This is the 189th Fundraising Writing Newsletter. If you find value here, please tell a fundraising friend. (Your fundraising friend can ​subscribe here for free.)​

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Wednesday, February 11, 2026

Hi Reader,

About 2 weeks ago, Brett and I co-produced a webinar on donor newsletters with Tom Ahern and guest expert Denisa Casement.

I love Tom's training, always. I'm spoiled. I get backstage access and everything.

But my favorite part is the all-you-can-eat Q&A session after the training ends. I love it because it's a wild card.

Who knows what people will ask?!

Who knows what I'll learn?!

Lots. Never fails.

Maybe you too, in these . . .

3 great fundraising questions, 3 great fundraising answers . . .

. . . for your donor newsletters.

Without further ado, here you go (edited for length):

On using “Wish Lists” to boost response

Audience Question: What about a newsletter and an ask letter in the same envelope?

Answer from Denisa: With newsletters, we do what we call a wish list… Holy smoke. That skyrockets response rates. And here’s why: because it is a mental hook to hang your gift on. You’re not just sending your gift off to… [a charity] but they’re like, “I’m buying this for someone. I’m buying someone a meal.”

…We explained at our homeless center that we needed a commercial washer and dryer… That was like, boom, boom, boom. Our phone started ringing the moment that hit. People wanted to pay for that washer and dryer… I encourage you to put those kind of asks in, but link them directly to either the heart of the mission or a story you’re telling.

On the hidden cost of “Digital Only”

Audience Question: Is there any indication whether print newsletters or digital newsletters are more effective?

Answer from Denisa: Digital newsletters just simply don’t get the job done… The idea that you’re saving a lot of money by going to digital — what you’re doing is you’re shooting your retention rate in the foot.

And all these people that are talking about a 20% retention rate in the US — yeah, they’ve gone to heavily digital because they’re saving all their money. Whereas we quite normally, with a good, robust direct mail newsletter… we see a retention rate of existing donors of over 60%."

On “Upcycling” print content for email

Audience Question: For an e-newsletter, would you include multiple stories or break it down to one story per email?

Answer from Denisa: Yeah, please break it down to one story per email, because people are going to read it. And you can put the link to the whole digital newsletter on your website if they want to read more… One good story and one good photo in your email, and then if they want to click and read the whole newsletter, they can click through and read it.

…This is the way we always encourage people to use our newsletters — take the pieces and create a new email with it… It’s a great way to use content. We encourage all of our clients to upcycle our content in every direction — social media posts, emails, any way you can use it… You’ve done the work — make it stretch.

Randomly yours

For your brain, heart, and funny bone...

• Fundraisingly Informative — 🎭 What if your story doesn't fit "best practice"? by Lisa Sargent (an eye-opening blog post about how most fundraising stories are imperfect, so you shouldn't think of them as only either resolved or unresolved ... and what this means for your fundraising writing)​
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• Instantly Helpful — Havelock (a free tool that analyzes the extent to which a piece of text has an oral quality that's warm and compelling for readers and audiences)
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• Professionally Paranoid — Substitute Teacher by Key & Peele (a classic must-see 3-minute comedy sketch about a militaristic substitute teacher who is very upset at the students whom he accuses of making up fake name pronunciations during roll call)

Until next time: May you always ask great questions and always find great answers!

Grateful,

Brett Cooper & Julie Cooper
Fundraising Copywriters​
​FundraisingWriting.com​
​Fundraising Copywriting & Design​​
​100% human, thank you very much.