Melanie Frazier, director of development at the Winnetka Community House, in Illinois., is the latest fund raiser to ask Prospecting readers for advice on a direct-mail letter.

Ms. Frazier said the draft letter that follows will include a perforated stub that provides prospective donors with a choice of seven amounts they can choose to give.

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

Since 1911, the mission of the Winnetka Community House has been to develop strong bodies and alert minds for social opportunity, and to provide a place for community interaction and life enriching programs. We ask that you lend your support as we approach our 98th year.

The generosity of others has allowed us to provide the type of programming and services our community desires. Permit me to share a letter we...

The weak economy has nonprofit organizations searching for creative ways to raise money.

For many institutions, the first step is getting board members to increase their efforts to solicit money. But that is tough, especially at a time when many trustees are worried about their own financial security.

How can your organization best inspire board members to solicit donations? What are other organizations doing to build better relationships with their board members?

To answer these questions, the Chronicle will conduct a live online discussion tomorrow at noon Eastern time.

The live discussion is free and readers are encourage to submit their questions ahead of time.

As part of this discussion, we also invite you to share your tips on how to persuade board members to participate in your fund-raising efforts.

Please feel free to share you ideas in the comment field below —...

In August, Prospecting readers offered advice to the executive director of a Charlotte, N.C., ministry group who was attempting to create his organization’s first direct-mail campaign.

David Hickman, executive director of CharlotteONE, submitted the first draft of his letter. Readers replied with recommendations on how to improve the letter.

Mr. Hickman has since incorporated those ideas into the final version of his appeal, which appears below. We hope you’ll let us know what you think — and offer ideas for how to follow up on this appeal.

Here’s the new version:

Dear Prospective Donor,

In 2007, Brett Brocato moved to Charlotte with big hopes and big dreams of finding a new life. He was ready for a change. However, the life-change Brett experienced after moving to Charlotte was not what he had in mind.

After graduating from NC State with a Master’s Degree in...

Molly Hinchman is facing a question faced by many executive directors of small nonprofit groups these days.

Ms. Hinchman, who runs a small nonprofit mental-health organization, submitted a question for today’s Chronicle live discussion seeking advice on whether charities should mention hard economic times in their fund-raising appeals.

“My conservative and traditional board is reluctant to refer to the economic hard times in our appeal letter. This seems crazy to me,” Ms. Hinchman wrote. “Although I understand that we do not want to sound desperate so that potential donors think they are throwing good money after bad, the truth is we are desperate, unlike many of our sister organizations, and these are times that take a toll on mental health in particular. How can I convince my board that it will be a good move to be honest? Or is it a good move to be honest?”

How is your...

Arlene Spencer, a grant-proposal writer, doesn’t believe charities should be scaling back their direct-mail efforts in light of the poor economy.

In fact, Ms. Spencer says charities that have eschewed direct-mail appeals in the past should consider incorporating them into their year-end fund-raising efforts.

“Whether your organization has sent an annual appeal letter before or not, it is something that you can do to raise money in these tough times, and again, year to year, when our economy rebounds,” Ms. Spencer writes on Seeking Grant Money Today. “It is one of many ways that any nonprofit can raise money.”

The advice comes as charities nationwide are reevaluating their fund-raising plans to deal with the changing economy — especially with the crucial year-end giving season approaching.

To help charities prepare for the year-end giving season, the Chronicle is playing host to ...

As competition for attention grows, charities need to do more than have a great mission to win attention from donors and other supporters. Experts say they also need to put more effort into marketing their ideas and causes.

As a start, Nancy E. Schwartz, a marketing consultant in New York, suggests that charities develop a catchy slogan to capture their work – and cement an image in the public’s mind. For instance, the American Lung Association uses the tag line “Improving Life, One Breath at a Time.”

Ms. Schwartz recently studied the tag lines of more than 1,900 organizations to identify some of the nonprofit world’s most effective messages. As part of her research, Ms. Schwartz found that seven in 10 nonprofit groups rate their tag lines as poor — or do not have tag lines at all.

So what makes a winning tag line? Why are they important? And how do you create a tag line that...

Do donors still trust charities?

Steve Andrews, director of charity marketing at the Direct Marketing Group, a British company, says he has noticed that people are increasingly skeptical about how charities operate.

And that is making it similarly difficult for fund raisers to win the support of donors.

Mr. Andrews, writing on the blog Professional Fundraising, points to a recent British survey that found a 17.5 percent drop in public trust of charities from September 2006 to July 2007.

“It turns out that only 42 percent of the British public now trust charities,” he writes. “Admittedly this is more than trust the BBC, the Royal Family, the Church or the banks, but that is surely a small consolation.”

He blames several possible causes — too many direct-mail pitches, too many tales of excessive executive compensation, and the notion that some charities look too much like...

Many fund raisers get frustrated when their carefully crafted direct-mail appeals create lower-than-expected results.

In many cases, charities blame the letter for the poor response.

But Sandy Rees, a fund raiser who works with nonprofit groups in Knoxville, Tenn., says the real culprit for poor direct-mail results often lies elsewhere.

Ms. Rees, writing on the Get Fully Funded Blog, says the letter accounts for only about 10 percent of a direct-mail appeal’s effectiveness.

The most important factor in getting results, she says, is the mailing list.

“The list you use to mail to will make or break your appeal,” Ms. Rees writes. “After all, if you don’t mail to the right people, it doesn’t matter how good your letter is.”

She estimates that the mailing list accounts for about 40 percent of an appeal’s success.

Other important elements include the timing of a mailing (20...

Disasters such as the September 11 attacks, the tsunamis in Asia, and Hurricane Katrina spurred Americans to dig deep to support those in need.

But as charities such as the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army are appealing for help in the wake of the recent hurricanes on the Gulf Coast, some experts conclude that donors should be directing their money elsewhere.

Holden Karnofsky, the author of The Give Well Blog, points to a recent report on Disease Control Priorities that concludes that emergency relief is one of the least-effective forms of philanthropy.

The report says charities and donors should focus their money on disaster preparedness and on activities that combat “chronic, everyday health problems.”

“I’m personally hesitant to give to disaster relief again,” Mr. Karnofsky writes of his reaction to the report. “I’d rather up my donations to projects that aim to...

Today marks the dedication of the Pentagon Memorial — the first of the memorial projects to be completed after the 2001 attacks.

In the seven years since the attacks, fund raisers for memorials at all three sites that were struck by the terrorist airplane disaster have been greeted with several setbacks.

But the Pentagon Memorial was able to move forward with a defined plan and a straightforward fund-raising approach.

“We were lucky in that it was very well defined from the beginning,” said James J. Laychak, the chairman of the Pentagon Memorial Foundation, in a 2006 Chronicle interview. “It allowed us to make some clear decisions. It allowed us to focus on what we need to do. We could go forward with the traditional fund-raising efforts.

But before that could happen, Mr. Laychak, who lost a brother in the attack on the Pentagon and works as a business consultant, had to learn...