The direct mail, door drops and household deliveries showcase
Congratulations! You’ve just found the world’s best and biggest collection of fundraising direct mail, right here on sofii.org. There are more than 160 detailed case histories and articles here for you to learn from, crib from, adapt or copy. And lots more besides. Enjoy!
Click here for the full contents and index for SOFII’s direct mail showcase.
The summary report of the Commission on the Donor Experience into direct mail fundraising can be found here.
Charter 88: the ‘buy-out’ letter

by SOFII
Is candour just too dangerous a commodity for charities?. This simple mailing achieved Charter 88's best ever response in its early days.
Read moreSeeing Eyes for Blind People: sponsor a puppy who’ll grow into a seeing eye dog

by SOFII
This classic direct mail appeal uses a simple questionnaire as an involvement device. Also of note is the way that the proposition has been cleverly tailored to appeal to its Australian audience.
Read moreHEKS charity shop Switzerland: virtual but not traditional gifts

by SOFII
This first exhibit to come to SOFII from a Swiss fundraising organisation could hardly be better. This campaign was created to give donors an option to buy a virtual Christmas gift, the money raised from which benefits disadvantaged people overseas and in Switzerland.
Read moreGreat Ormond Street Hospital: Christmas mailing, from 1941

by Aline Reed
What an achievement for Great Ormond Street Hospital’s fundraisers during the Second World War, someone kept their mailing for 70 years.
Read moreHow to really understand fundraising’s reigning big idea, direct mail

by Mal Warwick
The foreword to this short and readable book summarises its value well, ‘For reluctant writers who need warm-up exercises and structured lessons…and for seasoned grant writers who get caught up in the jargon of our fields’…
Review by Jan Chisholm.
Read moreWood Green Animal Shelters: urgent £3 food appeal

by SOFII
Wood Green, The Animals Charity changed their fundraising strategy and are now achieving better ROIs on their cold recruitment campaigns than ever before.
Read moreSt Dunstan’s: help blind heroes interactive acquisition campaign.

by SOFII
By combining a commanding and touching story with an interactive grit 'reaction test', they have managed to design a campaign that will both move and interest people.
Read moreOntario Nature: ‘Ruby the hummingbird’ mailing

by SOFII
This unusual example of direct mail tells a complex, moving story in an imaginative and very engaging way.
Read moreJewish Care: the Post-it note campaign

by SOFII
The ideas that look most obvious and the execution that looks so easy and straightforward of course rarely are. There’s no such thing as simple creativity. But here is a great idea executed with flair so as to be instantly clear and appealing.
Read moreHarvard University: how Harvard got its name. Major gift fundraising in the seventeenth century.

by SOFII
The examples in this exhibit are almost 400 years old, yet it would seem that we are still making the same mistakes today when it comes to major gift fundraising.
Read moreCHATS: the Norooz letter, in Farsi

by SOFII
It’s an ancient truism of fundraising that if you want to communicate with donors you must speak to them in their language, not yours. Here’s a small example that paid off in practice.
Read moreHelp the Aged: ‘you have this gift’ direct mail pack

by SOFII
Both the text on the envelope and the incentive in this classic direct mail pack from the 1980s have been copied frequently.
Read more