Hi Reader,

At Food for the Hungry, we had a very young writer on staff. On a call one day, I said it might be hard for someone that young to write well for our older donors.

My boss, the chief development officer, corrected me. His answer, more or less: that's their job. Their job is to put themselves in the donor's shoes. Let them do their job.

He was right. A good writer doesn't have to look like the audience. A good writer has to see the world the way the audience sees it, and write from there. It was a useful correction for me as a leader, too. Sometimes the best thing you can do is get out of the way and trust the people you hired.

That lesson matters most at year-end, because the place where you either stand in the donor's shoes or don't is the very first sentence of your appeal.

THE BIG IDEA

Most year-end appeals open the same way. "As we approach the end of another remarkable year at [Organization]..." Or a statistic: "Every day, 800 children in our county go to bed hungry."

Both openings are about you. The first is about your year. The second is about a problem so big the donor can't picture it. Neither one puts the reader anywhere.

The first sentence has one job: get the second sentence read. If it doesn't, the rest of your letter doesn't matter.

What works is one person and one moment. Not "children in our county." A child. Not "families we serve." A mother, standing somewhere specific, at a specific time.

There's research behind this. In a well-known study, people gave more when they read about one hungry girl than when they read statistics about hunger across Africa (more in One Number below). The same researchers found something every appeal writer should know: when they added the statistics right next to the girl's story, giving dropped. The numbers didn't add weight. They pulled people out of the moment.

Here's what that looks like. Say a food pantry's draft opens: "This year, our pantry served more than 12,000 meals to families in need." Accurate, but flat. Now try: "Maria waited until the other moms left the pickup line before she asked us, quietly, whether we had any formula." Same organization, same mission. The second sentence puts the donor in the pantry.

So before you print or schedule anything this year, go back to the top. Find the person. Find the moment. Put it first. Save the totals for the report-back, and let your organization's name show up later, after the donor already cares.

3 THINGS TO TRY

TRY THIS: Cover up your appeal's first paragraph and read from the second. If the letter starts better there, delete the first paragraph.

TRY THIS: Rewrite your first sentence so it has a name (or a clear person), a place, and a moment, in 25 words or fewer. Write ten versions before you pick one.

TRY THIS: Read only your first sentence to someone who doesn't work at your organization. Ask one question: "Would you read the next sentence?" If they hesitate, keep writing.

GO DEEPER

If your appeal is still a blank page, or the story you need hasn't been approved, Finish Strong: The 90-Day Year-End Fundraising Course can help. It shows you how to find one story, get permission to tell it, and turn it into a specific, believable offer. Then it walks you through writing an appeal letter and a twelve-email series that put the donor at the center. It's thirty short video lessons built around the Finish Strong workbook, with ready-to-use tools, AI prompts, and a real example campaign to follow. Take a look at Finish Strong.​

STEAL THIS

Three opening-sentence patterns. Fill in the blanks with a real person and a real moment from your work.

The moment before: "[Name] was [doing something ordinary] when [the problem showed up]."

Example: "Daniel was halfway through his shift when the call came that his apartment had flooded."

The question they asked: "'[The exact words someone said],' [Name] asked us, [where or when]."

Example: "'Is there somewhere my kids can sleep tonight?' Rosa asked us, just after nine on a Tuesday."

The thing you noticed: "The first thing I noticed about [Name] was [one specific detail]."

Example: "The first thing I noticed about James was that he'd worn his best shirt to the food pantry."

When to use them: use one as the first line of your appeal letter and the first line of your first year-end email. Only use real people and real details, with permission. If you change a name to protect someone, say so.

ONE NUMBER

$2.12 vs. $1.21: the average gift from people who read about one hungry 7-year-old girl from Mali, compared with people who read statistics about food shortages in Africa, in a study by Deborah Small, George Loewenstein, and Paul Slovic. Read the study (PDF).

It was a small study with university students, each deciding how much of $5 to give. But the direction matches what fundraisers see every year-end: one person moves people. A crowd of numbers doesn't.

WORTH YOUR TIME

​5 Mistakes to Avoid in Your Fundraising Letter Mistake number three is "Making It All About You," the same trap this week's openings fall into. A quick checklist before your letter goes to print.

​Your Year-End Appeal Starts With Last December's Donors A different way to open for one important group: start with their gift, not your need. If you segment your year-end letter at all, this is the segment to start with.

​Sympathy and Callousness (Small, Loewenstein, and Slovic) The full study behind this week's number. Read the section on adding statistics to a story before you put a big number in your opening paragraph.

ONE QUESTION

What's the first sentence of your year-end appeal this year? Hit reply and send it to me.

See you Tuesday,

Jeremy Reis

P.S. Finish Strong walks you through finding the one story your campaign needs and writing the appeal around it, so your first sentence is about a person, not your year. See the details here.​