Notes on annual fundraising letters:
FROM POPE MEMORIAL LIBRARY IN DANVILLE:
We are currently in the process of writing our annual appeal letter.
We send one out every year - each year's letter is different. We
rely mostly on our patron list and every year get a list of new land
transfers from the Town Clerks office. We have found that we get
donations from people who haven't built/moved to Danville yet! We
are also in the process of putting all the appeal information on a
spreadsheet - names, addresses, how much they gave, etc. We always
send an appeal card and a return addressed envelope. It seems that
every year we do something different - for a few years we put stamps on
the return address envelopes - costly but effective. I'm not sure if
we will this year. We have also done a bulk mailing, which does save
money but if an address in incorrect the PO will NOT forward or return the
letter to us.
FROM COBLEIGH LIBRARY IN LYNDONVILLE:
Our library has been sending two appeal letters out for about
three years. We have a bookmobile that is not funding by any
tax appropriations at all. We raise the funds every year.
Before we started sending the two letters a year, the Cobleigh was already
raising $8,000 each year an appeal letter. Our automated
circulation keeps track of donors and we send the library appeal to them
every year.
Some years we expland the list to include more borrowers. We don't
send to the whole list because it would be too expensive. Since we
have been sending the two letters we have been raising about $11,000 to
$12,000 per year.
Last year we raised $4,000 for the bookmobile. This year it was
$3,045, but we haven't heard from everyone at this point. We sent
the last library appeal last November, later than we had wanted to, but we
made our goal in early February! This really pleased us because I
was hearing giving was down 40 to 60 percent.
FROM WARDSBORO PUBLIC LIBRARY:
The trustees send a tri
-fold brochure (fund raising letter) each year, very similar to the attached. It goes to the grand list folks.
FROM WATERBURY PUBLIC LIBRARY:
We have found, through experience, that you
should use
the VOTER list, as the grand list has the name of land/building owners
who do
not necessarily reside here. When we first sent out our fund letters
using the
grand list, we had about half of them returned by the post office!
FROM MACLURE LIBRARY IN PITTSFORD:
This is the letter we sent last week (8/24) - so far, our response has been
above average. We send only to our registered card holders - over
the years I have found they are the ones who donate.
FROM TUNBRIDGE PUBLIC LIBRARY:
We've done
different styles of letters in the 10 years or so we've sent annual
letters. We use the grand list, the check list, the patron list and
previous lists of donors. Even though we are able to use the town
bulk mailing Post Office rate, mailing is still sufficiently expensive
that we have gone through the above lists and refined our mailing list
considerably from them. Our response has been very good, even last
November.
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