How Much Donation to Ask for in a Fundraiser LetterHow to Write a Fundraising Letter © 2009-2010 Ugur Akinci Donations are the whole point to a fundraiser letter. But do you know how much to ask for? If you ask too much you may lose the potential donor. If, on the other hand, you ask for too little, you may either end up losing money or end up with an amount that would not justify all that effort. What payment options should you present to your potential donor? For example, should your “price points” on your ORDER FORM be $1, $5, $10, $___ OTHER or… $10, $50, $100, $___ OTHER ? I’m faced with the same question myself every time I draft a fundraiser letter. Here are two important variables to consider: 1) What is the overall socioeconomic profile of your mailing list? If you’ve rented a list from a mail company, what is the average income data on the Data Card? If you ask for an average $50 donation from a group that makes $20K a year (or $10 an hour), you may lose them right on the spot. Perhaps it’s better to ask for a one-hour’s wage ($10) instead of five from such a group. If however you’re mailing to an $100K a year income group, that translates to $50 an hour. Such folks might not mind donating one hour’s worth of wages for a worthy cause. 2) What is your per-piece cost and response rate? Here I’m going to make 2 assumptions: a) Your response rate is 2%, which is the generally accepted rate in the industry. b) Your cost per envelope is 50 cents, without any Business Reply Mail (which would add another 40 cents per returned piece.) If, let’s say, you are planning to mail 1,000 pieces, your cost would be $500. At 2% return rate, you’ll get back 20 donations. That means your average donation has to be $25 to break even. To make more, you either have to increase your response rate or the suggested average donation. Probably there is more you can do to increase the response rate than to decrease your basic per-letter cost and that’s where the art of copywriting comes into play. You can try mailing out different versions of the same letter in small batches and see which one has a stronger pull. Then you can make that your “control” copy, as called in the industry, and “roll it out” to a larger mailing list. Have a Great Tip, Photo or Comment About This Topic?Do you have a great tip or photo about this? Something that you believe we should read or see? Contribute and share it today! |