In a direct mail fundraising letter, the signature is typically the first or second thing a reader looks at.
That signature is important. And that's why smart fundraisers will not use illegible signatures. Let's take a quick cruise through my in-box:
This one is from APDA (American Parkinson Disease Association). With all due respect to Mr. Gattullo, who I'm sure is a fine person and an able president, Where do you get off signing your name like a celebrity? Who do you think you are -- Alex Rodriguez? Is this thing a baseball for a slobbering sycophant -- or is it a letter to the good people who support your mission and pay your salary? (To be fair to Mr. Gattullo, APDA's Form 990 from 2003 reports that he was not paid a salary by the organization.)
(From Plan USA.) Signatures like these say, "I'm an Important Person. I'm Too Busy to sign my name so you can read it." That creates distance between the signer and the donor -- and distance is the last thing you want. Remember, when you approach a donor, you are in a position of supplication. The donor is the Important Person in the transaction, not the letter signer.
Now let's be frank: most of us have illegible signatures. We don't like to take the extra three seconds it takes to make it legible, and there's absolutely no penalty for doing it the way we do. The signatures above are no doubt Mr. Gattullo's and Mr. Worthington's real signatures. That's not the point. The point is what you communicate with the signature you use. And these are not signatures that honor and respect donors.
(He's signing here for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.) Here's a man who knows how to sign his name. It's no surprise, considering his job depends on getting large numbers of people to like him and vote for him. So even though he's a bona fide celebrity, an actual Important Person, he takes the time to make his name legible.
(From the Sacred Heart League.) This signature is not only legible, but it goes even one step closer to the donor by signing his first name only -- the way a friend would.
Do you want to treat your donors like the VIPs they are? Get your signers to give you legible, personable versions of their signatures.
I'm sorry, my trackback gives you funny signs ... my fundraising blog is in German. But as your article incited me to talk about readable signatures, I didn't want to do so without a trackback. kind regards
Posted by: Sibylle Grosjean | 21 January 2006 at 05:50