Masterclass - How to Write More Powerful and Successful Appeal Letters (9-Jul-25)

Direct Mail
09 July 2025
10:00AM to 04:30PM

Individual Prices

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Package Type Available To Price
Individual Member Fee All Days Individual Members £343
Non-Individual Member Fee All Days Non Individual Members £413

Letters are critical to the success of most fundraising strategies. That’s why it’s so important to make sure the copy is as powerful and persuasive at it be.

Standard Content

A well-crafted appeal letter has the power to engage and persuade more effectively than any other type of marketing. It’s a truly unique form of communication. In fact, the skills and techniques that you learn writing really powerful appeal letters can be applied to achieve impressive effect in virtually every other piece of fundraising copy you write.

Why? Because the appeal letter is long-form, structured copy, so it gives you the time and space to pack in a huge set of copywriting techniques. These combine to engage your audience’s attention, stimulate their interest, generate compassion and drive them to act.

Expertly written appeal letters reach people’s hearts as well as their heads. The others only ever reach waste bin. Now you can become an expert appeal letter writer.

This fascinating one-day course focuses on the behavioural psychology, best-practice methodology and advanced techniques that will improve both your appeal letters, and everything else you write. You’ll be guided through every stage of planning, writing and refining your copy so that your appeal letters achieve the greatest possible impact, attention and results.

What you will learn in just one day on this highly focused, fast-paced course will change your approach to writing appeal letters, and fundraising copy, for good.

Who should attend?

This online course is designed for those who are either new to copywriting or would benefit from immersing themselves in best-practice approaches to copywriting for fundraising. Whatever your level of experience, this course will give you the capability and confidence to write appeal letters that are professional, persuasive and profitable.

What you will cover
  • What makes appeal letters a truly unique form of marketing
  • How people read, react and respond to what you write
  • Why 95% of appeal letters hit the bin in less than 3 seconds
  • How to get more people reading more of your copy for longer
  • What makes people choose to support and donate to your cause
  • How to use emotional drivers and visualisation techniques
  • Getting the tone and language right for your audience
  • How sentence length affects reader propensity and tolerance
  • Why headlines are so important and how to write a good one
  • The top headline types explored and explained in their order of effectiveness
  • A best-practice structure for a successful appeal letter
  • Where is the best possible place to put the “ask” in your appeal letters
  • How long should your copy be? Does it matter?
  • How images and captions work best together
  • Making your response devices are more than just a boring form
  • Valuable tips that boost results and common mistakes to avoid
  • More than 100 real-life appeal copy examples used as illustrations
  • Template for reviewing your own and other people’s appeal letter copy
Benefits for you and your organisation

This course will show you exactly how to plan, write, present and review appeal letter copy to ensure they deliver the best possible results. The learning outcomes will ensure that the appeal letters you craft and deploy don’t waste your time, money and opportunity. The knowledge and techniques you gain on this highly practical course will deliver immediate, valuable and lasting benefits for your organisation, your cause and your career.

About your trainer

Paul Chuter FIDM

Paul is one of the UK’s leading communications practitioners. Since 1991, he has provided communications advice and copywriting to leading international business enterprises, not-for-profit organisations, government agencies, professional bodies and academic institutions. Paul has successfully trained staff from more than 300 UK charity sector organisations in effective copywriting techniques. His training is very ‘real-world’ and combines attitudinal approaches, practical techniques and best-practice methodologies that can be applied immediately in the workplace to achieve impressive results.

The live virtual training experience

The Chartered Institute of Fundraising's live virtual training is delivered by trainers who are leading experts in their chosen discipline. Each virtual course has been especially designed to deliver a rich virtual learning experience. Your course will feature:

Technology requirements

The course is being delivered via the online platform zoom. To enable you to interact with your tutor and your class you will need to have access to a microphone (or access to a landline phone) and ideally have a working video link via a camera. To test compatibility with your system, you can join a test meeting via this link https://zoom.us/test

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