Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Mission Support Letter Metrics - 2008

The holidays will be over in a few weeks or so. You know what that means, don't you? Mission support letter mania. To help those of you involved in that, below are some updated mission support letter metrics, based on my personal support letters. [One of the google searches coming to my blog reminded me about this fun topic.]

Year:#letters-#response-%response-$needed-$raised-%raised
1992: - 28 - 09 - 32% - ????? - ? - ?
1993: - 19 - ?? - ??? - $ 1100 - ? - ?
2000: - 20 - 08 - 40% - $ 350 - $ 575 - 165%
2002: - 16 - 08 - 50% - $ 425 - $ 675 - 158%
2004: - 23 - 09 - 40% - $ 300 - $ 630 - 210%
2005: - 34 - 18 - 52% - $ 2000 - $ 1580 - 80%
2006: - 50 - 18 - 36% - $ 2400 - $ 2475 - 103%
2007: - 70 - 30 - 42% - $ 7100 - $ 6199 - 87%
2008: - 70 - 30 - 42% - $10000 - $ 7920 - 79%

[Note that 1992 and 1993 are missing some data and 2007/2008 support goals were for a family of 4.]

A few other interesting points:
+ We've had a few supporters contribute via getting the news in a medium different than a physical support letter [and contribute electronically] - it's not a lot but still. In other words, you should spend some time making connections digitally. But if you are reading this blog, this hopefully isn't news to you.
+ Best case seems to be around 50% response.
+ Support is never a function of how many people are moved by your letter. It's always a function of how many people are moved by your life.

I may have some more info on this topic later on - I've got five years of data that might be fun to dig into.

Related: Historical Mission Support Letters [2008, 2007, 2006, 2005]

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