Following is a sample donation request letter for local museums. Feel free to copy it and modify it for your fundraising needs. For any other use, please contact us. (More fundraising letters and templates…)
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Dear valued member,
Thank you for your dedicated support of X Museum over the years. You know that we rely on your help and really appreciate your dedication, especially in these troubling times.
We pride ourselves on our uniqueness and our capacity for impact. Since 1982, we have amazingly, with member and community support alone, helped 1.7 million children learn about our own community’s unique heritage within the greater American historical context.
We know you likely support us because your own child, your grandchild or yourself as a child participated in these programs. You know what is worth saving.
That is why we are reaching out. We really need your help again, now, or we might have to permanently close our doors.
We already exhausted the relief funds available to us. We already laid off 70% of our staff.
Foreseeing several more months of full closure to the public, we must act now to innovate our business model. Our board of directors, community partners, and volunteers got together for an emergency brainstorming session last week. We mapped out our core needs and objectives and dozens of ideas to pull more sustainable revenues.
What we came up with is a solution for reaching new audiences, while creating new revenue streams that will last into the future.
We need $27,000 of immediate emergency funding to implement the plan.
Funding will go towards a new online platform and marketing campaign to make our virtual museum tours a part of school and university course offerings.
We can get the platform up and running for $11,000. It will include a celebrity tour, interpretive information, and kits for schools from kindergarten to university to integrate the material into their coursework.
A board member’s marketing firm will run the campaign pro bono, requesting only modest expenses to pay advertising fees and design consultants. This budget line is $16,000. They will market to:
- Sponsors to pay for their child’s school or university to participate in the course;
- Online ad sponsors; and,
- Schools and universities themselves, through social media to teacher and student union groups.
If we can modestly get 12 partnerships signed by May, we will have enough revenue to keep our skeleton staff in place until we can safely ride out the Covid storm.
We know what you’re thinking. Another request in this time of trouble. Another organization in need. How much of a difference can my small contribution make?
The answer is a HUGE one. You and your family are one of 35,000 members. If only 1,000 of you, or less than 3% give $27 now, we will make this goal.
And what’s more, since our new online program will bring in new revenue, we won’t have to ask you in December (when we typically do) to renew your membership.
Your membership will automatically be renewed for the next calendar year!
So please, if you value what you, your schoolmates, or your own family have learned over the years and want to keep helping us tell our community’s story, we are asking you to click this link right now. You can make a secure payment through our website, to the 1,000 for $27 campaign.
Sincerely,
Director
X Museum
P.S. This $27,000 is so important to us that if you give $27 before the end of the month, we will include your name on a permanent list of the Covid Heroes Plaque that will adorn the west wing of our museum!
P.P.S. If you’re interested in becoming a sponsor of the new platform for a particular school, we want to hear from you! We’re all at home, so you can reach us through email at info@xmuseum.org.