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Nonprofit Annual Appeal Letter Template

Seven appeal letters, one per donor group, plus sheets that set each donor's ask amounts from their giving history and show which groups paid off.

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What you get

Pack of 7 files: 4 documents, 3 spreadsheets

Nonprofit Annual Appeal Letter Template
  • Segment Economics and Ask Method NoteDocument
  • Appeal Letters by SegmentDocument
  • Case for SupportDocument
  • Follow-up SequenceDocument
  • Segment DefinitionsSpreadsheet
  • Ask Amount by Giving HistorySpreadsheet
  • Response Tracking by SegmentSpreadsheet

How to write an annual appeal letter

An annual appeal letter is the letter a nonprofit sends once a year to everyone on its list, asking for a gift toward the year ahead. A good one is a set of letters, one for each group of donors. Each version opens on where the reader stands with you, tells one specific story and suggests amounts based on their past giving.

Who gets which version matters as much as the writing. Someone who has given three years running and someone who has never given need different openings and different amounts.

Overhead view of a person's hands at a wooden table with a dip pen and ink, an envelope marked "To:", a folded card and a mug
Write it as one person writing to another, not as an institution. Photo: Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Split your list by giving history

Before writing a word, sort every name by giving behavior: how recently they gave, how often and how much. Each record belongs in exactly one group, so the counts add up to the whole list. Decide up front where donors with gaps between gifts go.

The groups behave very differently. The Fundraising Effectiveness Project, run by the AFP Foundation for Philanthropy and GivingTuesday, tracks donor retention across the sector. In 2025, just under 60% of repeat donors gave again1, but only 18.9% of the previous year's new donors did, and just 3.0% of lapsed donors came back.

What each group's letter does differently

GroupOpen withAsk for
Gave in each of the last two or three yearsTheir run of support and what it paid forAn increase, based on their own best gift
First gift last yearWhat that first gift didAmounts based on that first gift
Lapsed one yearOne line on the gap, then what has changedTheir old level, with a smaller option on the card
Lapsed two years or moreA reintroduction to what you do nowTheir old level, or less if their best gift is years old
Never givenThe work itself, with no thanks for past supportA small, round first gift

Set each donor's ask amounts

Print each donor's own amounts on the reply card. One set for everyone is too high for the donor who has never given more than $25 and too low for the one whose best year was $500.

Suggested amounts pull both ways. In eight studies, including a field experiment, researchers Indranil Goswami and Oleg Urminsky found that preselecting a low amount raised the share who gave but lowered the average gift2.

The template prints three amounts: a base, one and a half times it and twice it, rounded to figures people write. The bigger choice is the base.

For a donor whose giving is flat or rising, the last gift and the best gift are the same number. They differ only where giving fell, and there a last-gift base asks for less than the donor has already given. The template uses the best gift, with the last-gift amounts beside it.

Check last year's card before you choose. Count the gifts that came in at exactly a printed amount from donors who had given more before. Those donors may have taken the number you offered.

ExampleOne donor whose giving fellAn illustrative example written for this guide. The donor is made up.

Gifts, one a year: $500, $250, $150, then $100.

Based on the last gift, the card prints $100, $150 and $200. Based on the best gift, it prints $500, $750 and $1,000.

Last year's card printed $25, $50 and $100 for everyone. This donor sent $100, the top amount, $400 below their best.

  • A gift to count. The top printed amount, from someone who once gave more.
  • Note the year. This $500 came four years ago. The older the best gift, the weaker it is as a base.

Write the annual appeal letter for each group

Write each version in the first person, signed by someone the reader may know, such as your executive director. Keep it to a page for current donors.

  1. Open on the reader

    Start with what this group has done: "You have given in each of the last three years." For people who have never given, open with the work instead.

  2. Tell one true story

    One person, place or incident, with figures your records can back up. Draw it from your case for support and cut any number you can't source.

  3. Ask, and point to the card

    Ask plainly, and point to the amounts on the card instead of naming a figure, so one letter suits every donor in the group.

  4. Add a P.S.

    Repeat the ask, or offer a monthly option.

  5. Enclose the reply card

    Print the donor's name and their three amounts, with an "other" line, a way to give online and a return envelope.

If someone will match gifts, say so

In a direct-mail test with over 50,000 past donors, economists Dean Karlan and John List found a matching offer raised both response and revenue per letter3. A 2:1 or 3:1 match did no better than 1:1.

