Spencer Publishing Personalize. Learn how rapport, build sound conversation, showing genuine interest and strengthen your relationships with donors. Learn more here.

© 2006 Sharpe Copy Inc. You can order it online and printed edition, provided the links remain live and the content remains unaltered (including the "About the Author"Message).

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Theyshould appeal to the interests of your
Donors.

Each donor has an itch that needs scratching. For
some donors, the itch is anger. Angry donors give
Organizations to appease their moral indignation.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving has a few donors, such as
dass With other donors, the itch is compassion. In a
World filled with such profound human suffering, they feel
compelled to help the less fortunate
themselves.

Your job as a direct-mailFundraising letter writer is
find
Your donor itch and scratch. In other words, your
Task is to find out, why give your donors, and then
give them for this reason too, for your organization.
What every appeal letter you should write, ie
Appeal to the interests of your donor, not yours.

They should appeal to the rational side of the
Donors.

Even appeals to the emotions on a rational basis
Record. They not only showA photo of a
starving child, and ask e-mails a check. They
Instead of showing you the starving children, then the
Causes of hunger (most people made
) in general, describe what the non-profit making end
Hunger, show how the donors will support
to make that happen and then ask for a donation.
Appealing fundraising letters are not only
Emotions. They appeal to the need for all donors
must know that theirFinancial support is realistic
and useful.

The most successful fundraising letters are now
handsome. You can see appealing. They sound
handsome. And they state support for their case in
Terms with the donor resonance, so that the cause
and pass the request for funds attractive
up.

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The most memorable novels, movies and TV shows feature strong protagonists. The protagonist in a drama or story is the main actor, the main character. Some examples:

BOOKS

The Hobbit: Bilbo Baggins.

Moby Dick:Ishmael.

Great Expectations: Pip.

War and Peace: Pierre Bezukhov.

Catcher in the Rye: Holden Caulfield.

MOVIES

Out of Africa: Karen Blixen.

The Ten Commandments: Moses.

Star Wars: Luke Skywalker.

Gone With the Wind: Scarlett O'Hara.

My Fair Lady: Eliza Doolittle.

If you are a hospital, you can guarantee your protagonist a heroic cancer patient.

If you are a relief and development agency, you can your protagonist, is an aidEmployees serving AIDS orphans in Nigeria.

If you have an environmental advocacy organization is, you can have your protagonist, an activist chained to the railings outside the Indonesian Embassy in Ottawa.

If you are an opera house, your protagonist, you can be your most recent, promising singers.

A strong protagonist takes your fundraising letters alive because the donors who give the people helping people. You do not want to read about programs and policies. You wantto read about people, people to help you and your people doing the helping. A protagonist can help you tell your institutional history in human terms, translate your case for support in flesh and blood.

Here is an example of a thank-you letter to donors of a hospital that had recently joined the hospital's monthly program will be sent to:

Dear Mr. Sharpe,

I shook with the youngest heart transplant patients in our country the other day and he asked me toThank you. You are now plays a vital member of the team that keeping Brad alive.

Brad Phillips was only a few weeks old when the doctors here at the Bendix Memorial Hospital gave him a new heart to save his life. That was in 1985. Since Brad is was rushed into hospital in air ambulance to recall pneumonia often mind received a second heart transplant, diagnosed with CMV disease, suffered kidney failure, and fell in love with the hospitalStaff.

"I actually spend more time with them than I do with the family that raised me," says Brad. "I'm sure glad that we are so good!"

Your donors will quickly understand and embrace it when you show your cause, in a dramatic way, who you are and who to serve you, rather than describe what you're doing, making note of your programs, or listing of your services. And do the intuitive way that in a fundraising letter is only one person who can help you or a personto your employees (or volunteers), and tell your story through the characters and show them in action.

© 2006 Sharpe Copy Inc. You can order it online and printed edition, provided the links remain live and the content remains unaltered (including the "About the Author" message).

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Would your writing to be boring? Predictable? Forgettable?

I give the answer in a minute.

