Lucrative Donor Newsletters

How to create, write, design and distribute donor newsletters that recruit supporters, renew donors, retain members, inspire action, build community and raise funds.

• Date: Six Tuesdays in a row: July 22 and 29, August 5, 12, 19, 26
• Time: 2pm Eastern time
• Duration: Each session is 90 minutes long and allows ample time for questions
• Location: Anywhere with a phone
• Presenter: Alan Sharpe, direct mail fundraising copywriter, consultant and coach
• Early Bird price for one participant: $238 before end of day July 15, 2008—a $50 saving
• Regular price for one participant: $288 after July 15, 2008
• Can't make every session? No problem. Each session is recorded for your convenience so you can listen to it by phone, anytime, day or night, from anywhere, free, for up to six days following each session. You won't miss a thing.
• Note: The dial-in number for this telephone seminar is not a toll-free number. You will pay regular long-distance charges. This extra cost has been factored into the price charged for this telephone seminar.

Learn How to Publish a Publication with Purpose.

The secret to your long-term success as a non-profit organization is keeping the donors you have. Acquiring donors and members is of no use if they give you one gift and never give again. Revenue follows retention.

The cost-effective key to donor retention is a donor newsletter. When your newsletter inspires, informs and involves your readers, they look forward to hearing from you—and gladly participate when you ask for a donation in an appeal letter.

This six-part seminar, delivered by telephone, gives you the tools you need to create, write, design and distribute donor newsletters that recruit supporters, renew donors, retain members, inspire action, build community and raise funds.

Session 1. Tuesday, July 22:
Create and Publish a Publication with Purpose

• do you want your newsletter to recruit supporters, retain members, educate about your cause, build community, inspire readers to act, raise revenue, or all of the above?
• establish your style & tone
• establish a style guide for punctuation, capitalization, spelling, abbreviations, numbers and grammar
• develop a publication calendar 
• define your editorial content 
• establish a budget 
• decide on a size and number of pages 
• decide distribution 
• choose from the many types of newsletters 
• name your newsletter with a memorable moniker 
• anatomy of an effective donor newsletter

Session 2. Tuesday, July 29:
How to Write Compelling Newsletter Content 

• news, features, columns, profiles, interviews, announcements and other content 
• where to find news and stories
• basic story types (chronology, problem-solution, narrative, more) and how to write them 
• put your donor first 
• interview like a pro 
• put the news in newsletter 
• write irresistible headlines 
• write a great lead 
• write to be read 
• write subheads 
• call-outs and pull quotes 
• write in newsletter style 
• editor’s checklist 
• common news writing blunders to avoid 
• working with contributors

Session 3. Tuesday, August 5:
The Power of Pictures 

• think like a photojournalist 
• photography involves three people 
• action + reaction = drama
• posed and candid photos, and
  when to use each 
• smiles and why you must capture them 
• backgrounds can make or
  break your photo 
• eyes looking at the camera
  or away—which? 
• where to find affordable stock photography 
• take photographs that stir emotions 
• secrets to effective composition 
• use lighting to your advantage 
• crop your photos to add drama 
• captions and how to write them 
• cliché photos to avoid like the plague

Session 4. Tuesday, August 12:
How to Design and Layout your Newsletter 

• design a strong nameplate 
• design for readability 
• use a suitable grid system (margins, columns, headers, footers) 
• page size and column width 
• use color effectively 
• choose a suitable typeface for headlines and body copy 
• spacing, leading, justification 
• address, notice of copyright, masthead, date and volume number, ISSN and other standing elements 
• design blunders to avoid 
• beyond 8.5 x 11 
• designing for direct mail

Session 5. Tuesday, August 19:
How to Raise Revenue with your Newsletter 

• paid subscriptions 
• donations (learn 51 ways to raise funds with your newsletter) 
• mailing list rental 
• advertising revenue 
• product sales 
• sponsors

Session 6. Tuesday, August 26:
Printing and Distributing your Newsletter
Cost-effectively 

• using outside suppliers 
• choose the best printing method 
• printing in-house 
• make the most of one- and two-color printing 
• how to request a quote from printers 
• add impact with inserts 
• cutting, collating, stitching, stapling 
• e-newsletters 
• archiving print newsletters online 
• postage and postal regulations