Check the package before it mails

In the US, anything a donor keeps can change what your package must say. IRS Publication 1771 treats free, unrequested low-cost items such as mailing labels or greeting cards4 as having insubstantial value. A premium, meaning a thank-you item worth more than a token, is different.

If a donor pays more than $75 partly in return for a premium, you must give them a written statement. It says that only the amount above the premium's value is deductible and gives a good faith estimate of that value. Put it with the appeal or the receipt, where they will see it. Small print inside a longer document might not count.

Donors also need a written acknowledgment to deduct any single gift of $250 or more, and the donation acknowledgment template has the wording. If you mail at nonprofit USPS Marketing Mail prices, the Postal Service's rules5 require your organization's name and return address on each piece. You can't lend those prices to a partner.

When to ask an accountant or lawyer

This is a plain summary of US federal rules, not tax or legal advice. Ask your accountant before offering a premium of real value. Many states also require charities to register before soliciting their residents6, so check each state you mail to, including your own.

Follow up, then measure each group

Remind only people who haven't given, once the first wave of gifts is in. Pull that list as close to the mail date as you can, so nobody who just gave is asked again.

Keep reminders few. Economists Mette Trier Damgaard and Christina Gravert tested a reminder on an email appeal to about 17,000 recent donors to DanChurchAid, a Danish charity. Sent a week later, it raised donations but also raised unsubscribes7.

Code every reply card by group and mailing, then report each group's pieces, cost, gifts, response rate, revenue and net, not one blended figure.

One appeal, measured by group

GroupPiecesResponseNet
Gave in each of the last three years61233.82%+$45,228
Lapsed three or more years1,6901.18%−$444
Never given2,8050.75%−$2,260
Whole list8,4007.57%+$74,513

Illustrative figures from the template's made-up land trust, whose other four groups made money.

The whole appeal made money while its two biggest groups lost it. Drop those two and the response rate doubles to 15.24% without a word of the letter changing. That is why a response rate compared year to year compares lists, not letters.

Before you mail

  • Every record sits in one group, and the counts add up to the list
  • Each card prints amounts from that donor's own giving, rounded
  • The letter to people who have never given thanks no one for past support
  • Every figure in the letters traces to a record you can produce
  • Gifts over $75 that earn a premium come with the IRS disclosure
  • Every piece carries a code for its group and mailing

If you'd rather start from a draft, River's year-end appeal letter writer turns your story and this year's goal into a letter, a reply card and a matching email.

How to use this template

Use the files as they are, or open them in River with Edit with AI. River asks for your giving history export and last year's appeal results, including the amounts your reply card printed and the cost per piece. It sorts every donor into one group, sets each card's amounts from that donor's own history and shows which groups lost money. Then it drafts a letter for each group and times the reminders.

No record of what last year's card asked for? River says so instead of guessing, since that is the figure needed to check whether the card held gifts down. It won't write receipts or merge duplicate records. It tells you how many duplicates there are and leaves those jobs to you.

  1. Download it or open it in River

    Download the four Word documents and three CSV sheets free, or open them in River and start from your giving history.

  2. Sort your donors into groups

    In Segment Definitions, place every donor in one group by when they last gave, how often and how much.

  3. Set amounts, then write letters

    Fill in Ask Amount by Giving History, or let River work out each donor's amounts, then adapt the seven letters to your story.

  4. Mail, remind and measure

    Code each piece by group, send reminders on the Follow-up Sequence dates, and log results in Response Tracking by Segment.

What's in the template

What the blended response rate could not showEvery segment netted against its own cost, every ask derived from one donor's history, and the gap the uniform slip left behind.
Nonprofit Annual Appeal Letter Template
RiverSegment Definitions

Segment Definitions

Illustrative, for a fictional land trust called Sable Point Conservancy. FY2025 annual appeal, 8,400 records, one ask string of $100 / $50 / $25 on every reply slip. Cost per piece $1.18, which is print, personalisation, slip, business reply envelope, mail house handling and postage. Every column is a sum over the same file and the bottom row is what the board was shown.

