This Christmas I wrote a letter so effective it convinced my entire neighbourhood to donate over 500 meals to the local foodbank; that’s more than 3 meals worth of food donated per letter.
My letter was effective because:
- I made it personal – I sent all 168 of my neighbours a unique hand-written letter.
- I made it easy – I brought the donation point right to the front of their road.
- I made it clear – I told them exactly what food to donate.
- This is the big one, I paid them!
I gave each of them a 2p coin to grab their attention and to encourage the letter’s call to action to donate food.
Writing all 168 letters took me 8 hours, but for each letter I wrote, someone donated an average of 1.3 kilograms of food! That’s:
- 164 tins of fish
- 68 tins of rice pudding
- 66 tins of fruit & veg
- 38 tins of soup
- 48 litres of long-life Juice
- 20 litres of long-life Milk
- 32 packets of instant mash
- 28 packets of rice & pasta
- 6 kilograms of oats
- 3 huge bags of chocolates, sweets, kitchen staples & toiletries
Total 227 kg @ 440g per meal = 515 meals
