Nonprofit Leaders and Board Members: Write a letter. With a pen, paper, envelope, and stamp. And not just because the Post Office needs your help.

6? years ago, NPR News did a report on the power of writing a letter.

Not a mail merge. Not a “professional” printed letter in 12 point Times New Roman. Not a brochure. Not a letter that only looks like a handwritten letter because someone found a font that looks nice (Rage Italic, Freestyle Script, MV Boli, or the dark and gloomy Mistral).

A letter. Folded. With ink blots, smudges, cross-outs, erasures, and all.

“It's like a totally different feeling when you get mail. Like, oh, somebody really cares about me, than if you get a text, and it's like, oh, another person texted me.” 

-- Carly Walter, former Central Michigan University student and member, “A Letter for Better”

The question arises, then: in the middle of a pandemic, when your nonprofit organization (not a health or human service organization that is overrun, but maybe an education, social justice, technical, or arts organization) is trying to scream for its survival amidst a failing economy and a veritable cacophony of pleas from competitors:

HOW ARE YOU COMMUNICATING WITH YOUR STAKEHOLDERS?

I remember years ago working with a highly-acclaimed development director who really had no idea how to be authentic. Raising money, to him, was a game of sorts - a puzzle to be unwound - and his idea of communication was phony, mealy-mouthed acquiescence, somewhat like the smarmy Jafar from Aladdin. I was working as the marketing and communications director and asked him about personal letters being the optimum way of communicating. His response was unsubtle and less than kind:

What are you talking about? Cursive writing? In this day and age? Are you out of your mind? Stupidest idea I ever heard.

So I backed off, because, well, as Grandma once told me in a thick Russian/Yiddish accent, “Don't buy trouble.”

She also used to say things like, “Don't buy a dog and then bark, too.” She said lots of things.

Anyway, time passed, and this personal letter idea never really left my brain. I used some data I had picked up from a major direct mail (okay, “junk mail”) company and tried to extrapolate. The data showed that, perhaps surprisingly, readership of mail pieces was inversely proportionate to the amount of slickness the piece had. In other words, a piece written in the style of a newspaper (newsprint, black-and-white) was unattractive and old-fashioned, but its purpose - being read - was more successful than the shiny, glossy, 4-color magazine ad. People spent more time, at the time of the research, reading the “Pennysaver” (the “Craigslist” of its day, but in print) than a color ad that appeared in a mailbox. It further showed that people acted upon “Pennysaver”-style publications more often than using a splashy ad, even an ad with a coupon.

So, if newsprint has a higher action rate than color ads, what about personal communications? Are letters read if they look like appeals with little to no personalization? Are they authentic if there is no honest query as to how the reader is doing?

Or are they just easier?

Now's the time to find out.

WRITE TEN LETTERS TO YOUR FRIENDS. THEN MAKE A LIST.

In each letter, put a different piece of personalized information (don't call it out, just include it) and on a separate piece of paper, list the recipients on the left and the pieces of information on the right.

For instance, you might say to your friend Nancy:

“...Things are going okay, given everything. I mean, I'm healthy and the family is driving each other crazy, so there might be murder at home, but no virus! How's your sister, by the way? I remember she was a nurse - was she called back into all of this? I hope she's okay...”

And on your list, you'd write

Nancy | Sister was a nurse

Then, a few days after mailing it, gauge the response.

Did Nancy call? Did she write back? Did she email or text? And most important for your research, did she mention her sister?

Chances are, you'll hear back from all ten, assuming they're still on speaking terms with you. Notate their responses on your list. And don't leave them hanging - continue to write them, if for no other reason than you care about their well-being.

THEN, TRY IT WITH TEN OF YOUR DONORS.

Let them know if things are tough at work, but do not ask them for money. Do include a business card so that they know all the ways to contact you. And make sure you know something about each one of them that can make them feel special.

Then get ten of your board members and staff to write ten letters. Then get them to get ten of their contacts to write letters. Keep track of all letters written so that the same people aren't getting 18 letters and post that information to the letter writers. Make sure they don't ask for money - just have them let their friends know how things are going and remind the letter writers to include something personal.

Then, when it's time, after enough correspondence, don't muck it up by sending a form letter asking for money. Or if you must, make sure you enclose a personal note from the letter-writer that brought them into the fold.

Time consuming? Yes. Easy? Not difficult, certainly, but perhaps a little effort-driven. High-tech? No way.

Effective? Yeah.

In fact, I wish I could have written this in long-hand. 

More people would have read it.

Alan Harrison is a writer, father, performer, nonprofit executive, artist, blogger and impresario (in no particular order). He has led, produced, directed, promoted, raised money for, starred and failed in over 300 theatrical productions on and Off-Broadway and at prestigious (and not so prestigious) nonprofit arts organizations across the country. He’s also a two-time Jeopardy! champion so, you know, there’s that. The arts invoke passion (mostly from artists), but nonprofit arts are only successful when they result in measurably positive change among those that need it most. When a nonprofit’s donors are also its recipients, then its mission is meaningless puffery, flapdoodle and codswallop.