What comprises a donation request letter?

Writing a donation request letter can be difficult, the reason being you need to get it just right in order to motivate people to want to part with their money. There are a few points to consider when writing such a letter, bear these in mind and you should get a lot of positive responses.

• No begging

People hate nothing more than what appear to be begging letters. Usually such letters give no facts about where their money will be spent and instead just take up a whole page of sob stories and comments designed to make people feel guilty for not giving. This is not a good tactic; although you may make people feel guilty they won't be sure whether it is a real cause and may give to another charity instead.

• Make it personal and friendly

You do not want to give the image of a cold and heartless company by using a bland manila envelope with a typed address and plain A4 paper with all black, standard font writing.

Try and use white or colored enveloped where possible and you could maybe get some relevant stickers made to stick the envelope down with. Inside, make sure you have properly headed paper with the name and logo of the charity or cause in question.

• Make donation request reasonable

You are much more likely to get a donation if you ask for a reasonable amount. If you send out letters to the general public, who have bills and mortgages to pay, asking for $150 or £100, they are more likely to not respond.

This is not because they think you are being greedy or cheeky, but they would feel guilty by not giving the full amount and so rather than give a portion of it, they may choose to ignore the request.

Obviously, if you are approaching companies, you can request a higher amount but still it is best to get a small amount than none at all.