Mal Warwick wrote How to Write Successful Fundraising Letters in the mid-1990s. To the author’s credit, there are some great examples and great pointers in this book that deal specifically with how to generate money where it did not exist before and how to bring back previous donors to your cause. I can only really fault the book on its age and lack of e-fundraising techniques, but that isn’t a reflection on the quality of Warwick’s knowledge. It just shows that the book hasn’t been updated in a while!
One of the nice things about this book is that it uses actual examples throughout to show Warwick’s point. The writing style makes this book an easy read and I suspect that there will be few people who don’t “get” what Warwick is trying to say in each chapter.
I thought that for my purposes, this book just about hit on all of the core pieces of information that I was looking for. I also liked how Warwick came right out and said to put the rules of grammar aside when writing a fundraising letter. For an English Major like me, that’s hard to do sometimes. However, the point is well-taken and clear examples are provided to illustrate when such writing is appropriate.
So if you’ve got a fundraising campaign going on or if you’re looking to begin a new campaign, it may be of some assistance to pick up Warwick’s book and give it a quick read through for some tips and tricks on raising more money.
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