ABSTRACT
Nonprofit organizations use fundraising messages to raise money, identify new donors, increase visibility, boost public relations, identify potential volunteers and publicize new programs. Fundraising messages rarely are single, one-time efforts. Fundraising e-blasts are becoming more common, but experts say that the most successful fundraising emails remain individual messages sent from current donors to their friends. Like traditional sales messages, fundraising messages require a highly targeted mailing list. A successful fundraising message delivers a personal, emotional, benefit-driven message directly to individual recipients. Like sales letters, fundraising letters often highlight key passages with design elements such as boldface type, different-colored type, underlining, capital letters, subheadlines—and even handwritten sticky notes, prepared and attached to the letter by a machine. Fundraising e-blasts generally replace this headline with the email subject line—for example, “How can $2.98 save a life?” The subject line must be powerful enough to capture recipients’ attention and entice them into opening the email.
