What Should the Solicitation Letter Include?
This is not the time to brag about your organization or offer testimonials or success stories. Give them the Ws – the who, what, where, when and why of your event. Name drop influential or well-known people being honored (or even better, enlist them as an honorary board and create event letterhead integrating their names). Tell them who the guests are your event will be – quantify and qualify. For example, “the guests for the evening will include more than 250 local leaders, business owners and community members.” Include a sentence by your “celebrity signer” about why the cause and event is personally important to them. For local requests, remind them that asking community members to spend locally also means that you are relying on local business to support local causes. Give donors a quick sense of when and how the auction will be featured within the larger event. Remind them that a gift certificate or purchase can create a regular new client or customer. And that new happy customers
