You and I know the first sentence of a letter is crucial. It has to grab attention.

One of the most effective ways to do that is to establish or remind the recipient of his or her relationship to the letter writer.

For example, you and I are both people who are involved, in one way or another, with writing fundraising letters.

Once you have the reader engaged, the next step is to acknowledge your shared concern about a problem. This problem could be starving children, homeless people in need of help, the need to find cures for cancer …

… or the need to create effective fundraising letters.

When you have the reader emotionally engaged and thinking about your shared problem, the goal is to tell them how their relationship with you helps to solve, or at least alleviate, the problem.

For example, if you were to work with me to create fundraising letters, it would merge your knowledge, your creative talents, and your management skills with my writing ability and my experience of more than 20 years of writing effective letters for non-profits.

The final step in a fundraising letter, of course, is to ask for action. The key is to make it clear that the solution the letter writer and reader have both agreed is possible can only happen if the reader does his or her part. And it’s important to act now.

For example, we can only create effective fundraising letter together if you call me or e-mail me. And the sooner you do, the sooner you’ll find a creative, professional writer to make your job easier, and increase the results of the fundraising programs you manage.

Please give me a call, or e-mail me today. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Tom Pelletier

P.S. The best use of the P.S. in a fundraising letter is to introduce some new information that summarizes the appeal. This is just one more part of the formula we all know works for fundraising letters. But while we know the formula is simple, the execution can be difficult. I have written more than 2,000 letters for more than 150 non-profit organizations. What this means is that when we combine your abilities with mine, we can create great letters that get results — with a minimum of difficulty. So why not call me today (631-569-5552)?  Or email at tom@tompelletier.com.