Mass Mailing Fund Drive            Sample Letter

    Put together an information packet about your department, not too long though because it will just be thrown out as junk mail if it takes to long to read.  On your department letterhead have a cover page stating how you try to keep taxes low by raising funds through (insert some of your previous fundraisers here) and how you need the towns help in bringing up the difference this year.  

    Go on to explain some of the things your department is doing in the comeing year and how the funds are needed.  On your second page list some of the things your department has done in the previous year, such as structure fires, MVA's and training.

    Contact your county tax office and request a list of people in your district (in sticker form) so that you can use them as address labels.  Immediately remove out of state businesses/landowners, corporate owned properties etc...  Send the letters out in an envelope from "XYZ Fire Department" to grab attention, not envelopes with no return address.  Also send a return envelope, pre stamped or with your non-profit mailing code.  

Side Notes

    Cassville Fire Company sent these letters out in 2004 with an initial investment of $500 in stamps, sent all the letters out on the same day.  We received more the $2000 back in the next 2 months.

    Also a great money saver for this one.  Stop by your local post office and ask for an application to mail at the non-profit mailing rate, or download this form in our files section.  They will issue you an ink stamper with a serial number on it, then instead of laying out money for stamps, you simply ink stamp the outgoing and return envelopes as Postage Paid by Sender, and you are only charged for the envelopes that actually make it back into the mail.

    Believe it or not the $.37 for an envelope is enough for some people to not bother sending it back with a $10.00 donation.