How to write a charity donation request that gets a yes

A good charity donation request is one of the highest-return jobs in fundraising, and one of the most botched. Get it right and a local business hands you a prize worth hundreds, or a national company posts you a hamper you can sell twice over. Get it wrong, usually by firing off a generic mail-merge to a hundred addresses, and you get silence. In twenty years of sourcing lots for charity auctions, I have learned that the ask itself, not the length of your list, decides how much comes back.

This is my practical guide to asking businesses and individuals to donate: auction lots, raffle prizes and money. I have raised over £10 million across my career, a good deal of it on lots that came in free because someone asked well. Here is how to write a request that gets a yes, and how to sidestep the small mistakes that quietly earn you a no.

Who should you ask for charity donations?

Ask three groups, and in this order: your own supporters first, then local businesses with a reason to help you, then national companies that run a formal donation scheme. Warmth beats reach every time, so start with the people who already care about your cause.

• Your own supporters. These are the warmest names you have: past donors, volunteers, board members and their contacts. Someone in your existing circle often owns the holiday home, the box at the football, or the small business that becomes your best lot.
• Local businesses. Restaurants, salons, gyms, garages, breweries and independent shops give generously when the event is local and the connection is genuine. They want to be seen supporting their community, so give them that.
• National companies with donation schemes. Many supermarkets, retailers and attractions run a formal community-giving programme with an online application form. These are less personal and more of a numbers game, but they cost you little more than the time to fill in the form. Football clubs, breweries and visitor attractions are often the most generous, and a signed shirt or a family day out photographs well in your programme.

A note from experience: when you decide what to ask each group for, aim at experiences, not objects. A donated weekend away or a money-cannot-buy experience almost always out-sells a physical object of the same face value, because nobody can price it online. For more on what actually sells, see my donation ideas.

How do you find the right person to ask?

Find a named human being before you write a word, because a request addressed to a person gets read and one addressed to “info@” usually does not. Thirty seconds spent identifying the right contact is worth more than thirty emails to a general inbox.

For a local business, the simplest route is to phone and ask: “Who looks after community and charity requests?” Get a name and, ideally, a direct email. For larger firms, LinkedIn will often show a community, CSR or marketing manager, and your local Chamber of Commerce or business networking group is a shortcut to warm introductions.

When you are asking your own supporters, you already have the contact. The skill there is matching the right person to the right ask. The member who runs a vineyard is your wine lot; the one who sits on a hotel board is your weekend away. This is how to ask for donations for charity without ever sending a cold email at all.

What goes into a good charity donation request letter?

A good charity donation request letter is short, specific and easy to say yes to, and it covers six things in under a page. Nobody reads two sides of A4 from a stranger, so respect their time and make every line earn its place.

Use this as a structure, not a script. Write it in your own voice:

• Who you are and the cause, in one line. Name the charity and the single sentence that explains why it matters.
• The event. What it is, when it is, how many people will be there and what kind of guests they are. A business wants to know who will see their name.
• The specific ask. Name exactly what you would love them to donate. “A meal for two” or “an overnight stay” pulls far better than “anything you can spare”.
• Why them. A genuine, personal reason you chose this business. “We ate at yours for my wife’s birthday and it was the best meal we had all year” is worth more than any template.
• What they get back. Recognition from the stage, their logo on the night, a mention to your audience and members, and a photo they can use. Say it plainly.
• How to say yes. One clear next step, a deadline, and your direct phone number and email. Remove every reason to put it off.

This same structure works whether you are asking businesses for raffle prizes or chasing a headline auction lot. An auction prize donation request simply aims higher: for a raffle you want volume and variety, and my guide to running a charity raffle covers how many prizes you actually need. When you are asking individuals for money rather than goods, remind eligible UK taxpayers to add Gift Aid, which reclaims an extra 25p for every £1 at no cost to them.

When is the best time to send a donation request?

Send it early, at least eight to twelve weeks before the event, because the best prizes get committed to other charities long before yours. Popular businesses receive dozens of requests a year and their goodwill budget runs out, so the fundraiser who asks in good time wins.

Early asking does more than beat the queue. It gives you room for a polite follow-up, time to confirm what you have actually secured, and space to fill gaps before your printed programme goes to the designer. Leaving it to the final fortnight forces you to take whatever is left, which is rarely your strongest material.

Getting the big lots locked in weeks ahead also changes how you sell them. When you know your headline items early, you can build anticipation and even open the bidding before the doors open on the night.

How Kevin raised £10,000 before the event began

How do you follow up on a donation request?

Follow up once, politely, about a week to ten days after your first request, because a great many yeses arrive on the second contact rather than the first. People are busy and mean well; your gentle nudge is often the reminder they were waiting for, not a nuisance.

Keep the follow-up short and warm. Reference your first message, restate the specific ask in one line, and repeat the deadline. A quick phone call frequently works better than another email, because it is harder to ignore and lets you answer any hesitation on the spot.

If the answer is still no after one follow-up, thank them anyway and leave the door open for next year. Chasing a third and fourth time costs you goodwill and rarely changes the outcome. One good nudge is plenty.

Keep a simple record as you go: who you asked, what for, when they replied and what they gave. Next year that list is gold, because you already know who says yes, who to approach earlier, and who prefers a phone call to an email. Most fundraising teams rebuild this from scratch every year and lose half their best donors in the process.

Saying thank you and reporting back

This is where most fundraisers fall down, and it is the cheapest win in the whole process. Thank every donor properly, quickly, and then close the loop by telling them what their gift achieved.

Thank them the moment they say yes, name or show them at the event itself, and send a proper thank-you afterwards. The part almost nobody bothers with is reporting back: a short note with a photo and the total raised, so the donor sees exactly what their prize helped deliver. That single email is what turns a one-off donor into someone who says yes without hesitation next year, and it is the quiet engine behind every long list of returning supporters. Treat it as part of your wider fundraising ideas, not an afterthought once the event is over.

The mistakes that turn a charity donation request into a no

Most rejected requests are not rejected on merit, they are rejected on delivery. The same handful of avoidable mistakes turn a willing donor into a polite no, and every one of them is within your control.

• The mass mail-merge. A generic “Dear Sir/Madam” that could have gone to anyone gets treated like anyone: ignored. A specific, personal ask is the single biggest lever you have.
• Asking the wrong person. A request sent to a general inbox, or to someone with no authority to give, dies quietly. Find the named contact first.
• Being vague. “Anything you can offer” pushes the work onto the donor. Name the exact prize you would love and you make saying yes effortless.
• Asking too late. By the final fortnight the goodwill budgets are spent and you are left with the scraps.
• Offering nothing back. Businesses give more freely when they can see the recognition, the audience and the goodwill they receive in return.
• Never thanking or reporting. Skip this and you get one donation and never another. It is the most expensive corner to cut.

Avoid those six and your hit rate climbs sharply, without asking a single extra business.

Where to start

Pick your ten warmest contacts before you touch a single national donation form. Match a specific ask to each one, find the right named person, and send a short, personal request at least two months out. Then follow up once, thank properly, and report the result. That simple discipline out-performs a mail-merge to five hundred addresses every time.

If your event has a live auction or a raffle at its heart, the lots you secure now decide what you can raise on the night, and how you sell them decides the rest. If you would like to talk through which prizes will actually move in your room, and how to source them without handing commission to a third party, I offer a free initial consultation through my auctioneer services. Bring your event, and we will build the list together.