Course Materials

Each 90-minute session includes:

• A handout, full-color, up to 30 pages in length, so that you can follow along as Alan speaks, and so that you have a detailed, thorough set of class notes after the seminar is over
• Sample donor newsletters from organizations large and small from multiple sectors of the non-profit world (colleges, hospitals, relief & development, religion, social services, children)
• Free access to a recording of each session for six days following each session

What Others are Saying About your Instructor

• "Alan was awesome. Very engaging and clearly knowledgeable about the subject (and made me excited to get started) thank you!"
• "Appreciated the concrete examples."
• "Great presentation. Liked the way I need to think about my letters. Engaging, kept my attention through the whole session."
• "This was a great session. Interesting and interactive. Please thank Alan for doing a great job!"

Comments from participants at Alan's 2004 direct mail fundraising workshop in Winnipeg, on direct mail fundraising letter writing, quoted verbatim from their Workshop Feedback Forms:

• "Most helpful seminar of the session" (anonymous).
• "Great tips for creative and effective communication" (anonymous).
• "Thanks for the great tips. Very applicable, practical" (Jessica B.).
• "Just what I needed" (Brian T.).
• "Terrific! Very beneficial" (anonymous).
• "Very practical and useful. Thanks" (anonymous).
• "Well done. Most informative" (anonymous).
• "Very helpful" (Len S.).
• "Very good! Well worth repeating! Very practical and user-friendly" (Graham G.).

Comments from participants at Alan's 2005 direct mail fundraising workshop in Mississauga, quoted verbatim from their Workshop Feedback Forms:

• "Excellent! A lot of food for thought + application. Very energizing!" (Diane P.).

• "The workshop was great. The room was inadequate to accommodate the audience. Choose a better room for this speaker." (anonymous).

• "Very useful information." (anonymous).

• "Very much enjoyed the high energy, interactive, informative session." (Keren K.).

• "Excellent session. Very useful." (anonymous).

• "Excellent practical tips! I was jotting down opening sentences all session long." Avril H.).

Another Reason to Attend this Seminar . . .

Your trainer, Alan Sharpe

For over a decade, Alan Sharpe has been writing donor acquisition packages for such organizations as Doctors Without Borders, Habitat for Humanity and Daily Bread Food Bank.

Today, Alan helps non-profit organizations worldwide to raise funds, build relationships and retain loyal donors using cost-effective, compelling, creative fundraising letters.

As a seminar leader and mentor, Alan coaches executive directors and directors of development to craft engaging, warm appeal letters that win the hearts and minds of their donors.

Alan’s popular email newsletter, Direct Mail Fundraising Today, is read weekly by over 5,800 professional fundraisers worldwide. He is the author of the books Breakthrough Fundraising Letters and Mail Superiority, and 25 handbooks on direct mail fundraising.

Alan served as Director of Development and Communications for two international non-profits, where he was responsible for strategic planning, annual direct mail fundraising campaigns, major giving, planned giving, major events, publicity and other enjoyable headaches. He lives and works in the other London (the one in Ontario, Canada).

Alan's teaching style is energetic, fun, helpful and memorable.

Details

One person per registration
This course is for individuals, not groups. You must purchase one registration for each person in your organization who will participate in this course. This course is taught over the telephone.

You are not permitted to pay one registration fee and then put the seminar on speaker phone for others who have not paid. You are not permitted to distribute the dial-in number and PIN to people who have not paid to attend the seminar.

Cancellations
You may cancel at any time for any reason up to the day of the telephone seminar and receive a refund minus a $25 service fee. We have to pay someone else a fee to register you and to process your credit card payment. The $25 service fee that we levy covers these expenses that we must incur on your behalf.

Lifetime guarantee
Apply the techniques and skills you learn in this telephone seminar. If you're not 100% satisfied with your results, tell us in writing and we'll refund your entire fee immediately.

Questions
Phone our workshop hotline at 1 877 742-7732 or write to us at

Recording
This telephone seminar is fully copyrighted. What you see and hear is the property of Alan Sharpe. No audio recordings are allowed.