SegmentPiecesCostGiftsRateRevenueAvgNetCost per $
Gave in each of the last three years612$72220733.82%$45,950$222+$45,2280.016
Gave in each of the last two years448$5299420.98%$13,025$139+$12,4960.041
First gift last year, nothing before1,105$1,30419617.74%$13,250$68+$11,9460.098
Lapsed one year934$1,102667.07%$6,400$97+$5,2980.172
Lapsed two years806$951323.97%$3,200$100+$2,2490.297
Lapsed three or more years1,690$1,994201.18%$1,550$78-$4441.287
Never given2,805$3,310210.75%$1,050$50-$2,2603.152
Whole file, as reported8,400$9,9126367.57%$84,425$132.74+$74,5130.117

The 612-record segment at the top is 7.3% of the volume and 54.4% of the revenue. The two negative segments are 4,495 pieces, which is 53.5% of the mailing, and they netted minus $2,704 between them. A cost per dollar raised of 0.117 is under one, so the appeal reads as profitable and is, across half its volume, not. The useful move is not suppression, it is division: the long-lapsed segment produced 20 donors for a $444 loss, so reactivation cost $22.21 each, while the never-given segment produced 21 for $2,260, so acquisition cost $107.61 each against a $50 first gift. Same sign, same line in the report, 4.8 times the price, and only one of them is obviously worth paying.

RiverAsk by Giving History

Ask Amount by Giving History

One row per record, with the string a last-gift rule would have printed kept alongside the derived one. The base is the highest previous contribution. Multipliers are the conventional 1x, 1.5x and 2x, rounded to a figure somebody would write, floored at $25.

Giving historyLastBestOff the last giftOff the previous bestGaveGap
1000, 1000, 500$500$1,000500 / 750 / 10001000 / 1500 / 2000$100$900
500, 500, 500$500$500500 / 750 / 1000500 / 750 / 1000$100$400
250, 500, 1000, 500, 250$250$1,000250 / 375 / 5001000 / 1500 / 2000$1,000none
500, 250, 150, 100$100$500100 / 150 / 200500 / 750 / 1000$0none
500, 1000, 500, 250$250$1,000250 / 375 / 5001000 / 1500 / 2000$0none
100, 75, 50, 25$25$10025 / 40 / 50100 / 150 / 200$0none
150, 250, 250, 150, 150$150$250150 / 225 / 300250 / 375 / 500$100$150
100, 150, 250$250$250250 / 375 / 500250 / 375 / 500$100$150
250 (one gift)$250$250250 / 375 / 500250 / 375 / 500$100$150
50, 50, 75, 50, 75$75$7575 / 110 / 15075 / 110 / 150$75none
no historynonenoneno base exists50 / 100 / 250$0none
150, 150, ?, 150$150$150flagged150 / 225 / 300$0none

Row three is the reason to keep both columns. That donor ignored the slip entirely and wrote in $1,000, which is exactly their previous best and four times what a last-gift rule would have led with. Rows one, two, seven, eight and nine did the opposite: they took a number off the slip that was below their own record, and the top amount printed was $100. Across the file the two bases can only disagree on records whose giving fell, because a rising donor's last gift is their best gift by definition. There are 1,009 such records out of 3,714 with more than one gift, and for those the median lead amount is $200 off the previous best against $100 off the last gift.

RiverResponse Tracking

Response Tracking by Segment

Built before the mail drops rather than after. Each touch carries its own code and the code stays on the gift when it is recorded, so next year's curve can be read per touch instead of collapsing into one blended figure.

The capping gap, by segmentCappedGavePrevious bestGapMean
Gave in each of the last three years45$3,150$6,225+$3,075$68
Gave in each of the last two years18$1,100$1,650+$550$31
First gift last year, nothing before35$2,150$3,525+$1,375$39
Lapsed one year17$1,000$1,700+$700$41
Lapsed two years3$200$300+$100$33
Lapsed three or more years2$100$150+$50$25
Total120$7,700$13,550+$5,850$49
The curve the sequence is timed offHalf in byNine tenths in byTouchDay
Gave in each of the last three yearsday 7day 11Warm reminder16
Gave in each of the last two yearsday 6day 13Warm reminder16
First gift last year, nothing beforeday 8day 15Warm reminder16
Lapsed one yearday 8day 21Lapsed reminder27
Lapsed two yearstoo thin to readtoo thin to readLapsed reminder27
Whole fileday 8day 15Peak day 6, last gift day 43
What suppression does to the headlineWhole fileLosing segments out
Pieces8,4003,905
Cost$9,912$4,608
Gifts636595
Revenue$84,425$81,825
Net$74,513$77,217
Response rate7.57%15.24%

The response rate doubles without a word of the letter changing, because the appeal did not improve, the list did. That is the whole case for coding the touches: a year-over-year comparison on a blended rate compares list decisions rather than appeals, and it is the figure that reaches the board. The curve does the same job for timing. Warm donors were nine tenths in by day 11 and lapsed donors by day 22, so the reminders go out eleven days apart rather than on one date somebody picked, and on or after day 15 there were still 61 gifts worth $6,325 to come, which is what a reminder has to catch to pay for itself.

