Write it right or don’t write it is my mantra about end of year appeal letters! Tis the season for end of year appeal letters. Why should you send out an end of year appeal letter? 22% of all the money non-profit charities take in for the year comes the last two days of the year! So, get your lure in the water!
Whatever you do write it right! I once got an end of year appeal letter that asked me to contribute to paying for new lights in the sanctuary. I know they needed those lights but frankly that was not motivating. My question was why wasn’t that covered in the operating budget? Why was it so important that it was an urgent end of year appeal?
Let’s Build a Case for Why People Should Give You Money at the Close of the Year!
One of the biggest mistakes churches make is assuming people know they should give and why. Non-profit charities never make that mistake nor should the Church. So, we need to build the case for why people need to give you money.
Charities start with a crisis. They focus on things like the lack of food, water, medicine or some other problem in the world that is causing pain and suffering. They then express the need. What money it will take to help meet this crisis, etc. Finally they make the “ask.” They unapologetically ask you and I to give to help them meet the case they just made.
Basically your “ask” needs to encompass the following elements…
Crisis – I want my donors to know about…
Need – We can help by…
Ask – Your gift NOW will help us meet this need!
Here is an example of how to write it right! A few days ago my friend Pastor Jason Bunger of Hope UMC in Dayton, OH called to ask me how to write his end of year appeal. I talked him through the above points and he sent me this first rough draft. Read what he has written below…
Dear Family,
“I cannot let that woman die.”…These were the recent words of Zambian medical missionary Sal Marini to his wife after receiving a call at 3:00 a.m. from a woman who had just given birth to a baby, but was unable to deliver the afterbirth. In the bush of Zambia, the process of childbirth is a life and death experience in ways that many of us could never imagine. Often there is no doctor nor sanitary facilities. In fact, just this afternoon I was told; “ Jason, it is not uncommon for these women to give birth to children on a dirt floor or the back of the pickup truck.”
As a church family, we must do something about this. The Sons of Thunder medical clinic desperately needs to complete the construction maternity center for these children. All we need to raise for the completion of this maternity center is $15,000. For the same price that it cost to deliver a single child in the United States, we can build a multi-bed facility that would preserve the lives of the upwards of 58 mothers per month who travel as far as 100 miles to deliver children hundreds of children per year. (http://www.webmd.com/baby/features/cost-of-having-a-baby?page=2)
By partnering with us to completing this center, we are able to:
1. Ensure these children are born in the safest, most sanitary and medically supervised conditions possible.
2. Reduce the number of mother fatalities that occur to mothers in childbirth. Therefore…
3. Reduce the number of orphaned children in this region.
3. Ensure that those children born with the HIV virus can be given the proper treatment that defeats the HIV virus within 18 months of treatment.
I want to personally invite you to participate in this ministry with us today. Please join us by remembering these families, spreading the word about this ministry, and by prayerfully considering how you could give alongside of us.
Your Pastor,
Jason
P.S. We have attempted to make this opportunity to be convenient for you by enclosing a self-addressed stamped envelope so you can mail your gift to this ministry today. You can also give right now by visiting www.hopeindayton.org and hitting the giving link.
If Jason ever decides not to pastor I am hiring him! This is how to write an end of year appeal letter. So, go do thou likewise!
Mark Brooks
Founder and President
The Charis Group and Charis Giving Solutions
Ask me what is so important about January 8th at 2 PM EST!