Your donors will no longer be lackluster for appeal letters. Today is busy, distracted donors will not donate to exciting causes.

Blame it on Survivor and American Idol. Blame it on cell phones, iPods, Blackberries, digital TV, satellite radio, junk mail,Spam and telemarketing. Blame it on the thousands of other charities competing for the loyalty of your donors. But Do not Blame Your donors. Your donation will be like everyone else, only read fundraising letters that are new. Different. Original.

Appeal letters must now draw attention to yourself and forcing donors to the end to read, and then to donate.

The most effective way to hook readers and keep them connected originally to tell real-life stories that make your fundraisingWrite interesting, dramatic, and convincing.

That does not mean your donation request letters are as long as a novel. Only that they should be as interesting as a novel to read. You need to use the novelist's creative writing techniques to make your complaint more letters well, appealing.

Here are two of them these techniques.

Enter to shoot. Design your network operator terminal so that it just grabs attention and demands to open. Then start yourLeave with a fascinating history, interesting fact, provocative quote or other device that creative writing is forcing your donor to read start and read on.

Let's hang them. Creating tension. Add intrigue. Do not tell your whole story in your first paragraph, but drop hints here and there in your letter that the reader expects more tension. End each paragraph half finished, so that your donors continue to read, to satisfy their curiosity. Here's why.

Peoplehave read The Da Vinci Code, saying they could not put it down. Many people read in one sitting. You need to make a fundraising letter as irresistible.

© 2006 Sharpe Copy Inc. You can order it online and printed edition, provided the links remain live and the content remains unaltered (including the "About the Author" message).

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An inexperienced writerwill tell you about a subject, place or person. But a writer who knows how to craft a new fundraising letter to show you this topic, place or person-in action. Views are built up with scenes. So are movies. And so are the best of appeal letters.

Novel fundraising letters usually open with a dramatic scene, go to the need for government to invite the donor to participate with a gift, one or two more dramatic scenes conclude it with another request for aGift.

Here is an example of the opening scene of a donation request letter, Trans World Radio Canada sent to its donors (Trans World Radio Canada is a Christian radio network, the inspirational programming and the teaching of the Bible, in dozens of languages around the world offers).

We had never seen anything like it before.

It was a Saturday evening in rural Angola. Our team was visiting villages, distributing wind-up radios. In one village, we found a group of at least 150People who listen to a small radio to be broadcast in the week Trans World Radio's. We joined them on the grass and listened from the first to the last program, including the Women of Hope, the ministry of Project Hannah, I know you pray for so faithfully. Then we introduced ourselves, and some new friends. Here's what we have learned.

The villagers, especially women, were surprised and grateful to hear a program directed at them. Since we can not meet these lovely peopleface to face, as I said, I am writing to tell you how your prayers are in the lives of your sisters in Christ, halfway around the world, in Angola.

Why you should donate scenes in your letters? Because your donors are to be movement, action and a three-dimensional experience. Scenes of your fundraising letters "cinematically compelling," says Lee Gutkind, puts it. Scenes include your donors in the plot, whereas they decreased to about your needsFund.

Here is another example, are shipped from the opening of a fundraising letter from Humane Society International:

In a quiet olive grove in Spain, Luna, an unsuspecting female hound, wagging his tail, is a tree managed by their owners. One end of the six-meter length of piano wire fastened around the neck. The other end is thrown over a high branch. The defenseless creature will be through the neck to jerk, and went to hang.

Death does not come easy, as the poorAnimal fighting for precious air and balance. But the more she fights, the more stretched the wire. Finally, after several agonizing minutes, the wind chime is hung dead along with four other greyhounds from different branches of a tree.

As you can see, this letter is powerful not because of the cruelty that she describes, but because of the cruelty it shows. The author leads you to the "peaceful olive grove," and makes you see the cruelty with their own eyes. This is theTo show power, instead of saying, the power of writing in scenes.

© 2006 Sharpe Copy Inc. You can order it online and printed edition, provided the links remain live and the content remains unaltered (including the "About the Author" message).

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