Crafting Winning Appeals: An AmeriCorps Volunteer Seeks Advice

May 1, 2009 | Read Time: 2 minutes

Are you looking for an outside opinion on a direct-mail appeal?

Prospecting offers fund raisers the chance to get a critique from their peers on their draft appeal letters.

Robert A. Boarman, an AmeriCorps Vista volunteer who is working as a public-relations and marketing associate with the Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic in Indianapolis, is asking for your advice on the clinic’s annual direct-mail solicitation, which will be sent in July to its entire mailing list.

As always, we ask that you provide constructive advice. We’ll share the next draft of his letter once it is available.

Here it is:

Ms. Generous Donor
5555 GiveMeMoney Lane
Indianapolis, IN 46208

Dear Ms. Donor,

2009 marks the 15 year anniversary of the Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic (NCLC). From NCLC’s beginning as a corps of six Christian volunteer attorneys to today with eight paid staff attorneys and eleven paralegals and assistants, NCLC has been able to strengthen and sustain our commitment to serving the poor with quality legal services as a result of your support.

The hallmark of NCLC is its passion for justice, and we continue to demonstrate this characteristic by serving an unprecedented 8,324 people in 2008 through legal representation, preventive education, and intake counseling—a 35% increase from 2007. Despite this strong figure, so many more desperately need our help, particularly in this time of economic instability.

Access to quality legal services is expensive. Private attorneys usually bill between $100 and $300 per hour. With your support, NCLC can continue to provide excellent legal assistance free of charge.

Examples of your contribution’s impact:

• $100 provides a family with the education of how to understand, secure, and maintain a mortgage payment plan.

• $200 provides legal representation for an adoption petition.

• $300 provides legal representation for one family in foreclosure.

• $1000 provides a victim of political or religious persecution with legal representation for asylum status.

• $5000 provides legal advice for 550 people at an intake site over the course of a year.

In addition, you can receive a fifty percent State tax credit for their contributions of $100 or more through the Neighborhood Assistance Program (NAP). Please give us a call at 317-429-4131 to confirm availability because credits are limited.

Please contact me with any questions you may have, I would love to tell you more about our mission and its positive impact in the community. We thank you—through you, we are truly serving “the least of these.”