How to Ask for Christmas Bonus Donations at a Private School
Posted by Jim Berigan on 01 Dec 2008 in: Best Practices, Fundraising Ideas, Letters
There is a local radio station where I live that made a stand this year against the premature playing of Christmas music.
For the past few years, stations up here, and I assume elsewhere, have been starting their holiday playlists earlier and earlier. No kidding, we were hearing Jingle Bells before the Monster Mash.
Finally, one station had had enough. They claimed that most people wanted to celebrate “one holiday at a time”. And I heartily agree with them.
So, now that Thanksgiving is behind us, I can happily focus my attention on Christmas.
It was right around this time each year when I was working at the private elementary school that I would write the annual letter to parents asking them to contribute to the teacher Christmas bonus fund.
I always looked forward to crafting this particular letter, because it was for a very personal cause. Everyone at the school knew that we couldn’t afford to pay the teachers what they were actually worth. (I’m sure many readers will commiserate.) And, our budget for payroll was already maxed out, so the only way we could give our staff a little extra in their December paycheck was to ask for help from the parents.
When thinking about writing this letter, there were a number of specific items that I made sure I worked into the letter. Here are ten of them: continue reading
Sometime during the course of your school fundraising experience, it is likely that you will send out a solicitation letter to parents. Maybe you already have. From my own experience, I don’t think this kind of a letter is anybody’s first choice of a fundraising strategy.


