You may remember back in August I posted a blog called Its not you, its me.
I talked about the fact that often we get caught up as fundraisers writing about us, rather talking to donors about them, and more importantly, their beneficiaries.

I'm revisiting this because its so bloody important!

Sean Triner wrote about telling personal stories in his blog yesterday when referring to thew story Obama gave in his election speech about the 106 year old Atlantan woman.

And I read a gret story in Canadian Fundraiser recently from Alan Sharpe which talked about turning statistics into a compelling story. The copy he references is fantastic.

This was the first line of a 'thank you' letter he discovered from a hospital to newly acquired monthly donors...

"Dear Mr. Sharpe,

I shook hands with our country’s youngest heart transplant patient the other day, and he asked me to thank you. You are now a vital member of the team that’s keeping Brad alive."

I love it.

The personal and heartfelt tone is brilliant. Its all about you (the donor) and is real and moving.

As Penelope Burk, one of the leading authorities on thanking in our sector has written, we (charities/fundraisers) need to find unique ways of saying thank you because let's be honest most thank you letters are rolled out from the year before, which were used the year before that...

You get the picture.

The one above was truly unique and stood out from the clutter.

So the message for the day, use personal and human stories - and don't forget to continue using them in thank you letters.

Look how powerful they can be.

Jonathon