How to ask for money without begging

Your children’s teacher, principal, and counselor are likely to be Rhode Island College’s graduates. RIC improves Rhode Island’s knowledge-based economy and makes this a better place to live and to invest in. We do it by providing rigorous and student-centered college experience to everyone at a reasonable cost. The State’s voters, philanthropists, and legislators have long recognized our value to the public and invested in our institution. Now we need more of your support to implement critical initiatives at Feinstein School of Education and Human Development:

• First few years on the job are critical to a teacher’s career; too many talented teachers become discouraged. Help us follow our graduates into their first years and provide coaching and mentoring support. Help us nurture the new generation of smart and passionate teachers. 
• A new teacher should not only be a competent instructor, but also an agent of change. Help us give new educators skills and experiences that will make them leaders of tomorrow’s education. 
• Children learn not only in schools, but in after school and summer programs. We just designed a major and a certificate in Youth Development, a degree in Community Health and a coaching minor. Help us build on these successes and become a regional leader in the field of Youth Development. 

Dedicate you gift to one special teacher that changed your life. Remember, we need to prepare more of them for every child in Rhode Island. Contribute to the Feinstein School of Education and Human Development’s campaign My teacher is the best. Our goal is to raise one million dollars to fund innovation.

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We had a development workshop for deans about fundraising earlier today. One of the things we learned is how to construct a clear message if you are going to ask anyone for money; either an individual philanthropist or a group of people. The message should include some emotional appeal, an argument on why your organization deserves help, and also communicate how you are going to spend the money. And it should be brief, otherwise no one will read. So, it took me perhaps 2 hours to write this draft above – and it is still rough. I could have written 4-5 pages of a reasonably coherent text in that time, or send two dozen emails. But that is not what we need in this instance. I will appreciate any ideas on how to improve the blurb.

I have written already about writing shorts. It is not easy, for the more crowded is the informational space, the more effort it takes to compact rich meaning in smaller and smaller packages. Yet it is also perversely fun. I encourage anyone to take your best piece of writing, and just try to compact it to a form that is no longer compactable, but still does not lose much of the meaning. It feels like self-mutilation at times, but it works. This is why some people get paid millions of dollars for one-liners. I have heard somewhere that one word used for branding can cost 20,000-150,000 to develop at a high-end marketing company. One word, and sometimes it is not even a new word; so people pay someone to find it in the dictionary! It is not, however, something magical and we can definitely try to work on these messages internally. They may not be brilliant, but still much better. For example, last year a committee developed “ED@RIC: Change Lives!” tagline. Is still think it is a good one, and we just need to incorporate it into a more comprehensive public relations and fundraising campaign.