Some Simple Ideas to Get You Started on Your Fall Appeal

18 Aug Some Simple Ideas to Get You Started on Your Fall Appeal

19 August 2025

By David Allen, Development for Conservation

Want a great idea for writing your Fall appeal letter? Take $200 and donate $50 each to four land trusts you admire. There are more than 1,400 in the country – there’s bound to be four you admire.

They will send you all of their materials – and probably for the next several years. Next year, send $200 to four new ones. And so on. Before long, your mailbox will be stuffed with great letter ideas.

I think that it’s arguably a legitimate expense – just build an extra $200 into the budget every year. Or better yet, ask two or three Board directors to do it for you.

I was thinking about this strategy several days ago as I read Jeff Brooks’ blog about asking for money in appeal letters. I invite you to read it for yourself here: Hand Over the Money So We Can Be Awesome.

In the post, Brooks opens by saying that organizations tend to think highly of themselves and appeal to us as if we should also. Organizations seem to want donors to stand in the shadows, sending money so they can be awesome organizations. But donors want to make awesome things happen themselves and are looking for organizations that can help them make that happen.

This is a variation on a thematic drum I’ve been beating for years: Donors care a lot more about what THEY do with their money than they do about what WE do with their money.

“When your fundraising says, Give us money so we can do amazing things, you will raise less money,” says Brooks. “Because you’re missing the point. You’ll raise more if you say Do amazing things by giving us money.”

He then shares actual language from four letters he has received. And toward the end of the post, he suggests revisions. I thought that was a great idea, so I pulled out my file of land trust fundraising letters I’ve collected over the years, looking for similar sentences I could use to illustrate the same point.

I didn’t need to look very hard:

1. Our fiscal year ends on June 30, and your $30 gift before that date will ensure we have a strong start to another decade, continuing to tackle the challenges facing our valley’s views, wildlife, recreation, and heritage.
2. With your help, your regional land trust can act boldly and quickly to save the lands and waters our communities depend on.
3. With your help, we can buy the land the bison, prairie dogs, black-footed ferrets, grassland birds, and other wildlife need.
4. We are investing today in our future growth. Plans are afoot that will make our preserves and trails more accessible and visitor-friendly. Your gift today supports our work tomorrow, and in the coming season.

And here are the same sentences with the revised framing Brooks is recommending:

1. Your $100 gift helps tackle the challenges facing this valley’s views, wildlife, recreation, and heritage by starting another decade strong.
   [HINT: Only your accountant cares about your fiscal year.]
2. Help act boldly and quickly to save the lands and waters our communities depend on by making a $100 gift today.
3. Will you help buy the land the bison, prairie dogs, black-footed ferrets, grassland birds, and other wildlife need by making a $100 gift today?
4. Your gift of $100 today supports making these preserves and trails more accessible and visitor-friendly. I’m incredibly grateful for your investment in this future growth.

Note that I added in the $100 bits – every ask in appeal letters should be a specific amount.

OK – so if you called four land trusts and asked to see their appeal letters from the past several years, they would probably send them to you for free.

But where’s the fun in that?

Cheers, and have a great week!

-da

PS:  Your comments on these posts are welcomed and warmly requested. If you have not posted a comment before, or if you are using a new email address, please know that there may be a delay in seeing your posted comment. That’s my SPAM defense at work. I approve all comments as soon as I am able during the day.

Photo by Jack Bulmer courtesy Pixabay