  • Segment Economics and Ask Method NoteThe method: each group's net after mailing costs, how ask amounts are set and what last year's card cost.
  • Appeal Letters by SegmentSeven letters, one per donor group, each opening on that group's history and pointing to the reply card.
  • Case for SupportThe argument and facts the letters draw on, with a source for every figure they use.
  • Follow-up SequenceReminder dates set from last year's replies, separate tracks for recent and lapsed donors, and who to leave out.
  • Segment Definitions sheetEach donor group's rule and count, with last year's cost, gifts, response rate, revenue and net.
  • Ask Amount by Giving History sheetOne row per donor: giving history, last and best gift, and the three amounts to print on the card.
  • Response Tracking by Segment sheetEvery mailing and reminder by group, with its code, cost and results, plus the test for sending each one.

Common questions

What should an annual appeal letter include?

A good annual appeal letter opens on the reader's own history with you, tells one specific story, asks plainly and repeats the ask in a P.S. Send it with a reply card printed with the donor's name and suggested amounts, a return envelope and a way to give online. Write a version for each group of donors.

How long should an annual appeal letter be?

One page is enough for current donors: the opening, the story, the ask and a P.S. A reintroduction to donors who stopped giving years ago can run to two pages. Put the longer argument in a case for support, and send it to anyone who asks for more.

How much should we ask each donor for?

Base each donor's amounts on their own giving, not one set for everyone. The template prints a base, 1.5 times it and double it, rounded to amounts people write. Choose the base with care: last gift and best gift differ only for donors whose giving fell. Ask people who have never given for a small, round first gift.

When should we send a reminder?

After the first wave of gifts has arrived, and only to people who haven't given yet. Check last year's records for the day by which about nine in ten gifts came in, and send after it. If lapsed donors replied more slowly, give them a later date. Make the reminder shorter than the letter, not a reprint.

Should we keep mailing groups that lose money?

Not automatically. Divide the group's loss by the donors it brought in to get a price per donor. In the template's example, winning back a long-lapsed donor cost $22.21, while a new donor cost $107.61 against a $50 first gift. Whether either is worth paying depends on how many give again next year, which your own records show.

Is this annual appeal letter template free?

Yes. Download the four Word documents and three CSV sheets with no signup. They come filled in for a made-up land trust, so you can see how each piece works before replacing it with your own donors and story. Edit with AI opens the same template in a free River workspace.

What does Edit with AI do?

It opens this template in a free River workspace. River reads your giving history and last year's results and places every donor in a group. It works out the three amounts for each donor's card and shows what each group raised after mailing costs. Then it helps you write the letters. Nothing goes to donors until you mail it.

Sources

  1. Fundraising Effectiveness Project. “Retention by Donor Type.” publications.fepreports.org (opens in a new tab)

  2. Chicago Booth Rustandy Center. “When Should the Ask be a Nudge? The Effect of Default Amounts on Charitable Donations.” chicagobooth.edu (opens in a new tab)

  3. National Bureau of Economic Research. “Does Price Matter in Charitable Giving? Evidence From a Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment.” nber.org (opens in a new tab)

  4. IRS. “Publication 1771 (Rev. 11-2023).” irs.gov (opens in a new tab)

  5. Postal Explorer. “700 Special Standards.” pe.usps.com (opens in a new tab)

  6. IRS. “Charitable solicitation - state requirements.” irs.gov (opens in a new tab)

  7. Aarhus University. “The hidden costs of nudging: Experimental evidence from reminders in fundraising.” repec.econ.au.dk (opens in a new tab)

Written by

Chandler Supple

Co-founder & CEO, River

Chandler has spent the last six years working in AI, building tools for millions of users and Fortune 100 companies. In 2025, he co-founded River to build a new kind of operating system for AI agents.

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Reviewed by

Brian Joseff, Co-founder, River

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