People like to receive handwritten notes. With most communication today taking place through text, e-mail and social media, using a touch of the old fashion in a handwritten note can go a long way in your sports fundraisers. According to studies, fundraising letters with handwritten messages can receive up to a 300% better response rate that typed letters. A great example of this comes from a company called Life Outreach International in Fortworth, Texas. Life Outreach International does an annual appeal that is all handwritten and the response is usually double or triple that of its other letters.
Direct Fundraising LLC is a company that helps sports team raise through the use of direct mail. The mailings resemble greeting cards and are sent out to the friends and family of team members asking for donations. In most cases, these team members handwrite a note to recipients inside these cards. Recently though, Direct Fundraising substituted the use of a real hand written note with a scanned image of hand written note. Although the results of the fundraiser were great, it was clear that a handwritten note would have been much more appreciated by some donors. One donor actually voiced their opinion on the subject by sending in a gift along with the following note:
“In futures solicitations we would prefer a personal note or inscription that was hand written by the athlete.”
The picture above shows the complete note from this donor. This is a great example revealing how much donors prefer to receive handwritten notes from teams and organizations. So take the extra time to do an old fashion form of communication – you will make your donors much more inclined to make a donation to your sports team.
Please comment on the use of handwritten notes in fundraising.
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