10 Aug Six Questions You Might Want to Ask When Planning Your Fall Appeal
11 August 2026
By David Allen, Development for Conservation
The second-best time to plan your Fall appeal campaign is this week – right now – in August. Regular reader of these posts will recognize that I recommend working on your communications planning – INCLUDING your Spring and Fall appeal letters as early as February and March of each year. So August is second-best.
If planning is still ahead of you, consider the following six planning questions for the Fall’s campaign.
1. Are there donors you should be meeting with personally to update them on their specific interests and ask for their continued support?
The answer is YES, obviously. But planning their approach and solicitation NOW will help your scheduling later (not to mention that they should be removed from your appeal letters segments). You’ll also need a plan for soliciting them if they do not respond to your invitations to meet.
2. For your general pool of donors, how much should you ask for in your letter?
When you ask for a specific amount of money, you raise more money than when you don’t. Further, the more you ask for, the fewer number of people will respond, but the more money you will raise, up to some practical limit (probably $250). Ask for $35, and you get what you get. Ask for $50, and fewer people will respond, but you raise more money. Ask for $100 – same thing. Even fewer respond. Even more money raised.
I recommend asking for $100 in the first letter. Use a response card with an ask string that starts with $35. $100 would then be the second option. If you send three, ask for $100 again in the second letter. Regardless, drop the ask amount to $35 for the final letter.
3. Will you plan a follow-up letter? More than one?
I regularly hear two things related to follow-up appeal letters. The first is that “we can’t send a follow-up because we can’t afford it. It’s not in the budget.” When I think about this too long, my head hurts. If you send an appeal letter out that loses money, something else is wrong. There will certainly be a point of diminishing returns, but you should be net positive at least for the second and even third mailings this Fall. “I can’t afford it” therefore directly translates to “I can’t afford to raise more money,” which is ridiculous.
The second is that we shouldn’t send another appeal letter, because we will be pestering people. This is based on an assumption that people receive your letter, read it through, and make an informed decision to not give this year. In fact, this is rarely the case. Most people who do not respond either meant to and forgot (having set it aside and put other mail on top of it), or never really received it in the first place. Maybe they didn’t pick up the mail that day, or maybe it simply got round-filed as soon as it came into the house. Sending a reminder isn’t pestering. It’s reminding.
I recommend sending a letter in mid-October, a follow-up to non-responders the week before Thanksgiving, and a second reminder on December 15. If you want to intersperse those letters with email, doing so will help. And if you want to achieve even greater results, call them right before the third letter drops. (“I’m putting this in the mail for you today. Please look for it.”)
4. Does your landing page support your fall appeal campaign?
When your appeal letter asks for $100 and you include a QR code in the letter, the code probably sends people to the landing page that asks for $35, $100, $250, $1,000, and Other, right? So far so good. But what else does the landing page say? Is there a supportive message from the letter signer? Is the theme of the letter, and the essential case argument for giving (including giving at higher amounts), and the call to action all repeated on the page?
I recommend having a website landing page devoted to the Fall appeal campaign. Your letter(s) and email(s), and Giving Tuesday testimonials should all be thematically tied together into a coherent whole. And the landing page should be consistent with the whole as well.
5. What can you say on the outside of the envelope to help people want to open it?
I received an interesting email a few weeks ago in response to one of my earlier posts.
Hi David,
I have a hot take, with zero data to back it up. 30 and 40 something year olds aren’t deluged every day by nonprofit requests.
I’m not writing this to be disagreeable, I just feel like I am constantly hearing folks say that younger people aren’t donating or aren’t getting involved, and I always want to tell them that they’re not asking us.
(Thank you, Derek!)
I think this is true more generally than with just 30 and 40 something year olds. My own mailbox load of solicitation mail has dwindled noticeably since COVID. To me, this implies two things. The first is that our mailed appeals will do even better now with less competition. And second, we need to work hard to stand out and get noticed.
Use a non-standard size envelope. Or a different-colored paper. Draw a line through the return address and print or sign someone’s name there (so it appears to come from a specific person instead of the faceless institution). Print a provocative quote on the back side. Or apply a sticker to seal it. Put stuff inside (like pressed flowers, maple leaves, or seed packets) to create texture and interest.
Half the battle is generating a few seconds of interest before she opens it. Remember that you are just one of her charities. (See also, She is Not One of Your Donors). Stand out in her mailbox and get noticed.
6. How will you dance around the election, Thanksgiving weekend, Giving Tuesday, and Christmas?
I’ve given you my recommendation. You take it from here.
Don’t let Fall just happen. Plan for it.
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 Alexas Fotos courtesy of Pixabay.
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